Forbidden by Faith

by Negeen Papehn

  There was an ease I felt with Ben that seemed oddly natural, and somewhat unnerving. It reminded me in ways of how I felt about Maziar. I began to wonder if there really was only one soul mate for each person, or if souls were actually made up of pieces, each one being able to connect with a different individual. Maybe who you ended up with had less to do with who was “the one” and more to do with timing and the one you found at that moment.

  Somewhere around one in the morning, we headed home. As I lay on Sandra’s couch staring at the ceiling, I found myself tangled in thoughts of Ben instead of Maziar. For the first time, I allowed myself to see the possibility of a different outcome.

  Chapter Eleven

  Life continued to move forward, taking Maziar and me with it. Although I toyed with the idea of another man, of a relationship less complicated than ours, the moments were fleeting. The love I felt for Maziar was undeniable, so I still couldn’t find the strength to leave. Soon, I began to ignore all the reasons threatening to tear us apart, convincing myself that they didn’t exist, until, eventually, I began to believe it.

  My parents did the same. Mom ignored my grandmother’s relentless complaints, choosing to believe that Maziar’s family was as accepting as they were. But one year into the relationship, she became suspicious, worried why they still hadn’t met. I was questioned frequently about the infamous dinner, each time with Mom’s eyes staring holes into my excuses. She knew nothing of the past few horrific interactions I’d had with Maziar’s family. I’d kept them secret, knowing that if she were to find out the truth, she’d want me to break up with him.

  Maziar and I frequently discussed our parents meeting because it was inevitable. He always acted nonchalant, as if it were a simple task to orchestrate, but he never followed through. No plans were made; no dates set.

  One morning, when we were lying in bed at his apartment, I decided to broach the topic of “where we stand.” I needed some stability in the direction we were heading, an anchor I could hold onto. I was hoping he’d be honest, come up with a plan on how we were going to deal with his parents. Up until then, all he’d ever said was that it would be fine.

  Neda and I had become friends. She was the only one telling me the truth, filling me in on the drama on their home front. Maziar was confiding in her, so she would tell me things he couldn’t. Because of her, I knew the situation was much worse than he was letting on.

  I was determined to get Maziar to talk.

  “Have you asked your parents about doing dinner with mine?” I asked as we lay in bed. My hand rested on his chest, and I felt the muscles beneath my fingers tense. Even though I knew his reaction wasn’t good, I had to know the truth. I couldn’t pretend things were okay any longer, not with Mom’s questions. I forced myself to move forward.

  “I was thinking we could go to that Italian restaurant we love.”

  “I talked to my mom, but they’re so busy this month. We couldn’t come up with a date,” he said immediately, his face a passive mask. When I didn’t respond, he continued, “We’re going to sit down later and come up with a good night.”

  I felt the irritation boil up inside me. I knew he was lying. His nostrils flared when he didn’t tell the truth. They were flaring now.

  “That’s surprising. I didn’t know your parents were that social,” I replied dryly, daring him to lie to me again.

  “They aren’t usually. Just an off month, I guess,” he answered, as he caressed my arm with his fingertips. He leaned in and gently kissed my neck. “I don’t want to talk about my parents. I can think of better things to do.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and tried to pull me close. It took so much restraint to stop him. I wanted to get lost in his embrace instead of face this potentially fatal conversation. In the pit of my stomach I knew what was coming, every fiber of my being screaming for me to stop. I needed more time. I didn’t know how I was going to walk away from him when he finally said what I’d known all along. How would I make it through this horrific collision of my heart? The answer was simple, I wouldn’t. He was going to break me, and I would never recover.

  I sat up in bed to disconnect from him physically. I needed to think, the electrical current between us was making it hard to do so. My back was to him when I spoke.

  “Why is it so hard to set up a dinner, Maziar?”

  He didn’t answer. His silence consumed me, crushing me under its weight. My ears filled with the furious thumping of my heart like a base drum. When he finally spoke, it felt like his words were coming through water, dulled and hard to hear.

  “They refuse to meet your parents. My mom says it’s a waste of time since we won’t be getting married.” He sat there frozen, waiting for the avalanche to fall.

  His words felt like a punch to the gut, making me sick to my stomach. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Then, I began to cry, as the year of hoping for a miracle crumbled around me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t expected this, but to hear him finally say it made it real.

  “Sara, let me in. Please,” he said, standing behind the locked door.

  I could hear the pain in his voice, but instead of feeling sympathy, it just made me furious. The anger surged through my body like a bolt of hot lightning. How dare he take me down this path after I’d told him not to? How could he do this to me?

  I stood up and opened the door, watching fear spread across his face at the state I was in. At that moment, there was a part of me that truly hated him for doing this to me, and he could see it.

  “How could you?” I asked. “I told you I didn’t want to start this if your parents were against it, but you didn’t listen! You kept saying it was all going to be okay, but it isn’t, is it, Maziar?”

  “Sara, let me explain,” he begged.

  “No! I don’t want to hear it. There’s nothing for you to explain. Your family are

  close minded jerks, and there’s no changing that. And you’re an asshole for knowing it and doing this to me anyway!” I screamed through my tears, my words drenched in the anger I felt.

