“Don’t.” My voice shook slightly. “I can’t do this. It’s over. It has to be over. Please, let it go.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re pushing him away, aren’t you?”
“I’m not talking about this.”
“You are. You’re pushing him away. You love him and you’re pushing him away because you’re afraid to get hurt.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. He left. He’s not exactly fighting for me either.”
Fleur laughed. “Are you joking? I know exactly what I’m talking about. You aren’t the only one with a shitty family situation. I know what it’s like to be afraid to put yourself out there, to be afraid to let someone in. I know what it’s like to push people away better than anyone.”
My heart thudded.
“But he loves you. I know Samir, better than most. He doesn’t fall in love. He doesn’t let people in. Not until you. He loves you. Fight for him. He’s just like you, afraid of putting himself out there. He’s doing the same thing you are.”
“I can’t fight for him.”
“How do you know?”
I laughed bitterly. “Oh, believe me. I know.”
“Don’t you think he feels the same way you do? He’s spent his whole life not measuring up to his parents’ expectations for him. Spent his whole life feeling like he’s not good enough. Until you. I never thought I would say this, but he’s different with you. You can trust him.”
“Everything is so fucked up right now. I don’t know what he thinks or feels about me.”
“What did you do?”
Guilt flooded me. “He asked me if I loved him last night. I told him no. I made him leave because I didn’t want to be the reason he threw his life away.”
“You lied to him. He would have stayed if you told him you loved him. You pushed him away without giving him a fucking chance.”
“You don’t know that he would have stayed. Or even that it wouldn’t have been a mistake. I didn’t want to use my feelings to control him, not when he had so much to lose. I couldn’t do that to him. He has a life in Lebanon. He has a future. How could I have asked him to give that all up? What if he regretted it?”
“And what about you? What if he wanted to choose you? You took that choice away from him.”
“I couldn’t ask him to choose me.”
“Why?”
“Because they never choose me. Because if I love him, he’ll leave. Eventually he’ll leave. I’ve been here. Every person who I’ve loved in my life, every person I’ve trusted, leaves. Don’t you get it? I love him. I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I love him so much it hurts. But I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to feel the pain of another fucking person rejecting me. I don’t fit into his world. At some point, you know his parents are going to force him to choose. And he’s not going to give up everything he has for me. He shouldn’t give up everything for me.”
“Maggie—”
“I’ve been here before. This isn’t new for me. I have plenty of experience being left.”
Fleur shook her head. “Then you’re a coward. And you don’t deserve him.”
She was right. I was a coward. And I’d just lost everything.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Samir
THE SUMMER FLEW BY in a blur of alcohol and girls. The girls were a disaster. A steady parade of petite brunettes with brown eyes and pale skin. It didn’t take a fucking psychologist to figure out what I was trying to do. Emphasis on trying.
They weren’t her. None of them. I flirted, bought drinks, thought about sex, but when I went home at night, I was always alone. When I woke, I reached for her—hard and aching—and came up empty.
The alcohol worked better. I spent most of May and some of June drunk off my ass. I was supposed to be in Beirut, but I’d lasted less than a week before my father told me to get out of his sight. Apparently he needed an heir who wasn’t running his life into the ground. He was pissed and threatening to cut me off if I didn’t get my life together. He’d nearly done it until my mother intervened and sent me to St. Tropez to “clear my head.” Even the threat of losing the money didn’t break through the haze. So I drank. It numbed the pain, but the feeling still lingered there. And then I woke up.
Or rather, Fleur woke me up.
“You smell.”
I glared at her, bleary-eyed. Her voice was a fucking bell ringing in my ear.
For a moment I forgot where I was, her presence confusing me. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be in Lebanon assuming the throne.”
“Fuck you.”
“Nice to see your sunny disposition is in full force.” Her gaze swept the hotel suite. I could only imagine what it looked like through her eyes—empty takeout boxes, bottles of alcohol littered around. It was a disaster. I was a disaster. “I’m surprised not to see any big-breasted bimbos lying around.”
“I kick them out after I fuck them,” I drawled.
Her lips curved. “Cute.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“I love you, so yeah, it is.”
“Lucky me.”
“You know, she’s just as fucked up as you are.”
I clenched my hand into a fist, wishing I could burrow my head in the pillow and block Fleur out. “Don’t talk to me about her. Don’t say her name. If that’s why you came here, then you can leave.”
“I’m not leaving until you talk about it.”
“Fine. Then I’ll leave.” I rose from the bed, grabbing a shirt off the floor, pulling it over my head. My clothes were strewn all over the floor—I’d given up on doing laundry a long time ago. The maids came in and cleaned when I felt like it. I tripped over an empty pizza box lying on the floor.
“She loves you. She lied.”
I froze and then whirled around to face her. “I’m serious. If you care about me at all, you will drop this and leave.”
“I’m not leaving. I love you and I love Maggie. I can’t watch you guys throw away your happiness because you’re both cowards.”
