Forbidden by Faith

by Negeen Papehn

  I called Leyla and told her I was coming over. I didn’t want to be alone, and I needed to be with someone who understood how horrible this was for me. I’d made it to her front door when I heard my phone ring with a text message. I took a deep breath, afraid that it would be from Ben, or Maziar, either of which I couldn’t handle at the moment. I pulled my phone out and opened the screen. It was from Maziar.

  12:00 I already miss you…

  Within the first few days following the dinner, Maziar sent me messages about how unfair things were and how difficult life without each other would be. He did most of the talking, while I listened. I’d made the decision to walk away, so I didn’t respond, but I also couldn’t bring myself to tell him to stop texting. The finality of our last conversation had me swimming in the sadness of losing him again. If I had any hopes of surviving, I had to avoid the avalanche of pain that would surely follow if I opened up the lines of communication.

  Eventually, the messages dwindled, leaving only silence within the air space between us. I spent the first few days of that silence constantly holding my breath, waiting for my phone to flash his name. When it never came, I convinced myself it was better to have no contact. Regardless of what either of us felt, we were both aware that the future between us was dim, anything exchanged only prolonging the inevitable breaking away we would have to do.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I spent the remainder of the break at home with my family, and when I wasn’t with them, I spent my time with Leyla. Ben hadn’t reached out to contact me again after his initial message. Then, three days before school started, he sent me a text saying he would be home the following evening. He asked if we could talk.

  I’d been thinking of what I wanted to say to him since I’d last seen Maziar. I didn’t know much, but what I did know was that Maziar was no longer a viable option for me. I knew that any attempt to rekindle our relationship would only lead to its demise. I couldn’t wait around on the hope of a chance that things would transform somehow. I couldn’t wait for his family to stop hating me.

  I still loved him‒I knew that, too‒but it didn’t matter in the bigger picture. I could love him forever and it wouldn’t convince his parents that we were good for each other. I had to make peace with our situation. I knew we would probably love each other, in some capacity, for the rest of our lives. He would always be my “what if” and “if things were different” but he would never be mine again. Life would propel us forward and we would each find love with someone new. They would probably never know the details of our past together, never seeing the pieces of our hearts we’d lost to one another. He would be the love of my soul forever, but I would put it away, keeping it my secret. I didn’t know if I believed in other lives, but if they truly did exist, I prayed that in our next life we would find each other again and have then what we couldn’t have now. Until then, I would move on.

  Sandra had made a trip to Minnesota to visit Josh, taking a few extra days off from school to be with him, which meant I was alone when I got to the apartment. Waiting by myself until Ben made it home drove me crazy. To keep myself busy, I went on a cleaning spree while blasting my headphones, trying to drown out my thoughts. I kept replaying my last conversations with Ben and Maziar over and over in my head.

  I never used to believe it was possible to love two people at the same time, but I’d come to realize that I was wrong. I loved them both. I loved them differently, but I loved them all the same. I was madly in love with Maziar, the kind that twisted itself around the air I breathed, into every cell inside my body. His was the kind of love that consumed my whole world. Ben’s love was less volatile, more constant. His was not all-consuming but all-encompassing, like gentle hands that held me together when I wanted to fall apart. The kind that was a beacon of light in the darkest of days, the one I looked for and ran toward to keep me safe.

  Neither love was better than the other, each fulfilling different needs I had. If the world were a perfect place, and I could be with either of them, I would have chosen Maziar. His love was a drug my heart couldn’t resist, the addiction I would spend the rest of my life fighting. But life wasn’t flawless, and complications were imminent.

  I wasn’t sure if choosing Ben because I couldn’t choose Maziar made me a horrible person. On the same note, if I had never met Maziar, I could have lived the rest of my life happy with Ben by my side. I didn’t know if walking away from Ben just because part of me wanted Maziar was really my only choice.