  “Sara, please stop. Let’s sit down and talk about this,” he urged, as I hastily packed my bag.

  “No!” I yelled again. I could only see red now, the desire to leave him with a deep, gashing wound suffocating me. I looked straight at him and steadied my gaze, locking eyes with his. “I hate you for doing this to me,” I said, in an oddly calm tone, out of place in the moment. I watched his face crumble, inflicting the last fatal blow.

  It didn’t matter that each step sent daggers into my soul. I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other, determined to make it to my car. I pushed past him, but he grabbed my hand, stopping me. I looked at him with such vehemence in my eyes that he stood speechless. Then, he let go. I turned and walked out. He had broken me, but I was going to be the one who left him.

  I made it two blocks before I had to pull over because I could no longer see through the tears. I sobbed until I couldn’t cry anymore. Then, I just sat there and stared into the darkness, clutching my body in an attempt to shelter it from the excruciating pain tearing through me.

  I had known this would happen all along. I wanted to hate Maziar, to blame him for everything going wrong. I wanted it to be his fault that our relationship had broken. But I knew it wasn’t. I knew I was to blame as well, for refusing to accept our circumstances, even if I couldn’t admit it.

  I finally pulled myself together and drove home. It was late enough that my parents were already asleep, allowing me to sneak into my room undetected. I lay on my bed, wrapping my body around the pillows in an attempt to cushion the blow.

  The heat of my broken heart tore through me each time my heart banged against my chest. I felt like my lungs were constricting, as if each breath took an enormous amount of strength to inhale. The end was finally here, and now that the truth was staring me in the face, I could do nothing to ignore it.

  Chapter Twelve

  I spent the next three days hiding in bed, too broken to
face the world. I feigned the stomach flu, which wasn’t too difficult because I regularly got sick at the thought of having lost Maziar forever. My mom was concerned but knew not to push me. Maybe the crazy, wide-eyed look of a trapped animal she saw in my face tipped her off. Whatever the reason, I appreciated being left to my own devices.

  Maziar had been calling and texting consistently. On day three, I finally picked up. I knew it was a bad idea. I was already so weak and defeated that I’d have no defenses against him. I guess that’s the human flaw, giving into your weaknesses even when they aren’t good for you. But I was a full-fledged addict, and I desperately needed another hit.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice washing over me like sunshine after a storm.

  “Hi,” was all I could muster up in return.

  “Sara, we need to talk. Please meet me somewhere…anywhere. Please.”

  “Maziar, I can’t. There’s nothing else to say,” I said, deflated.

  “You’re wrong. There’s so much more to say, baby. Please.”

  I don’t know if it was the fact that I’d waited days to hear his voice, or the fact that when he said “baby” it created a direct line into my heart. I don’t know if it was the desperation I could hear in his words, or that I just wanted any reason to see him again. I knew I should’ve said no, that seeing him would only kill me, but instead I heard myself say, “Okay.”

  We made plans to meet at Starbucks at seven. With the crowd, I’d be forced to keep my composure and wouldn’t be able to have a breakdown. I wasn’t interested in showing him what he’d really done to me.

  I foolishly held on to the fairytale notion that maybe he’d somehow convinced his parents to love me overnight. I knew it was farfetched, but I was desperate for this nightmare to be just that, a dream I could wake up from.

  I hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling for a while. When it was time for me to get ready, my body felt like lead, weighing me down into the mattress. I pushed against the cushion with all my strength, heaving myself off the bed. With the power of sheer will, I forced myself to shower. I stared at my makeup, knowing I needed to use it. I had dark rings around my eyes from the lack of sleep, and my face looked gaunt from not having eaten for days. I had no energy. I finally gave up and just threw my hair up in a bun.

  When I walked in, I saw him sitting in the far back corner, in as secluded a spot as he could find. I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. A deep surge of pain was threatening to knock me down. The room began to spin. I steadied myself by leaning against the wall. As I watched him, I noticed his disheveled hair and the same dark circles around his eyes.

  When he saw me, he stood up, awkwardly fidgeting in his spot, the muscles in his legs twitching to approach me but too unsure to make a move. I made it to the table before he could decide what to do. He reached out to hug me. I knew I would shatter if I let him touch me, so I grabbed his arm midair and slid down into my seat.

  For a long time, we just looked at each other, neither one knowing how to put into words the plethora of emotions we were feeling. I had never seen Maziar look so sad. It was that true, deep sadness you felt down into your bones, when you’d been forced to make a sacrifice you didn’t want to. That was what we were being pushed to do. For no other reason than old traditions, he was being torn from my life, and it felt like I was being crushed into nothing but dust.

  I knew deep down that I would walk away from this never being the same. Again, that surge of pain washed over me, and I almost hunched over in my seat, grabbing my chest. I had to close my eyes and breathe. When I looked back up at him, I could see tears running down his face. That was when I came undone. I could no longer hold onto to my composure, and I just began to cry, fiercely sobbing with all disregard for the people around me. I sat there crying as if I’d just been delivered tragic news. In a sense, I had.

