Chapter Twenty-Six
I WOKE TO THE ROOM unfamiliar and hazy. For a few seconds, I didn’t know where I was, whose bed this was, how I had gotten here, why the sunlight slanting through the curtains felt so strange. The sheets smelled faintly of him, warm and lived-in, but it didn’t immediately click.
And then it all came rushing back. Memories clawed at me—Jennie.
The twins. The surgical lights glaring, my hands trembling, the impossible weight of it all.
Mr. Thompson’s voice, furious and raw: “You killed her.” Khalifa finding me at the door when I stumbled home covered in blood, cleaning me up, taking me to his room, tucking me in.
The soft hum of his voice reciting Quran in the darkness, grounding me when everything else felt unmoored.
The ghost of a kiss pressed to my forehead, disappearing before I could tell whether it was a flashback or wishful thinking.
You’re my light, Lillian.
My phone blared suddenly from the nightstand, yanking me back to the world. I fumbled for it, squinting at the screen blinking with a bunch of missed calls and messages from Kevin.
“Hello?”
“Oh my God, finally. Why weren’t you answering your phone?”
“Sorry, I just woke up. It was a...bad night.”
There was a pause, then he spoke again cautiously. “Yeah, I figured. We’ve all been worried. Dr. R said you just left covered in blood. Are you okay?”
I swallowed hard, the recollection of the OR pressing back in. “No, Kevin. I’m not okay.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. T,” he said. “I hate to do this to you right now, but you have to come to the office. We have a problem.”
I frowned, dread pooling in my stomach. “What’s wrong?”
“Jennie’s husband...Mr. Thompson. He’s suing you.”
The phone slipped from my hand, the bulk of his words dragging me down until I sank into the mattress, deeper and deeper, as if the bed itself were trying to swallow me whole, and for a second I thought maybe I could just keep falling—let the dark take me somewhere safer, somewhere that didn’t hurt.
My fingers flew instinctively to my neck, brushing the red lines still dented into my skin—faint grooves where my hijab had cut into me, where his grip had stolen a breath I was still trying to get back.
I could almost feel it again—the tightness, the panic, my world narrowing to a single desperate inhale.
I forced myself upright, every muscle resisting. My legs swung over the bed, my feet meeting the cold floor, grounding me in a body that felt barely mine. I twisted my hair into a bun, rubbed the lingering fatigue from my eyes, and made my way to the kitchen.
Khalifa was at the stove. When he turned, surprise flickered across his face. “You’re up. Go back to bed, I’ll bring you breakfast.”
“I can’t. I have to go to the office.”
“No, Lillian, you can—”
“He’s suing me for medical malpractice,” I interrupted. “He wants my license suspended indefinitely.”
His eyes widened, the calm in his gaze fading, and he grabbed his phone from the counter.
“Who are you calling?” I asked.
“My lawyer.”
My brows pinched. “The hospital has one. Why do you have a lawyer on speed dial?”
He didn’t answer, cheeks flushing just slightly, his jaw tight. Instead, he said, “Wait for me. I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t have to—” I began, but he cut me off.
“I’m coming, Lillian.” He placed a plate of fluffy and golden pancakes on the island. “Eat first.”
I hesitated, trying to shove down the knot of fear that had settled in my chest. The scent of warm maple syrup drifted up, entirely too comforting for the morning I was currently having.
My throat thickened. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I feel sick.”
He pulled out the chair beside mine and sat down. Without a word, he hooked his foot around the leg of my seat and dragged it closer until my knees slid neatly between his thighs, the space between us disappearing in one deliberate tug.
“Just a few bites,” he said, cutting a perfect triangle from the top slice and holding it up. “How are you supposed to take on the world on an empty stomach?”
I squinted suspiciously at the fork. “You’re bossy.”
“I’m also right,” he countered, nudging my jaw. “So open up.”
Before my brain could form another excuse, he slipped the buttery and sweet bite between my lips. He fed me another. And another.
“See?” he murmured, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “Not so bad.”
I tried to glare, but my traitor self was already opening up for the next bite.
A drop of syrup trickled at the corner of my mouth, and he caught it with his thumb.
Electricity shot through every nerve I owned.
His thumb lingered—just long enough for my imagination to leap to mortifying conclusions.
For one deranged heartbeat, I wanted to part my lips and lick the sugar from his skin.
To pull his hand back just so I could feel that touch again and again and—
The intrusive thought hit so hard and so fast that I startled—mid-chew—and immediately began choking on the stupid bite of pancake like my lungs had simply resigned.
His eyes went wide. “Are you okay?”
I waved him off, coughing through the most undignified attempt at a thumbs-up. “I’m—” cough “—fine,” I croaked, tears pricking because apparently embarrassment activated every bodily function.
He hovered anyway, hands ready to do the Heimlich, panic written across all forty-three muscles in his face.
