Chapter 7
“You look really tired, Rox,” Ehsan commented the next morning.
We were having leftover pizza for breakfast. My bones were rusty.
After seeing that cold version of my mother, I couldn’t go back to sleep.
She rarely entered my dreams—I often wished she would, so that I could see her. But not like that.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a large bite of a veggie slice. Even though I’d put it in the microwave, the cheese was still a little cold, though the crust was piping hot. I didn’t have the energy to try again, so I carried on eating, then took a long sip of my coffee.
“Is your room not comfortable?” Dad asked, his mouth full, crumbs settling on his mustache. At his suggestion, we were sitting around the dining table. He wanted us to be a proper family, as if eating cold pizza because the fridge was empty was normal.
“I had the dreams again,” I said.
He stopped chewing and put what was left of his pizza down on his plate. With the same hand that he had been using to hold his pizza, he rubbed his eye. “That’s the last thing we need,” he said with a sigh. “It must be the move. It’ll stop. You know how to cope with it now, don’t you?”
No. But I nodded. “Yeah, kind of.” I looked to Ehsan. He was reading the graphic novel I’d bought him, using his glass of orange juice to keep the left page open while eating his pizza messily, the pages now stained from grease and condensation.
“Ehsan, can you grab my phone from my room?” I asked.
He glanced up at me like I had asked the most ridiculous question. “Why can’t you get it yourself?”
“I’ll watch another Marvel film with you tonight if you do.”
He considered this for a few seconds, put his own pizza down, and then bounded up the stairs.
“You shouldn’t order him around,” Dad scolded.
“Mum was in my dream last night,” I blurted out.
Silence. The air suddenly thick. I pushed down the urge to change the subject to something more palatable.
“Right,” he finally said.
“It made me think about how she died…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. Could barely even think it. But I had to. “Why do you think she didn’t brake on the motorway?”
It was like I had slapped him. His eyes shot up at me, his lips curled in anger. “What?”
“I just…” It was hard to ask the question with conviction now. Instantly, I regretted it. “We never worked out why she didn’t stop, how she ended up in the ditch,” I continued slowly, like I was testing out the words, watching the way his jaw twitched. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Roxana,” he said, voice terse. “I don’t know why you’re bringing this up out of nowhere, but you need to stop.” He stood up, his chair scraping against the vinyl floor.
“She was in my dr—”
“A dream is just a dream. It’s not an excuse to ask silly questions,” he interrupted, voice raised.
My eye twitched. He was always unreasonable, hot and cold, even before Mum died, but it had only gotten worse when she passed.
Ehsan returned, throwing my phone down on the table, which might have annoyed me if I hadn’t been battling my dad’s look of rage-filled disappointment.
Getting up and taking my phone with me, I went straight to my bedroom, hearing Ehsan complain, “Well, what was the point in me getting it, then?”
I slammed my bedroom door shut, grabbed a pillow from my bed, and pushed my face into it, letting out a tiny scream.
Ten minutes later, I pulled myself together. That involved leaving the house without telling anyone and figuring I would deal with the consequences later.
Today, like yesterday, was baking. So hot that I was more conscious than I thought possible of each of my limbs, and the way my thighs rubbed together.
Our stuff still hadn’t arrived, so I wore an outfit similar to yesterday’s: my black tiered maxi skirt, a black tank top with an oversized pistachio-colored silk shirt on top, and my trusty Doc Martens loafers.
My legs carried me to my destination, like it was instinctual. As I turned the corner and approached Cory’s, my heart began to beat more quickly.
When I pushed the door open, the cool breeze of the air-conditioning welcomed me. I basked in it briefly. The same hostess greeted me. “Back again?” she said, beaming. I nodded and was led to the same seat as last time.
Once I was seated, she handed me the menu. I put it down on the table and asked, “Is Zain here?”
The hostess—whose name badge said “Lynette”—tilted her head. She seemed surprised that I knew him. “He’s in the back.”
“Can you let him know I’m here, please? I’d like to speak with him.”
“Who should I say is here for him?” Her voice was bright, like what I was saying was totally normal, which it would be if I actually knew the guy.
“Roxana,” I said, forcing myself not to offer any additional explanation.
Lynette left, and I sat back against the cushioned booth.
I wanted answers. To know if what I’d seen was real.
It was busier today, which made sense since it was a Saturday.
I watched as Lynette walked past the counter to the back.
It wasn’t long before she returned with Zain in tow.
He wore the same orange T-shirt, tucked into black pants.
I tried not to look at him as he came over, awkwardness encircling me.
But when I did, I was struck again by how beautiful he was.
I hadn’t really considered any boys I had seen before to be beautiful, but there was something about the sharpness of his cheekbones, and how tall he was.
He belonged in a painting as a Greek god, or at least in an ad for Dolce & Gabbana, not in a tacky diner uniform.
Then I remembered how effortlessly he’d snapped the neck of that thing…
If what I’d seen was real, he was a beautiful killer. I couldn’t forget that.
Zain approached my table. He seemed like he was resisting smiling. “Hello again.”
I cleared my throat. “Hi.”
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes. What happened yesterday?” I asked. “Was that a prank or something?”
