Chapter 32
Thankfully, he’s not hard to find.
Even if I didn’t already know about his fondness for bridges, I’m able to spot Harun’s lonely figure on the usually crowded footbridge overlooking the waterfalls from a mile away.
He has his head buried in his arms on the rustic wooden railing of the footbridge, unable to hear my padded footsteps over the latent instrumentals of what has somehow turned into my engagement party, the voices of half the city, and the ceaseless flow of the water below.
Cautious of splinters, I tiptoe over to him and stand at his side, our arms an inch apart. Droplets of water spray across my skin, raising goose bumps across it, and I will him to close the distance so I can nestle into his warmth, but he doesn’t.
I break the silence first, speaking around the lump in my throat. “Harun… I had no idea Nayim was planning all of this.”
“You two haven’t talked?” he asks without glancing up.
I shake my head, then feel foolish when I realize he can’t see. My eyes are burning for some unfathomable reason, even though I know, I know , that if I can just convince him of this, convince him of the truth, everything will be fine again. “I haven’t even seen him since the picnic, but I’m going to straighten all this out, okay?”
This time he says nothing, and despair creeps past all the logic I’d been assuring myself with earlier. I reach for his hand, but the weight of Nayim’s ring on my finger sends another wave of shame through me and I drop my arm back to my side. Heat races to my cheeks. “Please… I love you, Harun. I, just… I don’t know how this happened.”
“I love you, too,” he croaks back.
I can’t help sucking in a relieved lungful of sea-salt air. “Good. That’s—I’m glad. We can figure this out.” I take several more deep, shuddering breaths. “We can figure this out,” I say again, but I’m not sure if I’m saying it to him or to myself.
He peers up at me at last, eyes red-rimmed behind his glasses. “No, you should—you should accept his proposal, Zahra.”
“What?” His words are a punch to the gut. I feel dizzy. Nauseous. I stare at him uncomprehendingly.
Desperately.
“You don’t,” I begin, and my breath hitches, “want me anymore?”
He turns toward me, jaw set. “It’s because I love you that I have to let you go.”
Understanding floods me. “No.”
“Zahra—”
“No!” I interrupt, balling my hands into fists. “People who love each other try, Harun. They don’t ‘fall on their swords.’?” I lift up my fingers in an attempt to do air quotes, but my hands are too clenched to do it properly. I can feel my body shutting down, shutting off, entirely, and move to cling to the railing to anchor myself.
He doesn’t get to quit on us. Not after everything we’ve been through to get here.
His shoulders tense as he steels himself to answer. I feel my own grow rigid in response. “I can’t promise you the kinds of things Nayim can. Can’t promise you forever when I barely have a grip on now. Who knows if we’ll be together in a month, much less for the rest of our lives?”
“Wow.” Sarcasm drips from the word as my fingers tighten on the railing enough to cut into my palm. “So that’s how much you love me, huh? You can’t imagine lasting for more than a month?”
Harun shakes his head frantically. “No, it’s—not that. I meant it when I said you were the best thing that’s happened to me.” He bites his lip, and when his eyes rise to mine, they’re filled with fire. “But I’m only eighteen! The last time I thought I saw a future with someone, we broke up after two years . Who’s to say the same won’t happen with us in a year, a month, hell, maybe a few weeks from now?”
I clench my jaw, but don’t answer.
More softly, he continues, “ Then what , Zahra? I can’t let you give up a sure thing for a maybe.”
The defeat in his voice snaps me out of my trance.
Releasing the railing to encroach into his personal space, I glare up at him in spite of the tears that trail down my cheeks. “I’m so sick and tired of everyone trying to let me do anything. I don’t need you or Nayim or my mother or anyone to save me. I’ve been doing a damn good job of that myself!”
“I know,” he whispers, lifting a hand to cradle my face. It falls away and swings listless at his side when I recoil. “I—that’s exactly what I love about you, Zahra. You care more than anyone else I’ve ever met. But I’m just… me. I’m not someone who can promise you all your wildest dreams. Not like Nayim. If you need to marry him for your family, I won’t stop you, no matter how much it hurts me to let you go.”
“I chose you,” I reply, spitting the words. “I chose you, but you’re not choosing me.”
“I am, though,” he says sadly. “I’m choosing the future where you’ll be the happiest. God, you get to be a literal princess married to a guy who’s head over heels for you. Who came scowl for you. He can give you everything you need.”
I scowl down at the churning waves, hating how he manages to sound so sensible.
My silence makes him gnaw on his lower lip for a moment, before he murmurs, “A good guy, no matter how much I wish I could hate him. A future with him is best for everyone you care about.” He offers me a tragic smile. “And you know it too. That’s why you didn’t tell Nayim no, right?”
I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. “I… that’s not—”
I want to dispute this. I want to list all the reasons why I didn’t immediately reject Nayim. I was shocked speechless. I didn’t want to humiliate him. I didn’t want to embarrass myself or my family. Especially in front of the entire freaking city.
But… my family…
Could they have been the real reason why I held my tongue?
Have those ill omens the aunties gave me during the community picnic metamorphosed into a Greek choir in the back of my mind?
Harun looks away when I don’t respond. “If you tell Nayim no, the whole community will be watching us. And they’ll hate us if we don’t end up getting engaged. Then you’ll be the girl who snubbed a prince for the ‘New-Money Emons’ and couldn’t make it work. I don’t care about me, but if I’m the reason you can’t find someone else, I won’t be able to live with myself.” He rakes his hand through his hair. “God, I don’t know if I could live with that kind of pressure.”
“I thought you didn’t believe all that bullshit about my only value being as someone’s wife,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
“I don’t.” He tries to smile, but his eyes shimmer behind his glasses. “If there’s anyone in the world who deserves a happily-ever-after with the most eligible bachelor in Bangladesh, it’s you, Zahra. I can’t take that from you.”
I look down at the water, training my eyes on the waves below. I thought Harun was different. I thought he understood me.
“You have so much to offer,” he murmurs, turning away from me. “That’s why I can’t hold you back. I’m sorry if you don’t believe me, but I really do love you, Zahra. Enough to live with a broken heart if it means you’ll get everything you ever wanted. Everything you need .”
I hate everything about this conversation. About this situation. About my life. I hate that I even see the merit in his twisted, backward logic. I hate that I don’t feel like I have a choice. That he’s making my choice for me.
Instead all that comes out is, “I hate you.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice breaks. “Goodbye, Zahra.”
The second he’s gone, I can admit that I was lying when I claimed to hate him. I love him so much, it feels as though my ribs can’t contain it all. Like my heart might explode into star-stuff and fleck the night sky with its jagged shards. Watching him walk away hurts so much more than it did with Nayim, but there’s anger stoking in the hollow that remains in my chest.
How could he tell me he loves me, then abandon me all the same? How could he tell me it was for me? If it’s for my sake, then why does it feel like I’ll never be okay again?
Why does everyone keep leaving?
I crumple to the wooden planks of the bridge with the railing at my back and cry, with only the roar of the waterfalls to keep me company.