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God, had she ever read a situation so badly?
Whatever had happened on that trip had changed him—inside and out. Now she wished she’d asked him about it instead of throwing herself at him, that she’d kept a safe space for him like he’d done for her. Like he was doing for her again now.
But as much as she tried, she couldn’t be mad at herself for her grand avowal of love back then. She’d sensed something was wrong with him and with her usual all-guns-blazing attitude had desperately wanted to fix it for him. She’d thought herself enough to fix him.
But it didn’t really have anything to do with whether she’d been enough or not. Something else had happened to him on that trip. Now she realized it, and like that saying, the truth did set her free.
It was life affirming to have someone who loved you by your side when you went through hard times. But in the end, one had to save oneself. One had to decide to live and love despite the pain and pitfalls life threw at you.
“Who did you lose on that trip when you came back with all these scars?” she asked, twisting her fingers so that they cast shadows on his white shirt when what she wanted to do was look into his eyes and see the answer for herself.
The atmosphere dropped to frost instantly even though he was warm around her.
She closed her eyes, cursing her impulsivity. Just because he’d found her good enough for an affair didn’t mean they were going to exchange every painful secret. But to her surprise, he answered.
“A photographer I’d been training for a while. Fatima was—” a small smile painted his mouth “—young, and brash and defiant and wanted to change the world for the better. I brought her with me on an assignment I shouldn’t have. She died in my arms.”
“You loved her,” Yana said, stating the fact rather than asking him, the final puzzle pieces that made up Nasir suddenly falling into place.
“I did. And I should’ve done a better job of protecting her. I was more experienced than her. I should’ve done a better risk analysis—”
“Weren’t you yourself hurt by the blast?”
“Yes, but—”
She laughed then and it was an empty, mocking sound that rivaled the storm’s fierceness. “How heavy your ego must be, Nasir. Don’t your head and your shoulders and your back hurt from the weight of it?”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, I understand it perfectly. I see it, finally. I see all of you, too,” she said, throwing his words back at him. “I see now why you shut me down with such brutal cruelty.”
Suddenly, his marriage to Jacqueline—which had had disaster written all over it from the beginning—his withdrawal from the world, from his first career, from his father, and even from her, made complete sense now. It was what Izaz had meant when he’d said his son was lost.
After that trip he’d seemed colder, harder, flatter even, with none of those soft edges that added such charm to his incisive brilliance, none of the quirks and awareness that had made him...larger than life. Her own naive stupidity had been but a cinder in the sacrificial pyre he’d already built for himself.
“You don’t understand how terrible it is to have someone you love die in your arms. How utterly powerless you feel. The memory itself would haunt you forever.”
His words were a death sentence to her poor heart’s tentative whispers. But she was damned if she let him believe he was right. That somehow, he had to live through this punishment, forever alone. “No, I haven’t lived through that exact scenario. But I know about loss and grief and...screaming at the universe for just one last chance. One do-over. I’d give anything to have one last minute with Thaata, to tell him that I was sorry, that I finally see what he’d been trying to do all along. That I loved him so much.”
Nasir took her stiff hand in his and clasped their fingers tight. But still, Yana wasn’t done. She was furious, actually, on behalf of herself and Jacqueline and the woman he’d lost. Not to mention Zara.
“I’m sure Fatima would have loved to know,” she said, crossing all lines, venturing once again into that forbidden zone, her reckless tongue bashing out truths he’d hate to hear, “that her death has been conveniently reduced to the reason you have turned away from living a full life. And you dare call me a coward?”
“It’s not cowardice if I want to leave emotions out of my decisions. Not that I succeeded with you, I admit.”
“Ha! Then why hate me for so long?”
“Because you were right. I lost the battle against myself over you long ago. Don’t you see how that must have driven Jacqueline crazy? My dislike for you was far more potent than anything I ever felt for her. It didn’t matter that I told myself to stay well clear of you. You were always there at the periphery of my life, teasing and taunting me. I wish I’d just admitted defeat sooner. You and I both know we were heading here, one way or the other, for years now, Yana.”
“Because you were so sure that I’d throw myself at you again?”
A pithy curse was his aggrieved response. “Because as much as I fought it, a few days ago, a few months ago, a few years ago, when you were Jacqueline’s maid of honor, even when you were my nineteen-year-old stepsister with the body of a goddess and the innocence of a locked-up princess, I was attracted to you. I wanted you all along. You have no idea how close I came to taking what you offered all those years ago. How I wanted to use you to bury my grief, to relieve the guilt I felt about Fatima.”
“And why would that have been so wrong? Why do you talk of it as if it fills you with horror to even think it? I was only nineteen, yes. But how do you measure adulthood? How dare you take away my agency? I’d been through loss and neglect and rebellion and wrong influences and bad parenting...so much already. You were a good thing in my life. Loving you was a light in a place of shadows and mistakes and I’ll never ever regret it.”
“Don’t,habibi.”
“I don’t want to play games or fantasies, Nasir. In this, I’ve never been able to dupe even myself.”
