by Leylah Attar
“You go,” I whispered in Jayne’s ear. I wasn’t getting anywhere near all that action.
“Hey!” Jayne elbowed Ryan. “Break it up. You’re making us uncomfortable.”
And by ‘us’, she meant me. Jayne was obviously amused and Troy was thoroughly enjoying my discomfort. The passionate duo pulled away reluctantly.
“Where to?” asked Troy when I got in the front with him. The sleeves of his t-shirt strained against his biceps as he put his seat belt on.
I gave him the address, feeling like the back seat might have been a better option after all.
“You’re the furthest,” he said. “We’ll do Ellen, then Ryan and Jayne, and then you.”
“Or you could just drop me off first, and them on the way back.” The prospect of being alone with him made my stomach clench into a tight little ball.
“Us first!” declared Jayne. “Mum’s going to be up waiting and I don’t want to screw it up for next time.”
“Right,” replied Troy, turning on the ignition. “Anyone waiting for you, Shayda?”
I looked away, wondering where Hafez had spent Canada Day. Maybe he was at the wheel, eating up the miles to make his deadline, or maybe he had pulled into a truck stop to stretch out his legs.
When we got to Ellen’s, Ryan walked her to the door. They disappeared in the shadows while we waited in the car.
“You’re done for, mate,” said Troy when he got back. “Whipped. Finished. Over and out.”
“Just drive, will ya?” Ryan grinned. “Wait until it happens to you.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Jayne. “Bet he’s the first one dragged down the aisle.”
“Oh yeah? Bet he’s the last man standing.”
Troy let them speculate, keeping his eyes on the road, but I felt his gaze on me every now and then.
The silence grew thick after we dropped Jayne and Ryan off. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of the way Troy’s arms moved when he shifted gears, the way his legs controlled the pedals, the way the car purred under his command.
“You mind?” he asked, rolling down his window.
“No.” I fished out a scrunchie from my bag and tied my hair back. It was still hot, but the night air cooled my fevered skin.
“Hey, Shayda?”
“What?”
He slid the scrunchie out of my hair and tossed it out the window. My carefully tamed mane sprung back into a mass of curls. I opened my mouth, shut it, opened it again, and swallowed the words. Then I unrolled my side of the window and shot him a sideways glance.
We started laughing at the same time, both of us looking equally ridiculous, our hair flapping in the wind as if we were free-falling into the night.
“Here we are.” He turned into my apartment.
“I’ll be fine,” I said as he reached for his door. “You don’t have to come up.”
“I want to.” He smoothed my hair behind my ear.
“Don’t.” I gripped his hand, holding it away.
The air throbbed as our eyes locked.
“Is it just me or do you keep everyone at arm’s length?” he asked.
I let go of his hand, feeling foolish for reading more into the gesture.
Outside, a Canada Day party was going strong. David Bowie was rocking out the words to ‘Let’s Dance’ with jittery breathlessness.
“Now if I were to do this...” He tugged me closer so our lips were almost touching.
My stomach flip-flopped. My eyes widened in alarm and I clamped my hand over my mouth. Then I was running out the door, fumbling blindly with the keys before racing through the lobby and jabbing the elevator button.
“Shayda!” I could vaguely hear Troy coming after me.
I ran for the stairs, taking two at a time as his footsteps echoed after mine through the drab, grey stairwell. I flung open the door to the third floor and made a run for the apartment, barely making it to the kitchen sink before throwing up all over it.
Troy rubbed my back as I retched and retched until there was nothing left.
“Can’t say I’ve ever elicited that kind of a reaction before.” He attempted some humor as I cleaned up. “And I’ve never met anyone who could hold it through six flights of stairs until it was good and proper to let loose.”
My throat felt tight and exhausted. I rinsed the sink and splashed some water on my face, appalled that he had to witness that.
“Here.” He led me to the couch and sat me down. “May I?” he asked, before kneeling to wipe the plastered hair off my forehead. “No one’s home?” He glanced around the sparsely furnished space.
