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I dry myself off and put on a new kurta and pajamas, scooping up my dirty clothes for the laundry. I’m about to head down the hall to Ammi’s room when I happen to look out the window. My face contorts when I recognize a figure walking toward the exit, and my stomach drops when I recognize the figure to be Sarfaraz, pulling his luggage behind him. An Uber sits idling in front of the gate.
Dread overwhelms my senses, filling my lungs and stealing my breath. He can’t leave. Not without fixing things between us. Not without hearing what I have to say.
Without thinking, I drop the bundle of clothes and dash down the hall. I nearly trip twice on the stairs, but I remain steady on my feet until I hit the last step. I slip on the floor because my feet are still damp, but I don’t let it hinder me as I make it to the front door.
I push the gate open and step through. He’s about to round the corner when I call, “Sarfaraz!”
The sound of his name is enough to make him stop and look over his shoulder, confusion on his face. His eyes widen when he recognizes me, and he stops in his tracks. Clutched in his hand is the new phone that one of my uncles got for him because his is currently with a bunch of goons. “Maya?”
I huff, struggling to catch my breath. I open my mouth, but I only manage a faint wheeze. My head spins, and I hold up one finger while dropping my head between my knees.
The sound of his suitcase’s wheels screeching against the pavement is the only indication that he’s walking back over to me. Once his feet appear under my gaze, I suck in one final breath and push myself back up. Sarfaraz looks from my still-wet hair to my ragged shalwar kameez before stopping at my feet. “You’re not wearing shoes.”
“Huh?” I blurt. I look down to see that I am, in fact, barefoot. “Oh.” I lift my face back up to him. “I didn’t think to put any on. I was so focused on getting to you.” I eye his suitcase, and the dread from before creeps its way back to my chest. “What are you doing?” I look over to where a car waits idly. “You’re...you’re not leaving, are you?”
Sarfaraz sighs deeply, and it sounds like it came from the very depths of an old soul. “I’m sorry, Maya.”
He reaches for the handle of his suitcase, but I intercept him at the last second, my fingers wrapping around his. I grab the cuff of his jacket. “But you can’t leave!” I protest.
Sarfaraz pulls himself out of my grip, and my fingers instantly miss his touch. “I... I can’t.”
“You can’t what?”
He looks away from me. “I can’t stay.”
Anger bubbles to the surface. I won’t make this easy for him. I grab his arm and force him to look at me. “Why not?”
Sarfaraz growls and wrenches himself out of my grasp again. “I can’t stay and watch.”
I pause for a moment, staring at him. And then it dawns on me what he’s really trying to say.
He can’t stay and watch me get married.
For some reason, fury blazes my belly instead of sympathy. “So, you’re going to leave?” I demand. “You’re going to leave your brother on the most important day of his life because you can’t deal...” I clamp my mouth shut when his jaw clenches. Even though I feel things for him, and I’m now sure he feels them for me, neither one of us has said anything out loud. It’d be too cruel—speaking words that are supposed to spark hope in your heart when we both know all they can do for us is extinguish that flicker. “If you loved him, you wouldn’t abandon him.”
I guess Sarfaraz is choosing violence, too, because he steps closer to me, tossing a finger in my face. “Don’t talk to me about my brother. I love him. So much, in fact, that I bore the brunt of our father’s expectations so that he could pursue what he wanted. So much that I’m willing to do whatever makes him happy, including putting my own pride aside and coming to be at his wedding, giving our family a chance to become whole again. So much that I—” He cuts himself off, turning his face away.
So much that he’s accepting the pain of letting Imtiaz marry me. Still, I frown at his finger before pushing it away from me. “I can talk to you about your brother, and I will, because it seems like you don’t know anything about him anymore!” I stomp my foot. “You didn’t even know the name of his fiancée!”
“You’re one to talk.”
My mouth thins. “What?”
A laugh of disbelief splutters out of his mouth. “You don’t know anything about him. And you’re supposed to be his fiancée. You’ve been engaged for three years yet you still know nothing about him. Do you even like him?”
My blood boils. “Don’t you dare talk about my feelings for Imtiaz! You don’t know anything about them.”
“I know that if you had the choice, you wouldn’t be going through with this wedding,” Sarfaraz tosses back. “You said it yourself, Maya. You only agreed to it because you wanted to get out of your house.”
His words burn shame into my skin. “At least I’m going through with it. I’m keeping the promise I made. I’m not abandoning him, unlike you.”
“And unlike you, at least I love him,” he snaps. “But you don’t even know if you ever will.”
“That’s because of my curse!” I blink my tears away. “I can’t love anyone because I never get the chance to!”
“God, enough with the fucking curse!” Sarfaraz fumes, and I flinch at his rising tone. He notices my body tensing, and he leans away from me. He also drops his tone, but it’s still icy as he continues, “You’re not cursed, Maya. You’re just scared that if you love someone, they’re going to leave you. You avoid love because that way, if they do leave, it won’t hurt.”
His words pour over me like ice water, shocking my senses, making me shiver, blocking out any rational thought other than, Oh, God, this hurts. The tears that I’ve been holding back spill. “That’s not true,” I say, my words barely a whisper.