“I’m not a coward. I asked her if she loved me at Babel and she said no. What else was I supposed to do? Hell, even without her loving me, I didn’t want to leave. But how can I give up everything? What am I supposed to do?”
“She’s scared.”
“She’s scared?” The anger that had been growing inside of me all summer pushed through. “Jesus, Fleur. She broke my heart. She broke my fucking heart, okay? She ripped it out and stomped on it, and I’ve been walking around with a hole in my chest for months. And now you’re asking me to take a chance she can reject me all over again.”
Something that impossibly seemed like compassion flickered in Fleur’s eyes. “She won’t.”
“You don’t know that. She might. You don’t know what she’ll do. Neither do I.”
“You’re being an idiot.”
“Maybe I am, but I can’t keep doing this. It’s been over two months. I haven’t heard anything from her.”
“Have you called her? Texted? Emailed? Anything?”
“No.”
I didn’t want to tell her the truth. That I’d written Maggie dozens of emails I’d never sent, that I’d stared at her name in my phone for hours, wanting to dial her number, text her, anything. Maybe Fleur was right, maybe I was a coward. I was afraid to give her my heart when I didn’t know how she felt, afraid she’d be another person in a long line of people I let down, afraid of throwing away the security that came with my family legacy for...what exactly?
Fleur crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you happy?”
“Come on. What is this? Why are you here?” I loved Fleur, but my patience hung by a thread.
“This is a fucking intervention.” Her arms arced in a wide, sweeping gesture, her gaze taking in the crap everywhere. “Is this your life? Getting drunk and fucking girls in St. Tropez?”
It would be easier
if that were my life. If the idea of screwing some nameless, faceless girl didn’t make me feel ill.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you have a chance. A chance to be happy. And you’re so stupid, you’re throwing it away. How many chances do you think you get at love? Do you know how jealous I am? What I would do to have what you have? Don’t waste it, Samir. We both come from the same fucked-up place. But Maggie’s different. She loves you. She doesn’t care about the money or the cars or the lifestyle. She loves you.” Fleur’s lips quirked slightly. “Though God knows why.”
“She said she didn’t.”
“She was scared. She lied. Come on. You’re not stupid. How many girls have you been with? I would think you would know by now when a girl loves you and when she doesn’t.”
Each word hit me harder than the first. She was right. I’d spent the summer replaying my time with Maggie over and over in my mind like a song on repeat. Some days I convinced myself she’d always loved me. Most days I thought I was a fool. But now Fleur was here, giving me hope where there had been none.
I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. I missed Maggie. I knew I couldn’t keep doing this. This wasn’t a life. And yet...
“My parents will disown me. And Maggie has two years of school left. If I did have a chance with her, how would it even work? I don’t want to be long distance for two years. And the odds of me getting a job in Lebanon when my dad finds out about this are nonexistent. How am I going to live?”
“You have a trust. Maybe it’s not the kind of money you’re used to, but it would be enough. And you aren’t just Lebanese, you’re also French—you have dual citizenship and an E.U. passport. You have options. Don’t tell me you haven’t considered them. Don’t settle for the life they want you to have, if it’s not the life you want. You’re better than that. And you’ll always regret it if you let her slip through your fingers. Do you really want to wake up one day, old, in a loveless marriage, realizing you let the best thing that ever happened to you get away?”
Through the haze of my hangover, I began to feel the beginnings of a plan. She was right. I’d thought about this before. But it was a risk. A chance I was scared to take.
“You get everything you want. Why should this be any different? You want Maggie. Make it happen. Fight for her.”
* * *
I STARED AT the door, hesitating before knocking. It was after hours, the office nearly empty, only my father left. On one hand, the last thing I wanted was an audience; on the other hand, at least the presence of other people would prevent an even bigger scene than the one that was about to erupt.
“Enter,” he barked out in Arabic.
I turned the knob, walking through the door, palms sweating.
My father’s head jerked up from the paperwork on his desk, his gaze narrowing. “You’re back.”
“I came back to get my stuff.”
Contempt filled his eyes.
“Oh, really? Where do you think you’re off to now? Back to St. Tropez? Going to screw around Paris with Fleur? Do you think it’s okay to behave like a child for the rest of your life, to never take responsibility for your actions? Do you think I’m going to keep funding your fuck-ups?”
I held his stare. “No, I don’t.”
He shook his head. “I wanted a son and this is what I got. A boy who is incapable of becoming a man.”
A year ago, his words would have stuck with me. A year ago, I would have believed he was right, that I would never be more than a fuck-up. But that was bullshit and I was tired of making myself irrelevant because he saw me as such. He was right; it was time for me to grow up. It was time for me to take charge of my life.
“I’m moving to London.”
“The hell you are. Absolutely not.”
“I got into the School of Oriental and African Studies. I’m going to do a master’s in Middle Eastern Politics.”
I’d been lucky to get my application in by their deadline at the end of June, even luckier that Dr. Abbott had written me a recommendation and spoken to some professors on the faculty. Fortunately my grades at the International School had been good enough for me to be accepted.