I shook my head.
“Stay right there.” He walked into the kitchen.
I heard him moving things in the refrigerator. He returned with a glass of ginger ale.
“Here.” He handed it to me. “Drink.”
I took a few small sips, grateful for the cool bubbles that soothed my throat. This was the third time in as many weeks that I’d thrown up. My brows furrowed.
“You okay?” he asked.
I looked at him, flipping a calendar in my head.
“I think...I think I’m pregnant,” I replied.
The night Ma died. My first time with Hafez. I had long run out of the birth control pills Dr. Gorman had given me.
“Wow.” Troy slumped into the chair, looking pale, as if he were about to hurl too.
“Don’t worry, it’s not yours.” My turn to attempt some humor, even though it felt like the rug had just been pulled out from under me.
“Shouldn’t your...shouldn’t your husband be here?”
“He’s back tomorrow.”
“You want to call him?”
“He’s on the road. It can wait.”
Troy got up and started pacing the living room.
“You should go,” I said. “I’m fine. Really.”
He went very quiet, like he could see just how hard I was shaking inside.
“I’ve never met anyone quite like you, Mrs....?” he said as I let him out.
“Hijazi. Shayda Hijazi.”
“Well, Mrs. Hijazi.” He gave me the kind of smile that begs a ribbon, the kind you want to wrap up and store away. “It’s been a pleasure.”
“Sorry I—,” I started, but he shushed me with a finger on my mouth.
“You rest now.”
I nodded, trying to get over the knot in my throat as I watched him walk to the elevator.
“I hope it’s a girl,” he said before stepping in. “With sunset red in her hair, like her mother.”
“I don’t have red in my hair.”
“You do,” he replied. “When the light hits it a certain way, like that morning I ran into you. Beautiful, fiery shades of red.”
I shook my head and smiled. A charmer to the end.
“Goodbye, Shayda Hijazi,” he said before the elevator closed on him.
“Goodbye, Troy Heathgate.”
I shut the door, not knowing it would be twelve years before I saw him again.
13. Wait
November 11th, 1995 (2)
A cold wind sweeps grey leaves around my feet. I get up, hoping it will pick up my memories of Troy and take them wherever grey leaves go to die. I stop by the pond, with my hands in my pockets, and see a flash of color on the ground. I kneel and pick up a dead butterfly. Its wings cling stubbornly to their color, beautiful even though large sections of the scales are missing.
When the revolution started in Iran, Baba had thought we would be safer out of the city. Months later, when they came to our summer home, with torches blazing, Maamaan, Hossein and I fled to the hills. When it was quiet, and the black spires of smoke had lifted, we made our way down and waited for Baba in the barn. He returned at dawn, smelling of perfume and wine. I had seen a butterfly that day, in the ashes of scorched lemon trees, much like the one I’m holding, except I had trampled it in our rush to get to the barn. I watch the lifeless form in my hands now through a haze of tears.
A lone runner passes by
, stops and tracks back.
“Shayda?”
I don’t need to look up. Only one person says my name like that.
He kneels beside me as I nurse the butterfly.
“Look.” I hold it out.
“It’s not your butterfly,” he says.
“I know. But it’s dead, Troy. It died.”
“Don’t cry.” He lifts my chin. “I can’t stand it when you cry.”
We’re back on that sidewalk again, our eyes locked, except it’s a different time, a different season.
He cups his palm over mine as a gust of wind threatens to sweep the butterfly away.
We stand up slowly, holding the Monarch between us, and walk to the edge of the pond. We lower our hands into the water and let it float away. We watch, reluctant to move even after it disappears, because we both know what happens next.
Don’t go, I want to say.
“See you around, Shayda.” He pushes the flyaway curls out of my face, but they don’t stay. His smile is bittersweet as he plugs the headphones back in his ears.
I watch the back of his head, covered by a hoodie, as he takes off.
