‘Poppy, I’m not insecure, and I certainly didn’t “tear you down” by telling Sadia about your mum.’
‘As if.’ I roll my eyes. ‘The only reason you did it was to make me look bad in front of her which, for your information, didn’t work. She’s adding Ma to her listandI didn’t get fired.’
‘That’s fantastic!’ he says. My head aches with how confusing he’s being.
‘Not that you would get fired. Wanting your mum on the list isn’t exactly a fireable offence. If everyone who had another motive other than serving the company was fired, then we’d all be out of a job.’
He’s right and I know it, and suddenly I feel guilty about allthe accusations I’ve been throwing his way. When I really think about it, there’s no way Salman would have talked to Sadia about Ma because he wanted to sabotage me. Whether he wants to admit it or not, I know he still has feelings for me. The fact that he didn’t want to let go of me yesterday was all the proof I needed. I know it’s not all in my head.
Still, I can’t get over the way he betrayed my trust. How he, once again, pulled the rug from underneath my feet. At the end of the day, I got exactly what I wanted – Ma on Sadia’s list – but he still blindsided me.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I know I shouldn’t have gone behind your back, but I only did it because I care about you, Pop. You shouldn’t have to give up a summer working with your best friends because you feel guilty for leaving your mum next year.’
My heart sinks. I’m not sure if what I’m hearing is real or a figment of my imagination.
‘I even checked with Shirin and Lipi,’ he continues, ‘and there’s an opening going at SWX for the next couple of weeks if you’re still interested. One of the other interns dropped out.’
Pressure builds at the nape of my neck, signalling an incoming headache. I rub at it, digging my fingers in for temporary relief but finding none. Why would he do this for me?
‘Why are you doing all this when you were the one who broke up with me? You’re doing things only a boyfriend would, but you’re the one who pushed me away.’
‘Because if I hadn’t broken up with you, you would have done it sooner or later.’
My mouth opens and closes. ‘Have you lost your mind? Why would Idothat?’
‘For weeks, you’d been off with me. Barely responding to my texts or engaging with anything I said to you. When you kissed me, it felt like a chore for you.’ He gazes out at the garden, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands interlocked as if he’spraying. ‘And I knew that the stress of our parents’ argument was weighing on your mind, I wasn’t an idiot. I thought that if I wasn’t in the picture, then at least you wouldn’t have to be torn about who you were more loyal to, me or your mum. And then there was the whole Edinburgh thing.’
‘The Edinburgh thing?’
He inhales deeply and releases a slow breath, like it pains him to say the words. ‘On more than one occasion, you mentioned how things would be better next year, once we were off at uni and away from all the drama, but I already knew that uni wasn’t for me. I just didn’t know how to tell you that the future we’d previously envisioned probably wasn’t going to happen.’
Suddenly, it feels like everything around us is still. The wind. My body. My heart.
‘And I guess, as selfish as it sounds, I didn’t want to be left behind. Edinburgh was your dream, I knew what it meant to you, and I knew it was going to hurt watching you leave the country, not knowing when you’d be back, being left behind, so I just .?.?. I gave up. I didn’t want to face the worst heartbreak of my life, so I pulled the plug on us before you could.’
When the stillness breaks, my heart is pounding. To hear the truth, the real truth, about the reason for our break-up pains me because he is wrong.Sowrong.
‘So I did it for you, Pop,’ he says, his voice breaking. ‘I did it so you could be happy.’
‘Iwashappy.Withyou,’ I say, tears sliding down my cheeks. ‘Salman, you absolute idiot, I washead over heelsin love with you. Out of mymindin love with you. All I wanted was to bewithyou, and even if we were going to end up in two different places, we would have made it work.Iwould have made it work. Just because I wouldn’t see you every day, that doesn’t mean I’d forget about you. About us.’
I feel my lungs constrict. All this time I’ve been mad at himfor something he did as a reaction to how I was acting. If I hadn’t been so down about our parents, looking at Edinburgh like a magical escape for us, we might still be together.
Salman scoots closer to me on the bench, rotating his body to face me, and I do the same. ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I realised pretty quickly that I’d messed up. I’ve spent the last six months regretting my choice. I was a coward for walking away when what I should have done was stay.’
They’re the words I’ve been hoping to hear all this time.
He clears his throat before continuing. ‘Then Sadia came over to ours for dinner one night in May and she said a girl named Poppy was going to join her agency for the summer. It was like the universe was giving me a second chance. It was my opportunity to make things right.’
I feel light-headed as I process what he’s saying. ‘YouknewI was going to be at Eternally Yours?’
‘I did.’ He rubs his bottom lip with his thumb, his gaze never leaving mine. ‘So I begged for a job there too, even though my parents were pissed off that I wouldn’t be able to work at Petal Poush like I usually do. Although I think they were more annoyed at Sadia for agreeing to it, giving me enough experience and material for my freelance portfolio, derailing their change-Salman’s-mind-about-going-to-uni campaign.’ He laughs and shakes his head. ‘When I got there, I tried to show you that I still care. I told myself I wouldn’t pretend that I wasn’t in love with you any more. If I was going to lose you again, it wasn’t going to be because I was a coward. It was time for me to step up and lay all my cards on the table.’
My cheeks feel hot, his unwavering gaze causing me to melt.
‘So, every morning, I got up and showed up. I couldn’t wait to see you, to talk to you again. To not have to find out how you were through our friends, but to be able to ask you myself.’ His eyes become glassy as he speaks and his voice breaks. ‘Beingnear you again, Pop .?.?. it’s been everything to me.’
‘It has?’ I ask softly.
