“Look around you, Aasif. What is it that you see?”
“Our home, father.”
“Yes, it is our home, that’s true, but what else?”
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling suddenly very tired with the guess work his father was trying to make him do, “I don’t know what answer you want from me, father.”
His father sighed and shook his head in disappointment. Aasif was very aware of the fact that he was letting his dad down but he just wasn’t up to this kind of verbal sparring. He didn’t have it in him. Not today.
“This is our heritage, Aasif. This is our legacy. We have a responsibility to it, we are bound to it. Do you hear me? Do you understand those words?”
“Yes, I know. I know that’s how things are.”
“And yet you seem so disappointed. Is it not enough for you? All of this that those before you built? You will be handed a fortune, a legacy most people could never even dream of. And still you are not content? What is it that you want? What, if not this?”
How was he supposed to answer a thing like that? How did a man answer that without sounding like the most ungrateful sort of human being? It was just so complicated, so hard to vocalize. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want the things his father was listing off for him. It was just that he wanted one thing more.
“Father,”
“I know. I believe I do. I know what it is that makes you so restless now.”
Aasif looked at his father in shock and his father looked right back at him, holding his gaze level so that Aasif had to struggle not to look down. Maybe his father was more aware of the way things were for him, after all. He was sure that stranger things had happened.
“You do? And what do you think it is?”
“It’s about a woman. Isn’t it always about a woman?”
He couldn’t even speak. All he could do was wait to see what his father would say next. Maybe things were about to take a turn for the better. If there was already this level of understanding between father and son, perhaps it could be taken one step further. Maybe the things he truly wanted weren’t so far out of reach, after all.
“Well I’ll let you in on a little secret, Aasif. You are not the first man to want a woman he couldn’t have.”
“But I can have her, father! She loves me. She’s told me she would wait for me, she’s waiting for me as we speak. She told me she would come with me, if that’s what I wanted.”
“Of course. I’m sure she did. Why wouldn’t she?”
“What does that mean? I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“Women will always throw themselves on a man with money, especially a man with everything that you have to offer. She has nothing to lose, while you have the entire world.”
Aasif was completely deflated. To have been brought up to such high hopes only to be shot down only a moment later was difficult to take. He respected his father a great deal, but at the moment he also sort of hated him. He had never felt that before. Not for any person, and definitely not for his own blood. It was the most uncomfortable he had ever been and the memory of the emotion he was sure he would not be able to shake for a long, long time.
“No. It isn’t like that. You shouldn’t say things about Bethany. You don’t know her.”
“Stop it, Aasif. I don’t need to know her name to know everything about her. Are you really naive enough to believe for even a moment that she wants you only for you? For your personality? When you get older you’ll understand how foolish that is.”
“No! She doesn’t even know about me, alright? She doesn’t know anything of my upbringing except that I have familial responsibilities I cannot shrug off.”
His father looked at him with withering disdain and shook his head. He clearly felt that his boy still had so much left to learn before he would be able to take on the role of Sheikh. It was infuriating and defeating at the same time. It was the only time in his life that Aasif had felt anything close to hopelessness.
“Aasif, in today’s world a person can know everything about you without you having a clue. You can’t afford to trust this girl. She doesn’t know our ways and she won’t fit into our customs, our world. She can’t, do you understand me? She can’t. You must drive it from your mind. Drive it right out and do not think of her again. Erase her name from your head and your heart. Do you hear me? We will not speak of this again.”
“Yes father, I understand you. I understand completely.”
Aasif’s father adopted a look of satisfaction and nodded. This was Aasif’s signal that he could go and so he turned and walked as calmly as possible down the stairs past the family members who openly gawked at him and finally, finally out into the vast gardens of the property. There he began to run as fast as his legs and his lungs would allow. He ran until he could not run any longer, and all the while he saw nothing but Bethany’s sweet face. He wanted so badly to run straight into her arms but he couldn’t fight the creeping feeling that he was only moving further away.
Chapter Four
“Beth, come on. I know you’re in there!”
Bethany heard Caroline banging insistently on her door, but she just couldn’t bring herself to get up and let her in. She was just so tired! She had always been such an incredibly energetic person with so many goals and aspirations. The problem was that it had never occurred to her that she would meet someone who might throw a wrench in her plans. A man had never been in the plans, not really. At least not for years to come. But the plans a person made didn’t always come to fruition and what she had initially thought would be a rare evening out had changed the tide of her life. Would she do it again, knowing what she knew now? Would she let herself be talked into a night out in a typical college bar with Caroline? Would she have told Aasif her name? She wasn’t sure. There was no way for her to know. How far would she have allowed herself to go, knowing that she would fall in love?
