It All Comes Back to You

by Rishi, Farah Naz

  I try to imagine an older Deen. Attending classes. Hanging with friends. Living a life I know nothing about. A hard knot coils in my belly.

  I chomp into my bread roll.

  “He’s still got plenty of time,” says Amira.

  Haris speaks up. “Amira, didn’t you decide to be a lawyer when you were, like, twelve? I think I remember Faisal saying that.” Amira laughs modestly.

  “What about you?” I ask Faisal. “Have you always wanted to do nonprofit . . . stuff?” I don’t actually know the details of what Faisal does, other than that he does nonprofit work with my sister with kids in juvenile detention. But I need to find out as much about this weird Hulk-Deen character as I can. I don’t care what Asher says; if the man who’s upending my entire life has a flaw, I’m going to find it.

  “Sort of,” he replies. “Yeah, in a way.”

  I wait for some kind of follow-up. But it never comes. Instead, he grasps a roll from the basket and begins intently buttering every inch with the focus of a painter.

  I press on. “So you majored in what, business?”

  “No, uh. Poli-sci.” He takes a bite of his bread. A period to the conversation.

  What is it with this guy? Look, I get that I’m not the most delightful or intriguing person on the planet, but I’ve never met someone so uninterested in basic politeness. Trying to talk with him feels like watching the slow, sizzling death of a slug sprinkled with salt. As much as I hate to admit it, Deen at least was savvy at keeping a conversation going. He always seemed engaged, kept eye contact. Like he was really hearing you, taking all of you in. At least before he completely ghosted me.

  I wonder if Deen told his brother about me. Assuming Deen connected the dots about Amira being my sister. Assuming Deen even remembers me.

  Whatever. I’m here for Amira, I remind myself.

  “You know, Kiran’s recently figured out what she wants to do,” says Amira cheerfully, sweeping away the stilted air. Bless her.

  Haris, at least, feigns interest. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Medicine,” I blurt out.

  “Annnnd UPenn’s got a couple South Asian dance troupes,” Amira presses. “You’re going to join one of them?”

  “Maybe.” I shift uncomfortably in my seat. Amira and Asher both keep saying I should continue dancing through college, but it seems like it would be a waste of time, especially since the only reason we can afford UPenn is because of the premed scholarship I got. I have to keep up my GPA or risk losing it.

  “UPenn starts in August, right?” Haris asks, opening a menu. “You excited?”

  I shrug. “Hasn’t really hit me yet. Plus, I’ll still be in Philly, so it won’t feel like much of a change.” Except now I’ll have to live on campus instead of with Amira.

  Haris raises a brow. “Not a fan of change?”

  My eyes drift to Amira, who’s having a moment of lovey-dovey eye contact with Faisal.

  “No. Can’t say I am.”

  A voice grabs our attention. “Phew. Made it.”

  I look up.

  And instantly regret it.

  Standing at the table is none other than Deen Malik, in the flesh.

  No. No, no, no.

  I swallow painfully, trying to stay calm, trying not to reveal the fact that my body’s tugging in every direction. There is a tangible stretch to time and space: the impossible has happened, and I am here, right here, in the center of it. Sitting in this restaurant booth, I am suddenly very aware of the largeness of the universe.

  Faisal stands. “You’re here!” It’s like his entire demeanor changes; Faisal stumbles over Haris’s lap and wraps his brother in a bear hug. Deen’s legs practically dangle off the ground as he limply pats Faisal’s back. “I thought you couldn’t come.”

  “Okay, put me down, big guy,” he grunts, until Faisal finally lets him go. “I may have had class, so I may have had to sneak out early.” Deen pats his hair down, smooths the olive-green T-shirt he’s wearing under his open vest.

  Then he smiles the same smile I’ve seen in my head a hundred thousand times, with the same lopsided dimple, the same tiny mole beneath his left eye, the same long lashes that make me jealous—I used to tell him that all the time. But he’s a little taller now, and stronger-looking, too, filled out in all the right places.

  He’s here. He’s actually here.