  When he came over to my side of the table to hold me, I didn’t stop him. Instead, I turned and buried my face in his neck, trying desperately to freeze us in time. I clutched onto his shoulders, frantically searching my mind for a solution. But I came up empty. There was no way out of this darkness.

  Maziar helped me up, and we went to go sit in his car. I tried to get myself together, realizing that tears couldn’t help us. The situation we found ourselves in was now our reality, and no amount of sadness could change that. Regardless, the pain in my chest was unbearable. I lay in the passenger seat, staring at nothing, until he spoke.

  “I’ve been fighting with my parents for months, but they won’t budge. I don’t know if they’re ever going to come around,” he said quietly.

  I turned, catching a tear rolling silently down his cheek.

  “Why did you do it, then?” I said, turning to stare out the window again. I couldn’t watch him break down any longer. It was too much.

  “Do what?” he asked.

  “Tell me they’d be okay with it, even though you knew they wouldn’t.” I needed to know.

  He didn’t say anything at first, just looked out the windshield at the people walking by. Without turning towards me, he said, “Can I be honest?”

  “I wish you would be.”

  “I didn’t know we’d get this far. When I met you, I had no idea I’d end up falling in love with you.”

  “So you decided to take the chance because you were attracted to me?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around what he was saying. I knew I should be angry, but I didn’t have anything left to give to that enormous emotion. I was just numb.

  “I know it was selfish. And I know it was stupid. If I could go back, Sara, and do it all over again, I would have walked away just to save you from all of this. I swear.” He turned reaching for my hand. His eyes were pleading for me to understand. “I couldn’t walk away. There was something about you, I’ve never felt that way about someone right when I met them. It was like I was being pulled to you. I know it’s no excuse.”

  I couldn’t deny the connection between us, but I knew it wasn’t a good enough reason to take me down this path and break my heart. I tried desperately to find the hate I knew I should be feeling, but I was just so tired I couldn’t manage it.

  “Don’t leave.”

  “What?” I asked, looking at him in confusion. How was I supposed to stay, now that I knew his parents were against us?

  “Please don’t leave. We can figure this out. I know we can,” he begged.

  I knew that was a lie, that there was no way forward from here. We couldn’t stay in denial any longer, pretending things would somehow work themselves out. Ultimately, he’d have to choose and I knew it was an impossible choice to ask of him. No matter what I thought of his parents, they were still the people who had raised him. His mother was the one who’d spent sleepless nights with him when he was sick, who’d nurtured every wound, every loss, and every heartbreak he had felt until this moment. His father was the one who’d never missed a soccer game, played basketball with him in the backyard, and taken him to buy his first car. To walk away from his foundation would only lead to destruction later. Despite what he’d done, I loved him too much to let him do that.

  I leaned in this time, wrapping my arms around him, letting him get lost in my embrace. I don’t know how long we stayed that way. Then, he looked into my eyes, with that look that was only mine, and he kissed me. We got lost in each other, in the darkness, one last time.

  When it was over, neither of us wanted to be the first to walk away. Finally, when I realized that this wasn’t helping us, I untangled myself and grabbed my stuff. He looked terrified. I put my hand gently against his cheek and he leaned into it.

  “I love you, forever,” I said, then got out of his car and walked away.

  I didn’t cry. The pain cut straight into my soul, and tears would no longer do it justice.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It had been two months since I last saw Maziar in that parking lot. Sixty-one days since I saw his beautiful face, heard his voice, or felt his touch. The weeks afte
r we separated were a dark blur. One day led into the next, and I went through the motions on autopilot. I stayed in my room and only left when absolutely necessary.

  My parents were both sad and angry when I finally told them why Maziar was no longer coming around. Being an Iranian mother, Mom desperately wanted to say, “I told you so.” Surprisingly, she somehow refrained. I think she was more worried about the state I was in than in being right.

  After the second week of holding myself hostage in my bedroom, my parents called on Leyla for help. She came over and dragged me out of the house, despite my protests. When I realized fighting would be useless, I just plastered on a smile and pretended I was having a good time, secretly praying for the comfort of my dark room.

  I would never have gotten out of bed again if it were entirely up to me. Unfortunately, I still had the matter of school to deal with. At first, I felt like it was a huge burden I couldn’t bear, along with my broken heart. Later, I came to realize it was my only salvation.

  I began throwing myself into my studies. Day and night I lost myself in chemical equations and complicated math problems. It gave me something other than Maziar to focus on. The dedication put me in the top five percent of the class when the year ended.

  After the first year, we were all required to start an internship in a pharmacy. We would travel to these locations in pairs. Everyone wanted to be placed in one of the larger chain companies, in hopes of showing off their skills and securing permanent placement after graduation. Finishing in the top tier of my class created opportunities. I was assigned to the CVS in the Palisades. I should have been excited; everyone was competing for that location, but I felt weary being that close to Maziar’s family.

  Ben came up to me after we’d been given our assignments. He stood eyeing me for a moment, as if he were deciding on the best way to approach a wounded animal.