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“You don’t need to repay me,” he says, then continues down the street.
I huff, staring after him, before looking back down at the snow globe. I guess that’s that. I’ll give it to Ammi, and she can figure out who to give it to. I shove it back into the bag with a little more force than necessary. Honestly, you try to do something nice for someone else, and you get wrecked for it.
We explore the town until sundown, which is when we decide to stop for dinner. Afterward, Sarfaraz wants to go back to Interlaken, but I manage to convince him to get some ice cream and take a nice walk. There’s one place we didn’t make it to during the day I want to see.
We end up at the lake area where Ri Jeong-hyeok played the song he wrote for his brother on the piano. Excitement buzzes in my toes, and I thrust my phone and ice-cream cone at Sarfaraz. “You’ve got to take a picture of me here.”
I’m sure he’s tired of being my personal photographer at this point, but he grits his teeth and gestures for me to go over to the port. I race over, and after I’ve posed for a few photos and I’m positive I like them, we sit down on the bench and enjoy our treats.
I lick my cone in silence as I flip through the pictures from the day, but my attention is quickly called by the small crowd forming in front of us. I get up from my seat and wander over, trying to get a better look.
I manage to get close enough to see a couple standing on the port area. A dark-haired woman is down on one knee, while the woman who I presume to be her girlfriend stands above her, her fingers pressed against her mouth. The woman proposing must be saying something incredibly sweet that I can’t hear, because her girlfriend tears up. The woman on one knee holds the ring box up, and her girlfriend nods. The crowd bursts into applause as the dark-haired woman slides the ring onto her now-fiancée’s finger and they share a celebratory kiss.
I clap along with everyone else. “Oh, that’s so romantic,” I breathe.
“Only if you’re naive.”
I startle, my head whipping to see Sarfaraz standing next to me. I hadn’t even noticed him get up from the bench. He must’ve finished his ice cream, because both his hands are buried in his pockets.
I scoff. “Excuse me?”
The crowd around us begins to disperse, but we continue to stand there as someone goes up to the couple and offers to take pictures for them. “You’re kidding yourself if you think they’re going to spend their whole lives together,” he says.
“What is your problem?” I huff. “What do you have against love?”
“I don’t have anything against love,” he retorts. “It’s marriage that leaves something to be desired.”
“Oh, of course you fit the cliché,” I grumble. I cross my arms over my chest. “Family lawyer who doesn’t believe in marriage. Very typical.”
His expression hardens. “Listen, in my line of work, you learn quickly the first rule of life is you can only ever count on yourself.”
My jaw drops. “That’s a terrible way to think,” I blurt, even though his “rules of life” seem uncomfortably similar to my own laws. “We need to rely on other people in our lives. Humans are social creatures. We need companionship, otherwise we’re going to be pretty sad for our whole existence.” I raise a brow at him. “What, do you think love is stupid, too?”
Sarfaraz stares at me. “You think so, too. Didn’t you say that not everybody has a soulmate?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in love,” I correct with an annoyed sneer. “I’ve been going after it my whole life despite feeling like God is telling me it’s never gonna happen for me. You know why?” I suck in a deep breath. “Because life by yourself is miserable.”
To my surprise and annoyance, Sarfaraz doesn’t say anything. He just stares ahead. I give him a once-over, and his bare ring finger gets my attention. I grin triumphantly and cross my arms over my chest. “Let’s be real. The only reason you’re so hard on marriage is because you’ve never tried it.”
Sarfaraz whips his head to face me, and I swear I get whiplash from the force. Barely contained fury darkens his eyes as he narrows them at me. “Actually, I have, and it ended with her in another man’s arms,” he scowls. “If soulmates exist, I wasn’t hers. If divorce stats are true, then fifty percent of the time, people don’t marry their soulmates—and you won’t, either.” His brows stitch together. “Maybe when you’re getting your divorce, you can tell me how great marriage is.”
My jaw drops. Humiliation dries my mouth. Sarfaraz’s back stiffens, and even in the nearing darkness, I can see his jawline harden as he grits his teeth. Based on the regret on his face, he hadn’t meant to blurt that very personal and sensitive information.
I open my mouth to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a strangled noise of surprise. All I can do is stand there stupidly, my mouth opening and closing like a wooden puppet on strings.
After a full thirty seconds of this, Sarfaraz checks his watch. “We’re going to miss our train.” Without another word, he starts walking.
Reluctantly, I follow him. The silence is awkward and tense and so thick it wraps its fingers around my throat. I want to say something, but every time I glance at Sarfaraz I’m reminded of the look he had on his face during our spat, and I lose my confidence. No, it’s probably better if I keep my mouth shut. Besides, after tomorrow, I’m never gonna see this guy again. We’ll get back on that plane to Islamabad and go our separate ways. This surreal adventure will be a blip in the story I tell people after I get married. “Ha ha, it’s a funny story, I spent a few days in Switzerland with a total stranger because our flight had an emergency landing. No, I don’t know what he’s up to now.” Though, I’m not sure how well this scenario would go over with the people in my community.
Sarfaraz sleeps the whole way back. Or he pretends to sleep. Either way, he spends the whole time with his arms crossed over his chest and scootched as far away from me as possible. I huddle close to the window. I rest my head against the windowpane and try to convince myself what he said about marriage not working out isn’t true.
I also try to ignore the stuff he said about his own marriage. Like his wife cheating? That sucks. Still...it makes sense why he’s so anti-marriage. But just because the institution failed him, doesn’t mean it’s going to fail everybody. Plus, he’s a family lawyer. He sees bad stuff day in and day out. Of course he doesn’t believe in marriage as an institution.
Still... I can’t help but think back to how sad he looked when he blurted out that his wife slept with someone else.
We return to the hotel. The silence between us thickens in the close quarters of our room. As I step out of the bathroom, my shoulder bumps into his, and I automatically look over to him. Something resembling pain creases his face, but he quickly schools his features when he sees me staring. The bathroom door shuts behind me, hitting my back on the way.
I go over to the bed, where I dumped the souvenirs I carried around all day. I stuff them into my bag, but I pause when I touch the snow globe, upside down in my bag. Slowly, I pull it out, and the tiny white flakes float around in the dome when I hold it upright. I stare at the man and woman on the bottom. I assume they’re supposed to be a couple. But are they happy? Is she cheating on him with someone else? Are those handcrafted smiles on their faces fake? Is the glow in the man’s painted-on dark brown eyes a show to hide his pain?