  Deen’s eyes catch mine. A flicker of recognition. Slowly, the corners of his mouth curl in a smile—like he knows something, like he’s in on a secret.

  I can’t believe this. He must be feeling the discomfort, too. He must be. He’s just better at hiding it.

  “Amira, Kiran,” says Faisal, his hand outstretched like he’s revealing a priceless new statue at a museum. “Meet my brother, Deen.”

  “Salaam,” he says politely. Oh God, his voice is deeper, too.

  Amira beams and gets up to introduce herself, but before she can even open her mouth, Deen’s got her in a hug, too. Apparently the Maliks are secretly a huggy people. “I feel like I already know you!” he says, charm dialed up to a full ten as Amira bursts into happy giggles.

  I think I’m going to be sick.

  Amira sits down next to me, her cheeks a glowy pink. Deen greets Haris with a hard handshake before taking a seat next to him.

  Which means I have nowhere to hide.

  “I thought Deen wasn’t coming,” I whisper between gritted teeth.

  Amira leans into me. “Is that a problem?” she whispers back.

  It’s a big fucking problem, I want to scream. God, I knew I’d have to see him eventually, thanks to this cruel and unusual punishment that the world has decided to bestow upon me. But why now? Why now, when I’d finally, finally gotten over him?

  “Kiran, right?” Deen says suddenly. He extends a hand toward me. “I don’t know if you remember me. It’s been a while.”

  I don’t know if you remember me? I almost burst out laughing: the evil, bitter kind of laugh where you throw your head back and cackle from the spires of your dark castle just before you destroy your enemy.

  One more thing that hasn’t changed. He’s as infuriating as ever—no, even more than I remember.

  I meet his eyes. “Now that you mention it,” I say, shoving a bread roll into his open hand, “I think I do.”

  “You know Deen?” Amira asks. “Since when?”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly. “From Sunday school.” I need damage control, stat.

  Maybe it’s a little hypocritical to want to keep Deen a secret from Amira. I don’t know. At first, I agreed to the pact because I didn’t want to burden Amira with another thing on top of her schoolwork and finally learning about Mom’s illness. But the longer I kept it from Amira, the more I didn’t want her to know. In the end, Deen was a mistake, a mistake she shouldn’t have to worry about, ever.

  I keep my voice level. “It was years ago, three years, maybe? Glad to see you gave up on growing facial hair.”

  “Glad to see your fashion sense hasn’t changed.” He’s smiling fondly, like he’s actually happy about it. I don’t like it.

  I go for the jugular. “But it’s such a shame I never saw Faisal. It was like he never even existed, until now. Why was that?”

  Faisal blinks like a dazed owl beside his brother, and Deen’s jaw twitches. But before he can respond, Haris interrupts:

  “Three years ago? Wait, wasn’t that when—”

  “When Faisal studied abroad,” Deen says quickly. “In Spain. That’s why he wasn’t around. He’s worldly like that. Can’t believe you forgot, Haris.”

  I narrow my eyes at him just as Amira voices the question on my tongue: “What? I didn’t know you studied abroad, Faisal!”

  Faisal suddenly spills his glass, and ice water glazes the table and dribbles off the sides.

  “Oh no!” Amira gets to work and immediately throws her napkin onto the water to soak it up. Deen and I add mine to the pile, while Haris does the noble job of rescuing the bread basket.

>   “Sorry, sorry, sorry. I c-completely zoned out,” Faisal stammers. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “It’s okay! A little excitement never hurt anyone,” says Amira with a wink. Faisal’s ears redden.

  “This is what happens when you daydream about your girl all day,” Deen adds, grinning.

  Faisal clumsily wipes away at his side of the table, but only manages to spread the water around. “Sorry.”

  Despite the diversion, the awkwardness between me and Deen remains almost unbearable. Amira and Haris, thankfully, act casual. Like they don’t notice anything amiss. We all manage to clear away the water, settle back down, get our water refills, and order our food.