My father’s face turned an interesting shade of red.
“If you think I’m paying for a useless degree so you can fuck around with girls like the one you brought home—”
I struggled for calm, knew losing my temper would only confirm all of the worst things he thought about me.
My jaw clenched as I fought to control the rage winding its way through me. “I’m serious about her,” I bit out. “I’m not going to marry someone else; I’m not going to date someone else. She’s it. I’m going to SOAS. I have enough money from my trust to pay for it. It’s done and there’s nothing you can say that will change my mind.”
His skin turned an even darker shade of red, almost purple. “You think you can just walk away from all of this? From your family, from your duty? From your country?”
Each word lashed out like a whip cracking across my skin.
“I’m not walking away. Lebanon will always be my home. You will always be my family.” As much as a part of me resented him, he was my father; I loved him, even if it was a complicated love. I wanted him to be proud of me, wanted him to respect me. But I would never get the chance to be the person I needed to be if I always followed the path he set, never making my own decisions. “I’m going. I’m sorry if you aren’t happy about it, but I have to make my own future. Otherwise, if I stay here, marrying some girl I don’t love, working on policies I don’t believe in, I’ll never be anything more. I’ll never be proud of myself. I need to do this on my own. Whether you understand or not, I need to go.”
I waited for a blessing I knew would never come, waited for him to say something, waited to see if our relationship could ever be mended. I got silence instead.
I turned and left.
Maggie
IT WAS HOT as hell in South Carolina. The whole summer had been like that—a slow heat that burned me from the inside out. It had been a blur of hot days, long hours at work, and nights spent with Jo.
“You’re quiet,” she commented over lunch.
“I figured I talked your ear off enough all summer. I thought you might welcome the quiet.”
“I’ve gotten used to it by now.”
Jo had listened to me through the first month of mourning the loss of Samir, helped me pick up the pieces when I’d realized there was nowhere to go but forward. It helped that she’d met him when he came to South Carolina, that she’d seen us together. She understood how hard everything was. She’d even flown with me to Oklahoma to meet my new baby brother, James. It had been an awkward visit, but when I held him in my arms I’d felt a connection I’d never expected. We weren’t a big happy family, but the sight of my little brother’s face had erased so much of my anger.
She grabbed a fry off my plate. “You ready to go back?”
“I hope so.”
Four months in South Carolina had been long enough. The summer had dripped by, slow as molasses, and as much as I’d needed a break from London, from the memories, I was ready to go home.
“It’ll be different.”
“I know.”
“You know, you can always transfer to Carolina...”
I grinned. It was a familiar battle.
“I can’t. You know I love you, but things are different now. London’s home.”
“Even if he’s not there?”
It was the question that had been running through my mind all summer. In a way, Jo was right—my memories of London had become inextricably linked with Samir. It was impossible not to think of him when I thought of my time there. Not to see him when I walked into the common room, not to hear his voice when I sat in class, not to see his smile across the table from me at dinner. And yet—London was Fleur and Michael and Mya. It was my dream.
I loved Samir. But I also loved London.
I pushed
past the pang in my chest. “It’s home.”
“I want to come visit this year. Maybe spring break.”
“You would love it. Plenty of hot guys for you, plenty of accents.”
Jo grinned. “Sounds like my kind of place.” She stared at the clock. “How long until your flight?”
“Five hours. We should probably get the check.”
Jo signaled to the waitress, a sad smile on her face. “I’m going to miss you. It’s weird having you drop in and out of life like this. It always feels like you’re either coming or going, never just here.”
She was right. My life felt like it had become a continuous loop of difficult goodbyes. Wherever I was, I was always away from someone I loved—Samir, Jo, my grandparents, my new brother, Mya, Michael, Fleur. But maybe that was life. Maybe as you got older, you became less able to carry people with you. Everyone went their own way, living their own lives, facing their own adventures. All you could do was carry your memories with you, clutching the pieces you shared.
I carried Samir with me now.
“Thanks for everything this summer. I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.”
She nodded, tears welling in her eyes. “Of course.”
I reached out, giving her a swift hug. I wondered if it would always feel like this—like I was caught between two places. I loved Jo and my grandparents. I’d miss them, I’d miss my summer job and all of my friends; I’d miss real Mexican food and trips to the beach. I was caught between two worlds—
But this wasn’t really my life anymore.
It was good to be going home.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Maggie
THIS TIME, IT FELT different when my plane landed at Heathrow. The excitement was gone—the nerves and anticipation replaced by a sense of calm and belonging. I made my way through the airport with ease, the normal shine and dazzle replaced by familiarity.
I took a cab to the International School, welcoming the sights of my old neighborhood—the sounds and colors that would forever be London for me. At moments, I felt the whisper of a ghost dogging me, memories of walking down the streets, Samir’s hand in mine, flooding me. I was torn between wanting to run from the memories and wanting to bathe myself in them—as if I could conjure him in flesh and blood straight from memory. It was a loss, one I was still mourning.
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