I make it half way to the parking lot. My throat is clenched so tight it’s hard to breathe. I feel like I’ve left some part of me behind to die, to float away on some cold, glassy surface that will turn to ice.
No.
I turn and start running towards Troy.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
My words carry to him. Somehow. Because he stops and turns around.
I halt, a few feet away from him, my chest heaving. For a few seconds, we stand on opposite sides of an invisible fence. Then he tears through it, closing the distance, and I’m in his arms. He’s lifting me up. And spinning me round. I’m laughing. Crying. Deliriously happy. Scared senseless.
When I come down, he’s holding me, his forehead resting on mine.
“Your hands are so cold,” he says.
We sit on the bench and he rubs them briskly. When he’s warmed them up, he trails his fingers over my palms, up and down, before entwining them with mine.
“Here we are,” he says.
“Here we are.” I rest my head on his shoulder.
14. Hotel Room
November 22nd, 1995
I can’t remember getting out of the car or walking through the reception area. I don’t recall what the hallway looked like or what room number he said. I sit at the edge of the mattress, the side closest to the door, and let my eyes follow the vibrant swirls on the carpet—wandering, drifting, straying. I can’t bear to look at the bed, the chocolate headboard, the lamp on the night stand. Him.
He kneels on the floor and slides my boots off. First one, then the other.
“You okay?” He rubs my feet.
Am I okay?
I start laughing, a little hysterically. I don’t think he has the slightest idea what it’s taken for me to get here. I’ve crossed oceans and countries and continents. That was the easy part. But sitting here before Troy Heathgate now, I’m teetering on a knife’s edge between honor and disgrace.
“Drink.” He hands me a glass of water.
It works. I can’t drink and laugh and cry at the same time.
“Just because you’re here, doesn’t mean anything.” He takes the empty glass and turns on the TV. “We’ll get room service, talk, watch a movie.”
My eyes go round.
“Not that kind of movie,” he laughs.
The warm chuckle melts my bones.
“No?” I feign disappointment.
He swats me with a pillow. I retaliate, swinging back with a hard whack.
“Really?” His eyes narrow.
And then we’re rolling and tumbling on the bed, pillow fighting like kids at a sleepover.
Except we’re not kids. I can feel the raw strength in his arms, the ripple of hard muscle under his shirt, his carefully controlled desire. We stop at the same time, breathless and flushed, the air between us pulsating with that crazy, hungry energy that eats up every sane thought in my mind. He reins himself in first.
“What do you want to watch?” he asks, leaning back.
“Doesn’t matter.” I prop up a pillow next to him.
He pauses at the music channel. Safe, comfortable, non-flammable. I have no clue what we’re watching. I doubt he does either. He puts his arm around me and I snuggle in, like it’s the most natural place in the world for me to be.
He’s wearing faded blue jeans and a soft, white t-shirt. I’ve never seen anyone rock every day essentials the way he does. My eyes follow the long line of his legs. His toes are surprisingly pretty.
I smile.
“What?” he asks.
I shake my head and focus on the TV. “This must be a first for you.”
“It is. The cuddling usually comes after.”
“I meant getting a room and then having someone chicken out on you.”
“Are you afraid, Shayda?”
“Of...?” I swallow, wishing he’d go back to pretending we’re watching music videos.
“Of this? Of me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Of...me,” I reply.
It’s true. I don’t know this person lying beside him.
We sit, separated by a tiny band of pale skin on my ring finger. For the first time in thirteen years, I’ve left home without my wedding band. I feel the tension, like spring coils compressed into the space between us, expanding and contracting with each breath we take.
He’s waiting.
Let me in.
I move my foot towards his until our toes are almost touching. Almost, but not quite. The rise and fall of his chest ceases. He holds his breath. The TV drones on.
I can stop this right now, this crazy stupid insanity. Walk out the door and run like hell.
My foot brushes his. It’s the smallest movement, but it’s all he needs.
