Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
I dream about Fawad.
When I wake up, I cannot recall what the dream was about, but it tastes like memories, like something sure and real, like something I have done and will do again, a thousand times.
I blink the last vestiges of sleep away, my chest tight. Nausea comes over me, and I feel wholly disoriented.
I do not know what is going on. It is like with each beat of my heart, the truth runs further from me, and I cannot catch up to my thoughts, my feelings, any of it.
“Humaira, have you made my coffee yet?” Papa calls from downstairs. I groan, shifting in bed.
“No,” I try to call back, but my voice comes out as a croak. My throat is dry, but even after drinking water from my bedside table, it does not get much better. I press my palm against my neck; my skin is burning.
Oh dear. I may actually be sick.
I close my eyes, feeling drowsy.
“Humaira, where is the Hoffman file?” Papa calls from downstairs, a moment or ten moments later. I hear him rummaging about in his office, things falling to the floor.
I drift back to sleep before I can respond.
“Humaira, my keys?” Papa calls. “Humaira! Humaira!”
The sound grates on my nerves, even as I sleep. I twist in my sheets, agitated.
“Humaira, why aren’t you replying?” Papa asks, tone cross and growing closer. “ Humaira .”
He opens the door, standing in the doorframe.
“ What? ” I cry, eyes flying open. “What, Papa, what?”
He blinks, seeing me still in bed, the wretched expression that must be twisting my face.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, stepping into the room.
“I’m not going to work, I don’t feel well,” I grumble, burying my cheek deeper into my pillow. “It’s fine. You can go.”
I just want him to leave, but he comes closer, pressing the back of his hand against my forehead. His hands feel like ice.
“You have a fever!” he exclaims. His eyes widen, and he pulls out his phone. “Should I call the doctor?” He asks me. “What is the doctor’s name again?” He waves a hand. “It’s no matter. I’ll stay home with you. Do you want something to eat? I can go pick something up. Or?—”
There are too many words coming out of his mouth, and I cannot bear his panic.
“Papa, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine!” he says. “Bedridden! With a fever! I am sure you caught a cold ... did you bring a neck-scarf yesterday? I thought I saw you leave the house without one?—”
“ Papa !” I snap. “I take care of you every day, surely I can take care of myself.”
He blinks, taken aback by my tone.
“Oh.” He nods. “I can still stay,” he says. “I’ll take off of work.”
“I am twenty-four!” I cry. “Please leave!”
I want to be alone right now so I can process my thoughts and emotions and figure out what the hell is going on.
I am panicking, too, but for entirely other reasons, and I do not need Papa’s panic on top of mine.
“But—”
I groan. “You’re suffocating me! Go!”
“You don’t mean that,” he says, even though he looks hurt. He stands perfectly still.
“I do,” I say. “It’s just a little cold. I do not need you to fuss over me now.” I know I should stop there, but I cannot. The words spill out. “What would actually help is if you took care of yourself and did not depend on me. That would be more helpful to me than this drama right now!”
Papa is stunned, but he recovers quickly. With a nod, he says, “Okay.”
He leaves, closing the bedroom door behind him. I am left alone, just like I wanted, but the silence is deafening. I hear my own shuddering breath as I try to calm the guilt in me, as I try to relax.
Downstairs, the front door closes and locks. My eyes well with tears, my head pounding ferociously.
I force myself to breathe in and breathe out. This will not do.
I get out of bed and freshen up, changing out of my pajamas into loungewear, which is basically pajamas, just more stylish. Then, I go down to make myself coffee and toast and take some medicine.
Feeling more in control, I head back to bed, burying into a pile of pillows with The Secret History . I spend the rest of the morning reading, and when I’ve finished the book, I am stunned to find it’s only been a few hours.
It feels like I’ve traveled thousands of miles yet all the while I’ve been in the same spot.
There was a bit of romance, like Fawad said, between the protagonist and one of his friends, and those were some of my favorite parts. I liked the way he saw her. Even if they don’t end up together, he really sees her.
When I finish I want to read it again already. I loved it, even though it was not what I expected or would have chosen for myself, I loved it, and I wonder what it means that Fawad was able to choose this for me, I wonder what any of it means.