  But I’m starting to think that I’m not the only one feeling uncomfortable. I sneak a glance at Faisal, whose mouth is pressed in a thin line, like he’s lost in thought. He’s back to being the Faisal before Deen arrived: quiet and withdrawn, the heaviness on his shoulders so palpable you can almost see it threatening to pull him to the ground.

  “You okay?” Amira asks.

  “Fine now.” Faisal smiles at her, but there’s something fake about it.

  “Good, because I have a million questions for you, Amira,” says Deen. “First of all, I gotta know: Law & Order is more or less a perfect representation of the criminal justice system, right?”

  Amira grins and cracks her knuckles. And just like that, the awkwardness evaporates. They talk and laugh comfortably. Like friends. Like family.

  Deen always was good at doing that.

  But I don’t laugh with them. I can’t shake off the feeling that what Amira said about waiting for my approval was just a farce. That really, in her heart, she’s already made her decision. That this stiff, blank-eyed man—who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here—is the one she’s imagining a possible future with. And even though I can feel in my bones that there’s something seriously suspicious about this whole situation—Faisal’s jumpiness, and the rumors surrounding him, how fast things are moving despite them hardly knowing each other—I’m powerless to do anything about it.

  The rest of dinner goes off without a hitch, mostly because Amira and Haris get deep into talking about work while Deen peppers in a question or two. I listen politely. Faisal zones out. Occasionally I catch him staring at me beneath thick, furrowed brows.

  I’m at the bottom of a tiramisu that Amira and I are sharing when her phone rings.

  “Oh, speaking of work.” She stands and gently squeezes Faisal’s shoulder. For just a moment, his mask slips and the glassiness of his eyes fades, and he looks warm. Adoring. But then she leaves and it’s just the four of us.

  Faisal pushes himself up from the table. “Excuse me,” he says gruffly, and stands. “Bathroom.” And without waiting for a response, he leaves.

  Haris chuckles. “Think I might use the bathroom, too. You two good to hold the fort?”

  I cringe inwardly so hard I think I almost become a human black hole. But Deen salutes, good-heartedly, and Haris leaves, too.

  Silence. I stare intently at the remnants of tiramisu on my plate like they’re the most fascinating things in the world.

  I count ten seconds. Fifteen seconds. Twenty seconds. Part of me thinks I should be grateful, in a way, for this chance. For almost a year, my whole world was Deen. I stayed up impossibly late just to talk to him on my phone. Closed my eyes and memorized the cadence, the vibrations of his voice on my ear. He said everything I needed when I needed to hear it most. He was there for me when Mom first got sick, when Amira was cramming for the LSAT and couldn’t be.

  And then, without warning, he closed himself off.

  I could get the answers I’ve been yearning for, right here and now. I could tell him everything I’ve bottled up inside me for so long. Why did he ghost me? Does he know that I lost all confidence in myself when he left? I was only fifteen, and he made me feel that there was something deeply wrong with me. He made me question myself. I could never forgive him for that.

  I look up from my plate and realize Deen’s been staring at me this whole time, his mouth curled at the corner.

  “So,” Deen begins, “looks like time’s been pretty kind to you.”

  “Are you really flirting with me right now?”

  “It’s just a fact. You look good.” He shrugs. “Although you’re still as high-strung as ever.”

  “Don’t act like you know me.”

  Deen leans forward, cradles his chin in his hands, and smiles. “I did, once.”

  “So, what, you think that makes us friends?”

  “Friends?” Deen snorts. “Men and women can’t be friends. The sex part always gets in the way. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly, right? We don’t want Amira and Faisal worrying about nothing.”

  Nothing? Was that all it was to him?

  I want to throw my plate at him. No, my knife. No, my fork.

  But the waiter comes back and takes away my dirty utensils and my plate, and it looks like I’m going to have to commit murder with a coffee spoon.

  I get up abruptly.

  “I am here for Amira,” I growl. “And that’s it. That’s all this”—I gesture at the space between me and him—“will ever be. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Deen opens his mouth to say something, but I turn on my heel and leave.

  I need to put some distance between me and Deen, so I head for the bathrooms because there’s no way he can follow me there. I briefly consider drowning myself in the sink.

