Ayesha At Last(77)

“I am trying to be honest,” he said. “Should I hide my struggles?”

Ayesha’s face flushed with rage. “Even if I could overlook all of that, I could never marry you because you’re still engaged to my cousin! Or are you so shallow and selfish you’ve already forgotten her?”

Khalid jerked back as if slapped. Ayesha continued, relentless.

“In fact, you can say goodbye to that arrangement as well. Do you think I would allow my cousin to marry into a family who beat their only daughter half to death and then forced her into an arranged marriage in India?”

“Who told you that?” he asked.

“I know what you did to Zareena. You’re a monster, and the worst type of Muslim, a coward and a hypocrite. I wouldn’t marry you if you put a gun to my head!”

She snatched her car keys from his numb fingers and drove out of his life.





Chapter Thirty-Four

Khalid couldn’t move. He was afraid his legs wouldn’t support his weight and he stood still, a mannequin rooted to the spot.

Ayesha thought he was a monster.

He was still engaged to Hafsa.

And what about Zareena? He didn’t even know if his only sister was safe or not. Ayesha was right: He was shallow and selfish.

Shame washed over Khalid in great, heaving waves, and he wanted to bury his face in his hands, but he still couldn’t move.

He was such a fool.

What had Ayesha heard about Zareena?

And what was he thinking, asking another girl to marry him when he was still engaged to her cousin? Or before he heard back from his sister?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Nothing could possibly make this moment worse. Nothing.

“K-Man! Where’s the party at?” Amir asked, Ethan and Mo ambling beside him.

AYESHA was shaking so hard she had to pull over to the side of the road. She buried her face in the steering wheel.

A tap on her window made her look up from her sodden arms, but there was no one there. She wiped her eyes and drove to her neighbourhood park. She didn’t want to go home, and she didn’t trust herself to call Clara. She couldn’t talk to Nana, or Hafsa, or her mother. They would just pat her on the shoulder while she sobbed.

She didn’t want their pity. Ayesha didn’t want to explain or cry, because she was furious. She hadn’t been this angry in a long time. Probably not since she’d first moved to Canada, when her anger had been a dark ball that sat where her heart should be, and she so desperately missed her father.

The park was nearly deserted, only a few teenagers talking quietly by the swings, a mom and toddler by the slides. She sat down on a bench near the geo-dome.

She’d thought Khalid was different from other men, but her first impression had been correct after all. Ayesha recalled the judgmental way he had spoken about her at Bella’s. He looked down on every Muslim who didn’t live up to his narrow views of piety and goodness.

At least with Tarek, you expected it; he was a player, and there was always a game. Even Masood was predictable, with his ridiculous self-importance. But Khalid was the worst. He was a hypocrite, so convinced of his moral superiority that he almost had her fooled.

But what about the way he encouraged you to perform poetry at the conference? a nagging voice whispered in her mind. What about the way he speaks of Zareena? He isn’t a woman-hater. He is a person, complicated and confused. Just like you. But she pushed those thoughts away. She would not be taken in again.

He said he loved her.

He had called her poems “little.”

He said he loved her.

He had insulted her family, thrown his wealth and privilege in her face.

But he said he loved her.

Ayesha stood up from the bench, hands curled into fists. She started running, away from the park, toward the track beside the baseball diamond. Blood pounded in her ears as her feet smacked against the soft brown gravel of the field. She was wearing black heels, but her rage urged her on.

No man had ever told her he loved her before.

Ayesha hated him for that, probably most of all.

All of this would have been different if her father had still been alive. Her mother wouldn’t be at work all the time or have such a negative view on marriage. They might still be living in India. Right now, that sounded like a good alternative to her life here.

If she was still in India, she never would have met Khalid. She would have been at peace.

AMIR sat beside Khalid on the parking lot curb. He had sent Ethan and Mo away to mingle with the other singles. He had never seen his friend like this.

“She hates me,” Khalid said.

“I’m sure she only dislikes you, like, a lot,” Amir said, patting him on the shoulder. “Why did you ask her to marry you?”

“I love her. I thought she’d say yes. I’m such an idiot.”

“Maybe you should have broken things off with her cousin before you made a move.”

Khalid looked up at Amir. “You’re not very good at this.”

Amir’s eyes rested on two figures, a man and a woman, standing just outside the tent. Their heads were together and the man was speaking urgently.

“Isn’t that hottie hijabi your fiancée?” Amir asked, nodding in the couple’s direction. Khalid recognized Hafsa, talking to Tarek.

“You mean my soon-to-be-ex-fiancée.” Khalid got to his feet.