And it’s driving me crazy. Is he thinking of me, too? What was all of this, and all of that, and everything that has happened, and everything that could happen?
I don’t know. So I do the only reasonable thing: I go back to sleep.
I do not wake up until well past midday, when it sounds like the front door is opening and closing gently. It must be Papa. I am glad he’s come; I should not have been angry with him earlier.
It’s different when Naadia snaps at him because he is used to her moodiness and comes equipped to deal with it. From me, however, such crossness is a harsh blow indeed.
I wait for him to come upstairs, watching from my bed. My door is closed, but any second now, the handle will turn, and Papa will enter, and all will be right as rain.
But the handle does not turn.
Papa does not come.
Perhaps Papa has forgotten a file. Or he is simply ignoring me.
So be it. I do not particularly want to get out of bed as it is.
Though I am starving. The toast I ate this morning is not doing much for me, despite the handsome helping of jam I had lathered across it. I want to eat comfort food, but I’m too lazy to get up and go make any. I feel wretched, truly, and it is twice fold because I can recognize it and do nothing about it.
So I nestle back under the covers, determined to sleep the day away.
But just as I am drifting off, I hear a light knocking on my bedroom door.
“It’s me,” a voice says gently.
My heart stops.
I jump up, then out of bed and head to the door. Maybe I’m delusional and imagining things. Even so, my heartbeat pounds as I lean a hot cheek against the cool door, listening.
“Uncle told me to check on you,” he says. I gasp, leaning closer. I can hear him breathing on the other side. He knocks again. “Humaira,” he says, voice soft. I shiver, hearing him say my name.
“Just a second!” I manage to say, going to tie my hair up and put a scarf on. I sneak a look at my appearance in the mirror: my eyes are a little puffy and my nose is red. Fantastic. But I do not worry about it; instead, my hand goes to the doorknob.
Then, I stop.
He has never been in my room. This is certainly dangerous.
“I’ll meet you downstairs,” I say.
“Okay.” I listen to the sound of footsteps receding, my pulse racing.
When I head down, he is sitting at the countertop in the kitchen, drinking a mug of coffee. He’s wearing a button up shirt without a tie, the top button undone.
“Hey,” I say. He stands as I enter, then pulls out a chair for me. I sit down, and he pushes a bowl of cut up fruit my way.
“Yuck,” I say, making a face, reaching for his coffee instead.
“You need nutrients,” he says, deftly moving his coffee out of reach before I can steal a sip.
I frown. “No fair.”
“What’s not fair is you getting sick because of your own silliness,” he says with a frown. He is annoyed, but I can tell it is more out of concern than anything.
“I’m fine,” I say, leaning back against my chair. I wave a hand nonchalantly, then point an accusatory finger. “Though I should have expected you would say I told you so.”
“I did not exactly say, I told you so ,” he says, a small smile playing on his lips. “But, I did tell you so.”
“And there you have gone and said it.”
I lean forward to put my arms on the table, then rest my head on my arm and look over at him. With a pitiful pout, I reach for his coffee again. “Please.”
I bat my eyelashes for full effect, but he is either immune to my charms or truly cares too much about my health to succumb to my infamous pout. Tragic.
“Have you eaten anything?” Fawad asks. I shake my head. “Would you like some tomato soup? Grilled cheese?”
My mouth juts open, and I lift my head to give him an astonished look. How did he know? That’s exactly what I want right now.
He flashes me a brilliant smile. “Give me some credit.”
He gets up, then does something with the kettle and a bag of leaves he pulls from his pocket. A few minutes later, he hands me a cup of tea, which smells like jasmine and mint.
“The mint is from my garden,” he says. “Drink that, while I make your food.”
I obey, sipping the sweet tea in silence as I watch him cook. He rolls his sleeves up, showcasing his forearms, then washes and sets tomatoes, onions, red peppers, and garlic on a tray. While that roasts in the oven, he shreds blocks of cheese, making the sandwiches.
When the vegetables are roasted, he transfers them to a pot and purees them, then adds in heavy cream and basil leaves from the fridge, telling me how he is growing basil in his garden, and how I must stop buying it from the store.