“Beth! Seriously, you can’t just keep me standing out in the hallway.”
“Ugh, it’s not you, it’s me, ok Caroline? How about that?”
Caroline laughed and the sound of it made Bethany smile. Even feeling as sorry for herself as she did, her friend’s laughter was like a kind of medicine. It helped her to remember that she was not the only person ever to experience emotions like this. There were probably thousands of people all around the world, men and women alike, who were holed up with her same pitiful demeanor. It helped, but not enough. She still didn’t feel like getting off of her couch.
“Sure, you can make that point. It won’t do any good, though. You seem to forget, I’ve got my own key!”
She crowed triumphantly and Beth jumped up off of the couch as quickly as if she had seen a ghost. She wasn’t sure what she thought she was going to do. The key was already turning in the lock, for christ’s sake! Caroline was going to see her, awful sweats and hole riddled t-shirt and all. There was no avoiding it. She was about to be found out for the newly closeted Rom-Com and ice cream addict that she was. And to make matters even worse, when Caroline entered her uncharacteristically messy apartment, she looked very close to a supermodel. At least to Bethany she did. Maybe it was a good thing Aasif wasn’t around. She certainly wasn’t at her best. If there had been any doubt about that before, it was crystal clear after looking at the expression on Caroline’s face. Caroline was a good friend, but she was also an honest one.
“Jesus, Beth! What the hell is going on here? Did someone die or something?”
“Ha ha, very funny. You mean because I look so pathetic?”
“No, I mean because it smells like someone died in here. When was the last time you took a shower?”
Bethany rolled her eyes and flopped back on the couch. After the initial embarrassment of being discovered in such a state she felt like things were just as they always were between her and her best friend. That meant she had to love her, complete mess or not. And it was good to have the company. She had to admit that much. It was difficult to brood when you w
ere with a person who was intent on keeping you from doing so.
“Seriously, Beth, it’s becoming a problem.”
Caroline reluctantly joined Beth on her overstuffed couch, making a big show of not wanting to actually touch anything. Beth rolled her eyes again and turned the volume up on the tv. She had been binge watching home improvement shows for what felt like a century, nothing but images of subway tiles and shiplap filling her brain. Nothing but that and the memory of the way Aasif’s hand felt against her hot skin, shivering with the slightest contact.
“So?”
Beth glanced at Caroline and saw that she was looking at her with raised eyebrows. Damn it. It looked very much like this wasn’t going to go away.
“So? What do you mean, ‘so’?”
“So are you going to tell me what in god’s name is going on here? You’re acting like a character from a teen romance novel. What gives?”
“Nothing, I guess I’m just not handling this all that well.”
“I know it’s hard, but you’ve been doing this long distance thing with him for like, six months now. Why is it all of the sudden so traumatizing?”
“Seven months and eight days, actually. Not that anyone is counting or anything.”
“Yikes. Ok, seven months and eight days. Still.”
“Still?”
“Beth,” Caroline said with exasperation as she leaned forward and took one of her hands, “what’s going on here? Did something happen and you just aren’t telling me about it? I guess I just don’t get it. I don’t get what changed.”
“Nothing. Nothing changed, that’s the problem. I knew that long distance wasn’t going to be easy, I mean I had heard that from pretty much everyone I know that’s tried it out, it’s just that it’s different when you’re the one in it.”
“Well sure, I can’t even imagine. I definitely don’t think I could do it.”
“I didn’t think it was going to be this hard. I keep waiting for him to call me up and tell me that he’s coming back, or even that he’s spoken to his family about me and he wants me to come and be with him.”
“Does he ever bring it up with you?”
“No! That’s the worst part! Every time I talk to him I wait for him to say something about it, anything about it, but he never does.”
“Well did he ever give you any kind of timeframe to hold onto?”
To her horror, Bethany felt her eyes begin to well up with tears. She considered herself to be a strong woman, a woman who didn’t easily succumb to her emotions, and she didn’t like feeling like she had lost control of that. It didn’t matter all that much what she liked, however, because the tears were coming whether she wanted them to or not. Her body was betraying her and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Aw, Beth, I’m sorry. I’m really not trying to make things worse for you. I would never want to do that.”
“No,” she hiccupped, trying to get ahold of herself and failing dismally, “you aren’t.”
“Really? You could have fooled me.”
“No, it’s really nor you. You aren’t making things worse, I actually think it’s helping. I just haven’t really dealt with this. He didn’t give me a timeframe. In my head I thought it would happen sooner rather than later but he never said anything like that. He didn’t mislead me.”
