Chapter Fourteen #3
She didn’t want any of this. Not her mother’s ill-advised interfering or her father’s peacemaking.
She definitely didn’t want Barb to attribute Tom’s reappearance in Wolf Run to their “relationship,” as if she were the sort of good little woman who could inspire a family reunion.
Sameera knew her role and who she was—the black-sheep daughter of a respectable desi family, the one who had cut her parents off for years.
The one who had terrible, terrible taste in men.
Her pattern of avoiding conflict and keeping secrets hadn’t started with Hunter.
Her first boyfriend in middle school had told the entire student body that she was his girl, and she had been so flattered to be picked, to be wanted, that she had gone along with it for an entire week, until he showed up to school holding hands with another girl.
Then there was her high school crush, who had “let” her do his English homework for two semesters while publicly mocking her to his friends. A few others in high school and undergrad were more typical relationships, though they hadn’t lasted long.
Each time, Nadiya had counseled her to guard her heart, to be less naive and willing to believe her boyfriends’ lies.
Hunter’s betrayal was only the latest heartbreak in a long line of them.
In the end, it hadn’t even been that surprising, really.
On some level, maybe she thought she had deserved it all because she hadn’t been the daughter her family wanted.
Tom’s estrangement from his family and her own situation as his faux-girlfriend were both bringing back a host of unwelcome memories she had no idea how to process—not without Nadiya.
As supportive and kind as Bee was, she didn’t know her like her sister.
A sudden wave of fatigue hit her, and she cleared snow from a bench in the backyard and sat down.
She was tired. It wasn’t just the jet lag, or the discomfort of being in a strange house far from home, or even the stress of keeping track of her family, or the realization that she would have to work all evening and maybe even all night to make a dent in her billable hours and to put the finishing touches on her pitch for Andy Shaikh.
All right, it was all of that, but also so much more. Bee was right: This had to do with Hunter. More than that, it had to do with what he represented.
Hunter’s departure had blown down the house of straw that was her life.
While it was true she hadn’t seen the signs of his gambling addiction and the serious financial problems it caused, a truer assessment could be that she hadn’t wanted to see them.
Hadn’t wondered why they never had any money left every month, despite their reasonably good jobs.
Even before he abandoned her, their relationship wasn’t perfect.
But there had been happy moments, too, when he would tease her and hold her close and make her laugh.
He could be surprisingly generous, such as when he came home with concert tickets to a favorite band, or decided to splurge on a fancy dinner out or take her dancing.
Hunter was her first love, her first long-term relationship, and she had thought the highs and unpredictability of being with him were all normal.
It wasn’t until she and Bee had grown close and Sameera had a chance to observe the easy camaraderie and deep affection between her friend and Lorenzo that she started to suspect the anxious overthinking Hunter always seemed to inspire in her wasn’t healthy. And yet she had stayed.
Over time, his comments about her family started to resonate with a small, resentful part of her that agreed with his words: Why didn’t her parents try harder to understand her?
Why hadn’t they talked about things like relationships and dating when she was younger?
Had they truly not realized she was struggling with her faith and identity?
She started to agree with Hunter’s assessment, even when she knew it was unfair: Her parents were old-fashioned, stuck in their ways; they were too stubborn to change; they would never understand her, so why bother trying?
As for her parents’ part, they allowed her to drift away.
They accepted her excuses. When they learned that she was in a long-term relationship, their hurt and anger and—yes, she could admit it—resentment over her absence had led to the sort of knock-down, drag-out fight that was difficult to forget.
She could recognize now that they had all made mistakes: her by avoiding confrontation and tamping down her resentment and hurt instead of dealing with it, and her parents by not making space for who their daughter truly was and how she lived her life.
Two weeks after Hunter disappeared, Sameera had realized the extent of his financial crimes.
She had to take on an extra job, freelancing as a consultant, which was hard and unpredictable and sometimes meant she got only three or four hours of sleep at night.
Soon, she was working seven days a week, canceling on dinners and brunch dates with friends, not picking up the phone when they called.
She couldn’t even call her parents for help, because they weren’t talking at the time.
Overlaying that nightmarish time was her bone-deep shame.
Her intimate partner had taken advantage of her, betrayed her in devastating fashion, and then left her to pick up the pieces of her life.
Worst of all, her parents had been right all along—Hunter had been using her. None of it was real after all.
If it weren’t for her sister’s encouragement, nagging, and arranging that first awkward meeting, Sameera knew she would not have Tahsin, Naveed, and Esa back in her life.
No wonder she was so tired.
A movement caught her eye in the fading light.
Esa, dressed in his bright-green parka, slowly picked his way through the woods behind the creek, Calvin by his side.
From the exaggerated way Esa looked around him before disappearing into a copse of trees, she could tell her brother was up to something. At least he was having fun.
She had some time until Abu Isra and his family arrived for dinner. Her parents had things under control in the kitchen. Tom would have cleared out of the guesthouse by now—he was spending time with his good friend Emily, according to Barb. And Esa was having fun with Cal.
It was time to stop daydreaming and focus on the important things. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to have a heart-to-heart talk with her parents like she wanted, but at least she could be ready to pitch Andy the moment he arrived. For now, that would have to be enough.