  I hate that he affects me so much, even now. I hate that he knows it.

  And I hate that he looks like he’s having fun doing it.

  The bathrooms are in a quiet, shadowy hallway in the back of the restaurant; as I approach, the faint flush of a urinal from the inside of the men’s bathroom clashes with the thin wailing of the violins on the sound system.

  Except then I hear voices from the shadows. Familiar ones. I peek over the wall blocking off the hallway.

  “What gives?” asks Haris, agitated. “What the hell are you getting worked up at me for?”

  Faisal takes a step back, looks away. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not your fault. But I told you not to say anything about the past. I told you.”

  “Wait, I thought—you mean she doesn’t know?” Haris runs his hands down his face. “What the hell, man. Is that why Deen pulled out that bullshit about you traveling abroad? Why the hell didn’t you tell her?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  I panic and press myself against the wall before they see me.

  Are they talking about Amira? Tell her what? So Deen lied about Faisal being abroad three years ago?

  “Come on.” Haris’s voice lowers. “Does she at least know about Leah?”

  Faisal looks at him now, glaring. “No. And right now, it has to stay that way.”

  Leah? Who is Leah?

  “Look, I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but this is idiotic. Is this because of Deen?” Haris asks.

  “This is because I love Amira.”

  Haris paces a few steps. “So, you just gonna hide what happened? Forever?”

  “No!” Faisal’s voice rises, but he stops, closes his eyes. “No,” he says, softer now. “I’ll tell her. I want to tell her. About everything. But with my parents being on my case, the risk to them and to Deen—” He sighs. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

  Haris shakes his head, and a disapproving look passes between them.

  “I know.” Faisal draws in another deep breath. “I know. It’s just hard. I tossed my past in the trash, where it belongs. It’s been three years.”

  His voice lowers to a sad, desperate whisper. “I don’t want to dig it up again.”

  My knees go weak beneath me and I nearly sink to the floor. My lungs quake. I’ve seen so many sides to Faisal today, I can’t tell which is the real one.

  What the hell did I just witness?

  And what is Faisal hiding from my sis
ter?

  Chapter 6

  Deen

  Sunday, June 13

  I’M TRYING TO IMAGINE KIRAN chasing me from behind the treadmill at the gym, and I’m embarrassed to admit it’s making me go full speed.

  I can’t get the look on her face out of my head. The suspicion in her eyes, the questions beneath them. The fire in them that never left.

  So yesterday didn’t exactly go the way I planned. For one thing, I think it’s safe to say she definitely wasn’t thrilled to see me, so I started at a total disadvantage. Fair enough; I’m pretty sure the return of an ex is right up there on people’s don’t-want lists along with the coming of the Antichrist and literal blights of locusts. She could barely stand being alone with me for two seconds, which . . . stings more than I’d like, even if I expected it.

  But if I could just get her one-on-one for a little while, have her hear me out, give Faisal a chance, I’m sure she’d see he’s not a bad guy—for one thing, he’d never hurt Amira the way I hurt Kiran.

  I’m in way over my head. Smoothing things over with her is going to require more . . . effort.

  At least she looked . . . good. Really good. Part of me is happy for her. And part of me . . . well, part of me doesn’t know what to feel. Part of me thinks I don’t really deserve to feel anything.

  I’m halfway into my third mile when my phone starts buzzing.

  It’s Faisal.

  I stop in my tracks as my already high heart rate does its own little sprint. Texts from him are surprising enough, so him just calling out of the blue—that makes me especially nervous.

  I swallow and try to even out my breathing before I pick up.

  “Hey.”

  “Sorry to bother you again so soon after yesterday,” says Faisal. “And I’ll make this quick since Mom’s yelling about something and I don’t want to take any more of your time. Just wanted to say thanks. For coming.”

  And true enough, I hear the faint, familiar shouting of a woman’s voice in the background. A sound I hate more than anything.

  “Oh yeah,” I say, wiping sweat from my brow. “Glad I did. Amira’s great.”

  Silence.