Caroline nodded, struggling to understand. Beth knew it must be hard for her. Caroline wasn’t the type of girl to get involved in serious, complicated relationships. She loved the romanticism of the whirlwind relationship but she wasn’t all that interested in having a relationship herself. At least not one with such intense feelings involved. She was more a fan of keeping things light, airy. She was a believer in just having a good time, which meant she had a difficult time understanding the depth of what Bethany was going through. Still, she was trying as hard as she could and Beth loved her for it. It made such a world of difference to her.
“Look, I know I said it would be crazy for him to propose to me after only four months, and it would have been, for sure. I guess part of me wanted him to anyway. It’s so difficult to have a relationship with a man you never get to see, especially with the time difference being so drastically different. And when we speak he sounds so distracted. He sounds like he’s sad or unhappy or something but when I ask him what about he won’t tell me. Something is going on, but he won’t tell me what it is and it’s driving me crazy. I just don’t know how much longer I can do this. It’s eating me up inside, making it hard for me to move forward and figure out what I’m going to do with my life. How am I supposed to make plans if I don’t know how much of a part of my life he’s going to be?”
“Jeez,” Caroline sighed in sympathetic misery, “that sounds awful.”
“It isn’t always. I really do love him and I always thought that if you love someone you do everything you can for them.”
“But is he doing everything he can for you?
“I don’t know” Bethany whispered, afraid to even think about the question too hard. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“Ok, that’s it. Let’s go.”
“Go? Go where? In case you forgot, the first thing you noticed when you let yourself in was that I’m a complete mess. I can’t go anywhere.”
“You’re right, you can’t. Not like that. It’s time to get you cleaned up. You have a shower, yes?”
“You know I do.”
“Good, we’re going to get you to use it. I assume you vaguely remember how. That’s where we’re going to start and then we’ll go from there. Sound like a plan?”
“Ok. I can do that. And Caroline?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. You’re the best.”
“Nope,” she said with the sweetest smile, “you’re the best. Always have been, always will be. You know I love you more than anything in the whole world, don’t you? I’d have to to spend this much time convincing you to bathe. Now, take me to your shampoo.”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this again. This is exactly the sort of thing that got me into trouble in the first place!”
“Oh come on, it’s not like that happens to every person who goes out, right? You’ve gone out with me plenty of times before without anything exciting happening at all. Well, maybe not plenty, but enough. That night was a fluke, and I’m not trying to get you into any kind of trouble with Aasif. I swear I’m not. I like the two of you together, as long as he gets his head out of his ass some time soon. But if he really loves you then he won’t have a problem with you enjoying yourself. He should want you to be happy, right? I mean, shouldn’t he?”
Bethany nodded absently and gazed out of the window of the taxi cab at the glittering lights whipping by them. She was right, of course. Just the same as she wanted him to be happy in all things, Aasif should want her to be happy. And it wasn’t like he had ever told her not to go out and spend time around other people, it just felt like a slippery slope. She had wanted to talk to him about it before she left but she couldn’t reach him. She felt like she could never reach him. He had told her that he had family obligations that he had to take care of, but what was it that could be keeping him so busy? It was getting increasingly difficult not to feel like he was just avoiding her, like she was the last thing on his list of important things to take care of.
“I’ll take that as a yes, which is perfect because we’re here!”
Caroline passed a wad of cash over to the driver and practically dragged her out of the car. She had dressed her up for the occasion, using Bethany as some kind of a real life barbie doll, and Bethany wasn’t sure how she felt about the ensemble she had picked. First of all, the heels felt just a little bit too high to handle. Although Bethany wasn’t the tallest of women she also valued her own comfort and so four inch heels weren’t a choice she usually made. Then there was the dress. There was no denying that she looked good in it, but it seemed so risque! It was much more form fitting than the clothes she usually wore and shor
ter than anything she owned. Caroline had assured her that it was only mildly suggestive compared to what most girls their age wore but Bethany wasn’t convinced. She wondered what Aasif would think if he saw her now. Would he be angry? Would he think she was somehow going behind his back, betraying the relationship of trust they had so meticulously built? Feeling as blue about the whole scenario as she had as of late, part of her believed that he might not actually care all that much. Maybe it would be just the excuse he needed to get rid of her for once and for all.
“Hey, I know this is forward so please don’t be angry, but can we buy you ladies a drink? We saw you two come in and we knew we’d be kicking ourselves for the rest of the night if we didn’t at least ask.”
Bethany looked up with a start, realizing that she had paid zero attention as they had wound their way through the crowded room and up to the even more congested bar. It was the masculine voice that brought herself back to where she actually was, and just as she was opening her mouth to say that, no, thank you but they were just fine, Caroline grinned at them and nodded eagerly.
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