His hand slides into mine; our fingers entwine. His thumb draws circles in the center of my palm. We watch images flicker across the screen, but every nerve is focused on what our hands are doing. He traces up and down my fingers, lingering in the gaps between them, teasing, caressing.
Have I been touched there before? Surely I would remember this sensation, so simple yet so exquisitely loaded.
The back of my fingers run across his palm. He sucks in his breath as he feels my nails on his skin. The thinly stretched cord of control snaps.
He flips me on my back and pin my wrists over my head. I close my eyes, anticipating his kiss, yearning for it. But it doesn’t come.
He sucks my fingers instead, one by one, like they’re covered with the sticky, sweet filling of a freshly baked pie. His tongue traces the blue-green vein along my inner wrist, making me squirm against him.
I wait for guilt to set in. I wait for self-loathing to roll in. I wait for my feet to carry me to the door. But when his lips graze mine, whisper soft, I know this is what I’ve been waiting for. How long have I thought about this? How many weeks? Months? Years? His lips on mine. Like this. My fingers running through his hair. Like this. The hard, muscular length of him against me. I open my eyes and fall into the endless sky of his irises while Gloria Estefan sings ‘Here We Are’.
In this moment, it doesn’t matter that he is Troy Heathgate.
‘Wealthy, debonair, visionary leader,’ say the business magazines.
‘Hazardous, womanizing, master of seduction,’ says the trail of broken hearts.
No. In this moment, he is just a man, raw, primal, stripped of all the labels and titles—bare eyes, hungry mouth, intent on one thing and one thing only. Me.
If Troy Heathgate locks in on you, you’re done for.
Clearly, whoever said that had made a very important public service announcement.
Troy’s mouth is devastatingly insistent on my lips, building to an intensity that makes me cling to him as my world spins out of control. Yes. Yes yes yes. This. This is what a kiss should feel
like. Like nothing else exists. All yearning and dizzy and falling and flying. Great big galaxies of want and wonder spiral inside of me.
“I’ve waited so long for this,” he says in my ear.
I push a lock of hair away from his face. Such dark hair, such light eyes. The seductive pull of the devil, the redeeming touch of an angel.
He grabs a fist full of my hair and pulls, exposing my throat. I expect pain, teeth, fangs even. Happily. But he drops a tender kiss on the vein that pulses life into my heart. I feel the light stubble on his jaw as he nuzzles in.
“Mmmm. Roses.” He moves his face back and forth against my neck, caressing my skin with his nose, his mouth, his cheek, the soft parts of his face, the ridges.
“Turn around,” he growls.
No. Keep going. This is good. This is so good.
“Turn.” He flips me over and swipes the hair away from my nape, continuing his sensual attack.
I was wrong. This is even better. I feel teeth. Sharp, little nips, followed by soothing tongue. Lips, soft, then hard. Fingers sliding down the back of my neck, tugging at the zipper of my dress.
“Shhh,” he whispers when he feels me tense.
It’s easier this way. Not having to look at him, my face buried in the pillow. I feel a slight chill as my dress starts to part, followed by the heat of fiery kisses. He makes a slow descent down my spine, exposing one inch at a time. When he gets to the small of my back, his tongue dips into the slight indentation. A moan escapes me.
“Ah.” I feel the curve of his smile against my skin.
He holds down my hips as his mouth ravages the bundle of nerves I never knew existed. I buckle against the bed.
“Behave,” he says.
How can the softest whisper be edged with steel?
He replaces his lips with the heel of his palm. The rhythmic, kneading motion feels even more intense, pushing the pulsating core of me into the mattress. Hot, unbidden images flash before me and I stifle a sharp, agonized breath into the pillow.
“Your skin...” He trails off, tracing the curve of my spine with knowing fingers. Up and down.
His touch feels like rain on parched earth.
“Now.” He turns me over. “Let me look at you.”
My arms cross instinctively against my chest, keeping the front of my dress in place. My face burns from the intimacy of being undressed by him.