  Maybe part of me was using Ben, being unfair to him by moving forward in our relationship when I still loved another. I would love Maziar forever, though, and loving two people would be my destiny no matter who I was with. I loved Ben. We had built something meaningful between us. I wasn’t going to walk away from that because it might be making me a selfish person not to. People did far worse things than stay with a boyfriend they loved while still not fully over another. At least that’s what I spent the day trying to convince myself of.

  I made the one-block walk to Ben’s house at six. I moved slowly, still struggling with my feelings, trying to figure out what I needed to say. When I got to his door, I stood there, frozen, terrified of what awaited me on the other side. It had been close to a month that we hadn’t seen or talked to each other. I knew it would be awkward at first, but I prayed it would be short-lived. I finally forced myself to knock.

  After a few seconds, I heard the shuffling of feet and the door swung open. Ben suddenly appeared, staring down at me, his eyes reflecting the green off his shirt like emeralds. He gave me his crooked smile, but there was a weariness behind it that only compounded my uneasiness. I slowly let out my breath, not realizing I’d been holding it.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hey, doll,” he replied.

  How I’d missed those words. I walked up to him and put my arms around his waist, pulling him close. He was hesitant at first, but I didn’t budge, not allowing him the chance to push me away. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around me.

  I closed my eyes, relishing the warmth his body radiated in my direction. I had missed the safety I felt when he was with me. His stability and dependability added order to the chaos that always brewed inside me.

  But something was wrong. There was an unfamiliar stiffness to his grip on me, a hesitation that felt heavy like a thick winter blanket. I felt the knots forming in the pit of my stomach in response. I tried to hold him closer, fighting against the urge to panic.

  Ben severed the connection between us and pulled away, putting a few feet of distance where his body had just been. I suddenly felt cold without him there to shelter me. He said nothing as he walked toward the couches. I followed, each step feeling like I was dragging myself through a pool of thick maple syrup. When I made it to the living room, he stood to the side, waiting for me to find a seat. I moved past him and sat down. He took the seat across from me.

  The anxiety began to build, and I couldn’t stop the panic that had set in. I noticed Ben didn’t look well; he was pale and had dark circles under his eyes. He had an unsettled look about him that I hadn’t seen before, leaving me feeling on edge and confused.

  “Thanks for coming over. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I should have. That was wrong of me.”

  “It’s okay. I get it,” I stammered, nervously. The tension was killing me.

  “No, it wasn’t okay, but I just couldn’t talk to you. I was trying to figure things out.”

  He looked so uncomfortable in his skin sitting there that I started to speak, not knowing what else to do.

  “Ben, don’t apologize. The night at the club was really bad. I hate that was how we left things before you went to Minnesota. I’m not proud of what you saw, but that’s over now. I’ve thought about it a lot and my future doesn’t include Maziar. We had a past together and I just couldn’t ignore him that night. It seemed wrong. But I wish we had just left together before things got worse.”

  I was rambling now, searching for the right
words to say to take us back to how we were before all of this. He had stopped looking at me and was now staring at the floor. I wasn’t sure he was even listening.

  “Ben, I’m hoping we could go back to how things were, before they got twisted and messed up. I really want to try to fix things between us,” I pleaded. He didn’t respond. “Please say something.”

  “I don’t know if I believe that,” he said.

  “Believe what?” I whispered, already knowing what he was going to say.

  “That you’re actually done with Maziar. You’ve said that before, Sara, and look at us now. I believed you then, but I shouldn’t have. I don’t know if I can put myself through all of that again.”

  The panic rose in my throat, threatening to make me sick on the living room floor. Ben was slipping away; I could see it as clear as a cloudless sky. He was retreating further and further away from me, trying to find somewhere safe where I couldn’t hurt him anymore.

  I was losing him.

  This wasn’t how the conversation was supposed to go. I was going to tell him I was over Maziar. He was supposed to reach out and pull me into his arms, kissing the top of my head, telling me he loved me. Instead, he thought I was crying wolf, no longer able to find any trust in my words.