He moved to sit in the bench opposite me, amusement coloring his features. I felt a familiar bout of irritation that he wasn’t taking me seriously. “You could say that.”
“So it wasn’t real?”
“Sure,” he said, his voice velvet smooth.
My jaw was set, and any remaining nervousness had died away. My hands balled into fists underneath the table, and I forced myself to breathe slowly, the way I had taught myself to handle my emotions after Mum died.
The slight smile was back on his face, and my uneasiness returned.
“You’re lying,” I said.
He cocked his head. “I’m answering your questions.” He sighed. “Listen, I need to get back to work. I don’t know what you think you saw—”
“Hold on. It looked like…”
“Like what?” he asked, eyes flashing with something like a challenge. “What do you think you saw?”
A jinn.
But I couldn’t say it—it would sound absurd—so the word got stuck in my throat. My vision went blurry, tears threatening to run down my cheeks. Tears not of sadness but of anger at never being taken seriously. Stop this, I told myself.
“Forget it,” I said, though it came out as a whisper. I turned to gaze out the window, at a bald man walking his Labrador. “Just forget it.” Underneath the table, I pinched my thigh with my nails, attempting to focus on that pain rather than the tears that were desperate to spill.
Stop, stop, stop.
“It’s better if you ask less questions,” I heard Zain say, his voice soft. It took me a moment to register what he said. My head whipped around, eyes narrowed, which allowed two solitary tears to fall down both sides of my face. I brushed them aside roughly.
“Better?” I repeated. “For who, exactly?”
“Don’t cry,” he muttered, eyes tight, before exhaling loudly, like he was frustrated. Though I got the sense it was more at the situation than my tears.
“I’m not crying because I’m upset, just annoyed,” I clarified. “Annoyed that you’re gaslighting me.”
“Gaslighting? Really?” He had a slight smirk on his face again. I wanted to wipe it off.
“Yeah, you’re minimizing this very serious thing that happened—”
“You’re the one who said it was a prank,” he shot back. “I’m telling you what you want to hear. That’s why you came back, isn’t it?”
“No,” I said. But if I was being honest with myself, I did want him to say it was all a joke. I wanted to think that thing was a man, his friend, and that they were trying to scare me. I wanted all the weirdness that had happened since Mum died to go away. Not get worse.
“I have to go back to my shift.”
“Right,” I said.
When I finally made eye contact, his gaze softened. It was confusing, like he was always teetering between being standoffish and something different, like he didn’t know which version of himself to be.
He got out of the booth and took a few steps before turning around. “I get off in fifteen minutes. Wait here? We can talk properly after.”
I wanted to say no, actually, I’m busy, but I wasn’t. In fact, the thought of leaving here with no answers and going home was deeply unappealing. “Okay, fine.”
“I’ll get you something to eat—on the house.”
After he left, I relaxed my tightly coiled body. I surveyed the diner and noticed Lynette watching me. When she saw me looking at her, she went back to refilling a coffeepot.
I took out the book I’d brought with me and attempted to read while I waited.
Occasionally, I peered up to see Zain serving customers gracefully, his body moving quickly, ducking and weaving through people.
He didn’t really smile, though, his face stony throughout.
It was different from when he was speaking to me, looking amused while discussing murder.
I took out my phone and considered messaging Nic to tell her what I was doing. But she’d only tell me to stay away from him. If she’d been in this situation, I would have told her the same thing, and yet here I was, ignoring sound advice.
I had two missed calls from Dad. I sent him a message.
I’ve gone for a walk. Be back in a few hours.
Then I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and tucked it back into my bag. I should have told him I was going to work. Cleo had sent my work schedule, and I could use his lack of knowledge of when my shifts were to my advantage.
The waitress brought over a slice of lemon cheesecake—my favorite dessert—which I ate as I took out my iPad to roughly sketch my previous dream. I had not made much progress when Zain slid back into the booth.
He had changed into a black T-shirt, his hair a little messier.
I noticed a silver ring cuffing his left ear and found myself getting distracted by it.
He looked down at my iPad, and I quickly locked it.
His gazed lingered on the now black screen for a beat, his face frozen in something like concern, and in a blink, it was gone. His features smoothed again.
“I think we got off on the wrong foot earlier,” he started, practically fluttering his long eyelashes. It was clear he knew the effect he had on people, but it wouldn’t work on me. I knew what he was, what he had done.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I didn’t want to upset you,” he said.
It was ironic that this boy who I’d seen snap another man’s neck was concerned about upsetting me.
“I cry all the time,” I said, trying to be flippant, but when the words came out of my mouth, they sounded sad. I reached across the table to drink some of my water, also partly to do something with my hands.
“Why?” he asked, his voice gentler. He pressed his elbows on the table and leaned over.
“It’s just how I am. I’m a clinical crybaby. I cry when I’m angry, annoyed, sad, happy—you name it. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He nodded and spread his hands wide on the table. He gazed down at them for a moment before meeting my eye. “So, clinical crybaby, do you want to get out of here? Have some fun?”
I stared at his hands, at the tension in each of his slender, long fingers. These were the very fingers that had broken a man’s neck. Despite knowing this, I found myself saying, “Let’s go.”