The sting of it—God, it threaded through me with excruciating precision. It wasn’t rejection, not fully, but it wasn’t anything like ayeseither. It was that fragile, perilous in-between—a pause held too long, an exhale that never dropped—where hope bruised itself against reality in stillness. And somehow that tiny turn of his head hurt more deeply, more elegantly, than an outrightnoever could.
“What are you doing?” he asked, barely more than a vibration against my mouth.
I let the silence confess what I couldn’t—every buried want, every sleepless thought. My gaze held his, unmistakable in its longing.
He pulled off the glasses, and for a moment, he didn’t look like the man I knew. He looked wrecked, torn between desire and restraint.
“We can’t, Lillian,” he murmured, sounding like he was trying—and failing—to convince himself.
My throat tightened. “Why?”
“I’ll just end up hurting you.”
“How would you hurt me?”
He didn’t answer. His eyes dropped to my lips, lingered there too long, then climbed back up to meet mine. He wasn’t moving away now. He wasn’t doing anything at all, just standing there, caught between logic and gravity, the hush pulsing with unbearable tension.
“Tell me that you don’t feel anything for me, Khalifa,” I whispered. “Tell me I’m imagining this, that it’s all in my head, that whatever this is between us is nothing.”
His hand still rested on my cheek like a tether I couldn’t resist. “I don’t feel anything for you,” he said, his voice faltering on the worddon’t, splintering the lie before it even landed.
Tears pricked behind my eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe it, Lillian.”
The apartment felt measured in heartbeats now—each one louder, more painful. His eyes deepened, begging me to stop asking questions he couldn’t bear to answer.
Inches apart, the space thick with unspoken admissions, I breathed, almost to myself, “You said I was your light. You wouldn’t just say that...”
He flinched, then forced a small, lifeless smile. “I was performing. That’s what we’ve been doing from the start, isn’t it?You needed a husband for the night, so I became one. Don’t turn it into something it’s not.”
The air pounded with something cruel and final. The loft felt too still, too bright, like the world itself tilted out of orbit. His words sat heavy in my chest, crushing against my ribs until it hurt to breathe. I searched his face for something—remorse, hesitation, love,anything—but all I found was control, and that placid, measured calm he wore whenever he didn’t want me to see him bleed.
It shattered something inside me, watching him hold himself so carefully apart from me, as if I were a wound he couldn’t afford to touch. Like I was both salvation and sin.
My throat burned, my voice trembling when I finally forced it out. “Then divorce me, Khalifa.”
Chapter Thirty-One
HIS FACE EMPTIED OFeverything—emotion, reason, breath. Then, quietly, as if the word itself hurt to hear, he said, “What?”
I swallowed, the ache rising like a tide. “Div—”
“No. Don’t say it again.” He ran a hand through his hair, eyes wide, panicked in a way I’d never seen before. “I’m not...I’m not divorcing you, Lillian.”
“Why? Your mom died, Khalifa. There’s no reason to keep doing this.”
He looked at me then—reallylooked at me—and I almost wished he hadn’t. His gaze was fractured, flickering between fear and anger and something softer he wouldn’t let reach the surface.
“What about you?” he asked. “You really want to go back to that house with your mom? I thought you wanted freedom.”
I laughed—a hollow sound that didn’t belong to me. “You think this is freedom?” I gestured to the loft around us, to the distance that had grown roots between our bodies. “You think living here is any different than living with my family? I grew up in a home where I cared more about the people around me than they ever cared for me. And look at me now—doing the exact same thing, just with different furniture.”
His jaw tightened. “It’s not like that. I care—”
“Stop.” My voice broke on the word. “Juststop.” I took a step back. “You’re seriously not going to let me leave?”
He didn’t answer. His silence said everything.