  “I understand how it feels to have someone in your past. To feel an irrational loyalty to them because of what you shared once. You’re not the only one with a first love.”

  His body looked tired and worn, but his eyes burned with anger and pain. I fidgeted under the intensity of his gaze.

  “Jessie tried to sleep with me,” he said.

  He sat there looking at me, letting the words balance between us, allowing them to imprint in my mind. When he offered no further explanation, I found my voice and demanded it.

  “And?”

  He allowed for a few more moments of agonizing silence before he spoke. I had to remind myself to stay rooted to my seat, wanting to hurl myself across the table at him.

  “It doesn’t feel so good when you aren’t sure if the person you’re with is faithful to you or not, does it, Sara?”

  “I didn’t cheat on you!” I yelled, my face flushed with anger.

  Ben remained calm, irritating me further.

  “You might as well have. I saw how you looked at him. It was obvious that you still love him. I think I could deal with you sleeping with him easier than you still having feelings for him.”

  Suddenly, the fight seeped out of me. Ben was right. The potential of him cheating on me with Jessie was easier to bear than the idea of him still loving her.

  “Did you sleep with her?” I asked, my desperation visible in the way I sat on the edge of my seat.

  “No,” he said, and looked away. “I didn’t sleep with her.”

  I exhaled, having held my breath for the worst. A flutter of relief flapped around my chest. Ben stared out the window at a little boy riding his bike down the street.

  “There are moments when I think I should have. Then we wouldn’t be sitting here trying to figure out what we’re going to do about us,” he said, watching the boy ride in circles.

  My eyes filled with tears, knowing I’d finally made Ben regret having ever been with me.

  “Don’t say that, Ben,” I pleaded.

  When he looked at me again, his eyes mirrored the pain in my own. I began to cry, unable to hold back my tears any longer. What had I done?

  “Sara, please don’t,” he said, his words catching in his throat. “Please,” he whispered when I couldn’t stop myself.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I closed the space between us, throwing my arms around him. At first, he resisted, trying to remain unaffected. But his defenses were flawed and slowly his body melted into mine. He reached over and pulled me onto his lap, putting his arms around me, diminishing any space left between us. I wrapped my legs around him, overcome with the need to absorb his safety as I held on.

  “Please don’t leave,” I whispered into his ear. “I love you.”

  He came undone then, unable to balance the burden of the past few weeks any longer.

  “Sara, I can’t be hurt again,” he pleaded.

  “I know,” I replied. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want you and no one else, Ben. Please, give us another chance.”

  He quietly searched my eyes for the truth. Then, he reached up and wrapped his hand in my hair, pulling my head toward him as our lips slammed together in urgency. My lips parted, giving him passage, wanting desperately to feel his mouth on mine as I kissed him deeply. I could think of nothing other than how badly I needed him, how I needed to create that closeness that existed between us.

  He hastily unbuttoned my shirt, slipping his hand inside and cupping my breast, his fingers grazing over my nipple. I gasped as his desire melted onto my skin. We made love on the couch, clumsy and hurried in our movements, desperate for its magic to erase the tragedy of the past few weeks from our memories. And when we reached the pinnacle of our dance, we both shuddered against the pillows together. He held onto me, burying his head in my neck.

  I relaxed into his embrace as Maziar began to fade into the background and Ben made his way to the forefront of my mind. Wrapped in the cocoon of his love, I was able to find peace again for the first time in weeks.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The end of the school year was rapidly approaching and the freedom of another summer to tool around without the responsibilities of school had us all buzzing with impatience. The end of the year also brought with it Neda’s birthday.

  She was turning twenty-six and had decided she was going to throw herself a big birthday bash at her house in the Palisades. Her family owned a large estate that sat on top of the hill, overlooking a breathtaking view of the city lights and ocean. I’d been there multiple times since Maziar and I had broken up. However, this would be the first time that we would both be there together.