I forced one last swallow and tried to pretend I hadn’t just almost died because of a raunchy brain glitch.
I wiped my eyes, inhaled carefully, and attempted cool composure, but he was still sitting so close, too close, close enough that I could see the tiny flecks of gold in his irises, the faint worry lines on his forehead, the syrup still clinging to his finger.
And like a complete menace, my mind promptly supplied images of those same hands and what they would feel like on my bare waist, my hips, my—
I froze, horrifyingly disoriented. In my wholesome thirty-two years of life, I had never had an inappropriate thought about another human being. My mind felt like someone had set off a glitter bomb in a monastery.
Growing up in the West, I’d been surrounded by scandalous girl talk—non-Muslim friends whispering about hookups and hookups-in-progress and hookups-to-be.
I had always smiled and nodded politely, secretly wondering what malfunction of biology had skipped me entirely because I'd never had those musings. Not once. About anyone.
But now, staring at this beautiful man who just happened to be my husband, sitting there with concerned eyes and sticky hands, and all those unfamiliar feelings were suddenly loud, and bright, and painfully everywhere—
My thoughts collided, tripped, and staged a full-scale mutiny. I squeezed my eyes shut, slapped my hands over my ears, and let out a small, strangled, “Ah!”
When I opened my eyes, his expression had shifted slowly from panic to pure, baffled confusion. “Lillian? What’s wrong?”
Lillian, habibti, what’s wrong?
Nothing was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
Because I wanted to lean in. Because I wanted him to touch me again. Because I suddenly understood every immodest brunch conversation I’d spent my adult life pretending to understand.
His liquid caramel gaze darkened—just barely—but enough that my breath snagged. And for a split second, I could’ve sworn he was reading every single vulgar thought ricocheting through my head, all of them wildly unsuitable for seven in the morning.
Out loud, I managed, “I told you—I feel sick. But...thanks for breakfast.”
Before my hormones could commit another felony, I bolted—practically sprinting out of the kitchen, fleeing down the hall like I’d just robbed a bakery, and slammed my bedroom door behind me so I could drown in the terrifying realization that Khalifa Nasser had officially awakened whatever part of my brain had been asleep since birth.
Thankfully, a quick, ice-cold shower was enough to shove my frisky fantasies out of my head and the daunting realities of my actual life back in.
Ten minutes later, I stood in front of my closet, towel clutched like a life vest, staring at the riot of sunshine-yellow, pastel-pink, baby-blue optimism hanging there.
I suddenly despised all of it.
I dropped to my knees and started yanking things out—skirts, dresses, cardigans, a sweater that looked like it had been designed by a cupcake.
Fabric piled around me in squeaky little heaps until my fingers brushed the small box I’d shoved into the farthest corner when I moved in.
I popped the lid and a blob of gray, black and beige glowered back at me.
Everything was too big, too shapeless, too mind-numbingly dull.
Clothes meant to smother me. Clothes meant to erase me on purpose.
I wasn’t even sure why I’d brought them here.
This place was supposed to be fresh and uncontaminated by my mother’s poison, and yet here they were, like a bad habit I couldn’t seem to quit.
I held up an army-green, slouchy sweatshirt—the one that used to belong to Adam, once upon a time, before she flung it at me on my ninth-grade picture day—and, because my brain hated me, I imagined calling her.
“A man ripped my hijab off, Mama.”
“And what did you do, Lillian? Were you being too loud? Too rude? Too much? You never think. Honestly, I’m not even surprised.
The way you dress, the way you carry yourself—he probably couldn’t tell you were the doctor.
You insist on looking childish and acting unprofessional, and then you cry when people don’t take you seriously. What did you expect?”
There was always a cause, a reason. The world couldn’t possibly be the problem—only I could.
My jaw tightened. I stuffed the clothes back into the box, chucked it into the closet, and shut the door with more force than necessary.
I crossed to my dresser and dragged out a pair of purple overalls, a striped yellow turtleneck, a fuzzy jacket because it was chilly.
Then my hand landed on a hijab and I just..
.stopped. Held it there for a beat while the hesitation crept in.
Not because of God or me, but because some stupid, entitled man thought he had the right to touch what didn’t belong to him.
And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to put it on.
I hated that. I hated that he got even that much.
So I wrapped it on anyway—loose, easy, one end tossed over my shoulder. Then I jammed a bucket hat over the whole thing because I was embracing chaotic preschool art teacher energy today, and definitely not because I wanted to hide what was on my head.
Khalifa looked up from his phone when I walked out, sweeping his gaze over me—overalls, stripes, fuzz, hijab, hat—and stalled, brows knitting in puzzled concentration, like he was trying to figure out whether I’d lost a bet or joined an experimental theater troupe.
“What?” I snapped, crossing my arms.
His lips quirked. “Nothing.”
“Thought so.”