“—you tell me everything is great, that your mom iswaiting for you at home, and I knew you were lying—I knew it, I could just tell, it was written all over your face—but I told myself to let it go, told myself not to pry—”
“Ali.Please.”
“And then,” he said, breathing hard, dragging both hands down his face. “And then, God, and then—last night. Fucking last night, Shadi.”
“Ali—”
“Stop saying my name like that. Don’t—”
“Ali—”
“You’re killing me,” he said, his voice breaking. “What is happening? What are you doing to me? I used to have a life, I swear, three days ago I had a good life, Shadi, I’d moved on, I’d finally moved on after you tore my heart out of my fucking chest and now, now I’m— I don’t know what I am.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” he said desperately. “Stop saying you’re sorry. Stop standing there looking at me like that. I can’t take it, okay? I can’t—”
“Ali, just let me say something— I just want t—”
The words died in my throat.
He’d walked away without warning, sat down heavily on Zahra’s bed. “Please,” he said, gesturing at me. “By all means, say something. For the love of God, say something.”
I stared at him then, lost my nerve. Words jammed in my chest, inside my mouth. My excuses vanished, the day’s events momentarily forgotten. I studied the tension in his shoulders;caught the tremble in his fingers before he curled them into fists.
I looked into his dark eyes and thought only one thing.
“I’m sorry.”
“Jesus.” He dropped his head in his hands. “Why do you keep apologizing?”
“Because,” I said. “Because I never did.”
Ali’s head lifted slowly, his spine straightened slowly. He unfurled before my eyes, turning toward me not unlike a bloom in search of the sun.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
He went deathly still.
He stared at me now with a strange terror, stared at me like I might be about to kill him. “What are you talking about?”
“Us,” I said. “You.” I shook my head, felt close to tears. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I need you to know I thought I was doing the right thing. But I was sorry the moment I said it. I’ve been sorry every day since.”
Ali got to his feet.
He became larger than life then, tall and stunning and real and he walked right up to me, was now standing right in front of me and I stepped back, felt my shoulders nudge open Zahra’s bathroom door.
Ali was breathing hard. “What does that mean?”
I looked up at him, felt my world collapse.
We were now standing in Zahra’s bathroom—we werestanding in Zahra’s bathroom—and there wasn’t enough space between our bodies to lift a finger. My head was filling with steam, my thoughts evaporating.
“Ali, I don’t— You’re too close. I can’t talk to you when you’re this close to me. I can’t even breathe when y—”
I gasped when he leaned in, pressed his forehead to mine. His hands were at my waist now, reeling me in, and I sank against his body with a sound, a kind of surrender.
He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity.