  I was beyond nervous about seeing him again. We hadn’t spoken since the night at the restaurant. Since then, Ben and I had continued on the journey of rebuilding our relationship. It had been five months and things were good. They were better than good; they were great. We had fallen back into our familiarity. At first, he was apprehensive, building a protective wall between us. I remained patient, knowing he needed time to trust me again. He’d finally let go and let me back in.

  When I approached him about the party, he nonchalantly agreed to go, but my gut knew this would be an unspoken test, one that I would surely need to pass. If I showed the slightest sign of wavering, our glass tower would come toppling down, leaving us by its wayside.

  If I was honest, there was a part of me that wanted to see Maziar, the part I had put to sleep and locked away months ago. I knew things were over and I wasn’t toying with the idea of a future between us, but my heart ached to see his face, watch his eyes light up when he spoke, hear the deep rumble of his laugh. I didn’t share my feelings with anyone, not even Leyla, fearing that if I said them out loud, they would take shape, becoming a monster I couldn’t control. I needed to stay strong, remain passive, show Ben he was my only. I needed to keep my feelings locked away so they couldn’t hurt any of us anymore.

  I had driven home Friday night to be with my family for the weekend. We had our customary family dinner, followed by a backgammon tournament. When I’d finally gone to bed, I’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to play out the different scenarios that could happen when I saw Maziar. I had no clue if he was seeing anybody. He could very well show up with a girl on his arm. Although that would be hard to see, it would be the easiest of scenarios for both of us. I felt like Neda would have warned me if that were the case, and I wondered if she’d told him that I would be showing up with Ben.

  At eight in the morning, I gave up hope on getting any real sleep and rolled out of bed. I grabbed my headphones, kissed Mom goodbye, and went for a long run. I’d become accustomed to pushing my body to its furthest limits, relishing the physical pain that
distracted me from the thoughts and emotions wearing me down.

  When I got home, she was sitting at the kitchen table with two hot cups of tea, waiting for me. This had become our new Saturday morning ritual. I would wake up and go for a run while Mom fed the men. Then, we would have some girl time, just the two of us, over our cups of hot chayee and scrambled eggs.

  When I entered the kitchen, the smell of butter filled my nose, making me nostalgic for my youth. Mom’s eggs were always the best. Only she could make the room fill with that heavenly smell. It always transported me to when I was a child, filling me with a sense of comfort I equated only with her.

  “Hi, azizam. How was your run?” she asked.

  “It was good.”

  “I don’t know how you can do so much running. If you’re going to do it every day, you have to eat more. Your grandmother is going to think I’m starving you!” she said. I laughed at her, a grown woman still afraid of her mother’s disapproval.

  I supposed we all spent our lives seeking our mother’s approval, regardless of our age. I wasn’t sure if that was just a child-parent thing or a Persian thing. Either way, it was a destiny that seemed to hover over us all.

  She placed the eggs and pita bread in front of us and took her seat across from me.

  “Your khaleh called this morning to tell me that Ellie got engaged last night. Pouyah took your uncle out last week for coffee to officially ask his permission to marry her,” she said. Ellie had been set up with him a year ago by one of my aunt’s friends.

  No Persian girl was a stranger to the tedious matchmaking of her female relatives. There was always someone’s nephew, grandson, or neighbor, off to medical school or law school, that your mother, aunt, or grandmother was singling out for you as a potential mate. They were like ants scurrying up an ant hill, trying to be the first to sink their claws into the next “great catch.” I was always being solicited by the women in my family to set up one blind date after another. At get-togethers, someone was always pointing this boy, or that boy, out to my cousins and me. It was the Iranian way, to broker pairings in hopes of saving daughters from becoming old maids. If we were still single at the ripe old age of thirty-two, all hope was lost among them. It was frustrating but fascinating to watch the women scoping out the young men for their daughters. They had it down to an art.