“Why?” She leaned forward a little, the spark of an idea igniting inside of her, a hope she couldn’t believe she was stupid enough to entertain. Nonetheless, it grabbed hold of her and she couldn’t ignore it. “Samir, why do you care so much?”
He frowned, eyes skimming her face. “I promised I wouldn’t hurt you,” he repeated, as though it had become his mantra.
But she shook her head, impatient. “Don’t talk aboutme.I want to know about you. Why does the idea of our marriage suddenly terrifyyou.”
“Because it’s obvious that marriage to me is the last thing you want.”
“That’s not true,” she contradicted. “For our baby, I can see the merits to this marriage. The importance of it. I have made the choice willingly.”
“But it will make you miserable,” he half-yelled, standing then, stalking away from her a few steps then stopping, body frozen. “I can’t. I can’t do that to you.”
Her heart was hammering now, the hope she held fragile but persistent. “Samir, listen to me.” She had to be brave. She was terrified of getting hurt again, but it was obvious that one of them had to face how they felt. “It’s not the idea of marriage that upsets me.”
He stared at her, perplexed.
She stood, moving to stand opposite him, needing to be more level with him.
“Do you understand why I ended things with us?”
He frowned, nodding, so she almost laughed, because it was clear that he didn’t get it.
“Samir, when I said I wanted more from you than you could give, it wasn’t about a commitment, a marriage.”
He stared straight into her eyes.
“I wanted you to love me.” She bit down on her lip, shaking inside. “But I knew then we could never be together long term, so there were two options: either you’d never love me, and leave me eventually, or you’d love me and still have to leave me. Neither was particularly palatable, so I ended it. Like ripping off a Band Aid, I thought it would be better to end it sooner rather than later.”
He crossed his arms over his chest.
“But I didn’t stop loving you.”
His eyes narrowed.
“The reason this marriage terrifies me is because I still love you, and I don’t know how to be married to someone who doesn’t love me back. You said you wouldn’t hurt me, but that very situation is hurtful. If I seem sad or troubled, it’s because I’m trying to work out how to make this work without totally annihilating myself in the process. That’s all.”
Silence sparked between them, and the hope in her chest expanded and then collapsed, but stayed ignited, just a little, as she waited, breath held, for Samir to speak.
“So, loving me makes it hard for you to marry me,” he said after a pause, nodding slowly.
“It sounds contradictory, but surely you can understand—,”
“Yes,” he agreed quickly, frowning. “Cora—,”
“It’s okay,” she rushed to interrupt. “I’m not expecting you to say anything back right now. I just wanted you to understand why this is hard for me. I never planned to marry again, after Alf, and I suppose, in the back of my mind, I thought that if I did, it would be because I’d fallen so deeply in love with someone who loved me back so much, who would always love me…it’s a childish dream, really. Maybe all marriages are the stuff of fantasy.”
He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled, his head shaking just a little and then, when he opened his eyes and looked at her, really looked at her, he smiled. The most glorious smile she’d ever seen.
“What?” She demanded quickly. “What is it?”
“We are both the biggest idiots that have ever been born.”
She stared at him, aghast.
“I have come to you again and again. After our first night together, I came back. Weeks later, I came back again. Like a rubber band, I could not stay away from you. And when I’m not with you, you’re here,” he pointed to his head and then, dropped his hand to his chest. “And here.”
“You ended things with me because you loved me and thought we had no future. I walked away from you because I loved you and thought we had no future. You came to Al Medina and wanted us to be friends, but how could I ever be ‘just friends’ with the woman who made my heart explode? When my future was pointed in a different direction to you? But it was never a different direction—you would always have been my true north, Cora. I truly believe that. I do not think I could have married someone else, no matter how ‘suitable’ my government decided she was. Plans are not reality and standing here now, I truly believe that every single path, even without a pregnancy, would have brought us to this moment eventually.”
Hope warred with disbelief—a protective mechanism she was reluctant to let go.