Chapter Five #2
I poured every unsaid confession into that look—the fake story we’d spun, the marriage that was both real and not, the parts of myself I’d had to lock away just to endure the night—and prayed she could read even a fraction of it.
But she couldn’t seem to read between the invisible lines. My lips stayed sealed in that polite smile we practiced for family photos, and when she finally released me, I let the lull stretch for one heartbeat—two—and then turned and walked to the car.
We reached his loft in silence, the glow of downtown Vancouver pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Inside, it was exactly what I should’ve predicted from him—impersonal, restrained, almost aggressively neat.
The whole place stretched across one open level, all cool grays and muted blues and polished black surfaces that caught the light just enough to feel luxurious without ever feeling warm.
Two bedrooms branched off the main space, a bathroom with twin sinks tucked between them, but even those seemed untouched, existing purely for architectural symmetry.
The apartment didn’t look messy. It didn’t even look lived in. It looked...staged. Like someone had carefully arranged everything and then forgotten to add the human being.
Other than the basic furniture necessities, there was a long bookshelf organized so precisely it made my spine hurt in sympathy.
Not a single plant or piece of artwork in sight.
Even the large, L-shaped couch looked like it had been selected for its emotional detachment.
The only thing that disrupted the pattern was a small framed photo tucked into the corner of the shelf—so unobtrusive I almost missed it entirely.
I glanced around, my voice echoing faintly in the conspicuous lack of personality. “I don’t know what I was expecting,” I said, “but it definitely wasn’t Ted Bundy’s lair. Are you allergic to color?”
Khalifa dropped my suitcases beside me. “I never felt the need to invest in turning this into a home,” he said with surprising honesty. “It was always a...placeholder. A temporary location until my father ultimately forced me back to Lebanon.”
I paused, staring at him. He felt the same weight I’d always felt in my parents’ house—the hollow in a place that was supposed to feel like belonging. For a brief moment, the fact that he felt it too made me feel...less alone.
Then he stepped closer, his hands moving to the pins securing my hijab. My chest fluttered at the almost imperceptible brush of his fingers against my scalp.
Slowly, he eased my scarf off, revealing my hair for the first time to a man outside my family.
Long waves fell down my back as he pulled the bobby pins from my bun, each strand spilling free.
My stomach clenched at the sudden affection, my body buzzing with a tension I had never felt before, even in this small, innocent way.
He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as his hands stilled. “MashAllah,” he murmured.
I wasn’t na?ve. Sure, my mother might’ve skipped the scandalous wedding talk where she explained what happened after rings were exchanged and a three-layer cake was sliced, but I still knew the chain of events.
I also knew Khalifa and I had agreed on a marriage without benefits, without confusion, without any of the. ..spicy, premium subscription features.
And yet, he was standing so close, and he was looking at me, and my knees went a little melty—which was not a sensation I’d previously associated with myself, so the clinically trained part of my brain filed a mildly concerned incident report.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t part of the deal. This was the part in the movie where the soundtrack swelled and everyone in the audience suddenly forgot about logic or paperwork or carefully set boundaries and—
I opened my mouth, a whisper escaping before my brain could slam the emergency brake. “Do you want to...?”
He scoffed, disbelief and amusement flickering across his features, because of course he knew exactly what I meant. And just like that, the delicate, heart-thudding moment cracked clean down the middle.
“Not in the slightest,” he said, moving away.
My cheeks burned, a hot mix of shame and rejection crashing over me.
Fantastic. It was decided. I was officially checking myself into a facility for people who spoke first and thought never.
But instead of crumpling, I shoved the humiliation down and let sarcasm rise in its place.
“I was asking if you wanted to order food,” I snapped.
“But now I know where your head’s at. Typical guy. ”
“You’re not fooling anyone, Lillian. I have no interest in getting to know you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t already read you like a book.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
“Asshole,” I muttered, storming across the hall to the room opposite his and slamming it with everything I had, the walls rattling in response, my breath heaving in frustration.
I looked around the room, at the bare bed, the blank walls. Everything was empty and sterile. But that sterility sparked something inside me—something I could fill, something I could claim as my own.
I didn’t even bother pretending to be thoughtful about it.
I reached into my suitcase, grabbed the first clothes my hands found, and peeled myself out of the dress that had been suffocating me all day.
Then, without letting my husband know, I walked out of the apartment like a woman on a mission and headed straight to the store.
Ten minutes later, I was clutching a single can of paint in the color I’d always loved but was never allowed to have.
Back in what was apparently now my home, I didn’t sleep.
I popped open the can, dipped the brush, and started painting.
It was messy and streaky and patchy, with drops spitting onto the floor, the sheets, even dotting the side lamp in a burst of guilty confetti.
Each stroke of the brush was a rebellion against the colorless life around me, a reclamation of space, of control, of me.
By the time the city outside went still, my room had transformed: walls blazing with the bright, unrepentant hue of hot magenta I’d always wanted.
I slid down against the bed, arms streaked in pink like I’d been in a very glamorous accident, and just stared.
Maybe I didn’t get the swoony love story. Maybe there was no cinematic wedding, no charming prince, no dizzying sweep-me-off-my-feet moment. But this—this was mine. Permanent. Something real I’d made for myself with my own two paint-splattered hands, not borrowed from expectation.
And for the first time in years, I felt like I might actually belong somewhere—and it might belong a little bit to me, too.