I do not respond, really, I simply watch him. The sunlight washing over his brown skin, the glint of light on his glasses. The way he dips a spoon into the soup, blowing on it gently before bringing the liquid to his lips to taste.
The furrow of his brows as he thinks for a moment before sprinkling some more salt in. The movement of his long, lean body. The shift of the muscles of his back, his arms. The ring on the slender third finger of his right hand. How another ring might look mirrored on the other.
Watching him arouses something ancient in me, a feeling I have never felt yet recognize all the same – something irrefutable and bone-deep. It does not leave me even as we eat together, nor after, when we shift to the family room and I lie down on the sofa. He buries me beneath a fortress of blankets and pillows.
“Feel better?” he asks.
It is strange to be looked after like this. I am usually not fond of such fuss, but with Fawad, I do not mind giving him some of the control. I look at him, his watchful dark eyes, the angle of his jaw, the purse of his soft lips.
He sits down beside my legs, which are covered in blankets, but still; if I stretched, my feet could be in his lap. A little voice dares me to do it.
“I do feel better.”
“Have you taken medicine?”
“It’s just a little cold,” I say flippantly. “Nothing to worry over.”
“Is that it?” he asks.
“Really, I’m just sad,” I say before I can stop myself.
His eyes are so warm and genuine, I can’t help myself from telling him the truth. I stop once the words have left my mouth, regretting them at once. I’ve never spoken thus with any man; I rarely speak thus with Naadia or Phuppo.
Around him, I am uninhibited: no facades, no pretenses, it is all truth, and that frightens me. Perhaps I am a coward, and the only reason I am so well-liked is because I am careful about what I show people. Beloved because I make myself lovable. But what about the truth?
If he sees who I really am, will he stay?
I shift uncomfortably, closing my eyes. “Will you go, please?”
“Why?” he asks, voice gentle.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” I say, voice soft. He doesn’t respond, and I open my eyes again, to see if he’s heard.
His eyes are steady. He has heard me. “Why don’t you want me to see you like this?”
“I don’t have the energy to be good-natured.”
He gives me a puzzled glance. “Surely I have seen you in a worse state.”
He is right. I rub my nose against a blanket, covering half my face in the fabric. My pulse beats erratically, uneven.
“You do not need to pretend,” he says, voice soft. “Not with me.”
I turn to look at him, really look at him, and I feel something sharp in my chest, something blazing, like a shooting star, magical and bright – or a shooting arrow, sharp and painful. I cannot tell which.
I don’t know how I could have missed it, how I could have seen him thousands of times before and never felt this: this pain, sudden and swift, piercing through me.
Everyone has always thought him handsome, and I always found him perfectly tolerable, but now – now I cannot fathom him as anything but beautiful.
It is his soul that I see, and my own that comes roaring to the surface in response.
Something changes in the air between us. His eyelids lower, and he leans forward.
With a gasp, I jolt back, and so does he.
He shakes his head.
Was he about to kiss me? Is that what that was? Well, that was new.
He should go. This was certainly against the rules.
But I don’t tell him to. Perhaps we only make rules to see who we are willing to break them for.
He gets up and leaves, and I release a breath, trying to steady myself. He returns a few moments later, and when he does, there’s a thermometer in his hands. He sits back down, leaning over my legs toward my mouth.
“Open up,” he orders. I do as instructed, and his gaze falls to my mouth. His lips part as I lift my tongue, and for a moment, he doesn’t do anything but stare at my lips. My cheeks heat.
Then, with a shake of his head, he sticks the thermometer in, shifting his focus to it.
Surely, my temperature will increase now.
“How do you feel?” he asks, taking the thermometer out to check. “Your fever has gone down.”
It surely doesn’t feel that way.
“It’s nothing,” I say, waving a hand. “Just a little cold.”
“Good.” He pauses, then looks at me. Something in his expression makes me stop breathing entirely. “I believe I am ill as well, though my affliction is of a different sort.”
His eyes burn into mine. I suddenly feel feverish once more.
Instinctively, I press my cold fingers against the pulse in my throat. The act centers me when my emotions are spilling out of hand.
With my fingers curled around my throat, it feels like I am holding my heart, the quick and steady pulse just beneath my fingertips.
And if I can hold it, I can contain it.
But this cannot be contained.