by Sara Jafari
She worked her way to removing his top, exposing his chiseled torso. But then she stopped kissing him suddenly and just sat staring at his chest.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I don’t get why you’re with me.”
Magnus let out a frustrated sigh. “What do you mean? Why are you saying this now?”
“You’re…you. I mean, you’re hot, smart, and well, no offense, but normal. And I’m a mess…”
He caught her chin with his hand and brought her face down close to his.
“You’re gorgeous, intelligent, interesting, funny, sexy,” he said. “Maybe I should be asking you why you’re with me?”
The combination of him pressed against her and his words made her nipples harden. Magnus noticed this and looked her directly in the eye. His hand held the bottom of her T-shirt and she nodded, allowing him to lift it off. He pulled her down and drew his mouth to her nipple. She groaned in response.
“The sounds you make…I could literally come just from hearing you moan.”
She breathed deeply.
After a few minutes he spoke. “Are you going to tell me why you have a black eye?”
It was like he had thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over her. “Magnus, now isn’t the time.”
He rolled her over so he was on top of her. His legs straddled her. Her bare chest exposed at this angle made her self-conscious, so she crossed her arms.
“I can’t…I can’t do this with you whilst this is all spinning in my head, Soraya.”
“But surely this is more fun than talking?”
“It’s very, very fun.” His eyes darkened a tad. “But I need to know what’s going on—why did you lie about being in Brighton? What happened to you?” He touched her bruised face.
“It’s too long to explain.”
“We have all night.”
“I don’t feel comfortable talking about it.”
“Soraya, I’m supposed to be your…” It sounded like he was going to say “boyfriend” but stopped himself. “You know. But you don’t tell me anything. Don’t you trust me?”
She sighed and didn’t know where to look. “My dad,” she said, and then stopped talking, and breathed deeply. Magnus’s gaze was hard, pensive. She didn’t know if she could say it. Her mouth was dry, her body impossibly warm and clammy. “They saw the picture you posted of me at that pub.”
There was a short silence.
“What do you mean?”
“I told you they were strict. I’m not allowed to be with boys or drink alcohol. Both of which were in the picture.”
His face crumpled. “So your dad did this?” He couldn’t hide the anger he felt quick enough. “Because we’re together? That’s crazy.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
And this was why they could never be a thing. Why their relationship would never work. He didn’t—couldn’t—understand her culture. How had she been so blind to this before?
“Is it because I’m white?” he asked.
She sighed deeply. It was a sigh of frustration, of tiredness.
“Not really. It’s because you’re a man.”
He lifted himself off her and sat on the bed next to her. He fixed his gaze on his hands. The distance and silence between them stretched.
Soraya’s mind whirled from thought to thought. She hated silences; they allowed her mind to run wild, fleeting ideas and troubling memories all vying for her attention. It was even worse when she was with someone, like now, because she was also wondering what they were thinking.
“Say something,” she finally said.
“What happened after he hit you?”
“He threw things around, including my mum.” She spoke so quietly she wasn’t sure Magnus could hear her. “He hit me when I tried to defend myself, and then denied it all to Parvin.” Her breathing was unsteady and she had to stop talking.
“Didn’t anyone try and help you? Your brother or sister?”
“Amir wasn’t in. My dad’s convinced Amir would have been on his side. I doubt it, he’s not a monster, but he doesn’t know anything happened, which is probably for the best. Parvin is too much of a goody-goody to defend us. I’m not talking to her at the moment.” Soraya looked away, wiping a stray tear. “It’s fine, it doesn’t matter.”
“It’s fine? Soraya, how is any of this fine? This is just…it’s mad.” Magnus grabbed her face between his hands and forced her to look at him. “None of this is fine.”
Tears began to roll down her cheeks. She shook him off.
“Talking about it won’t make it better.”
Magnus made a frustrated sound, hands balled into fists. “I know he’s your dad but I just want to…” The veins in his arms protruded.
He surprised her by pulling her into a tight hug. “Don’t go back there,” he whispered into her hair. “You don’t deserve to be treated like this.”
“It’s not that simple. They’re all I have.”
“They’re abusive, Soraya, you can’t go back there. Has he hit you before?” He looked at her carefully.
“No…well, not like that. He’s always had a temper. The only similar time was when I was fifteen, and there was this park near my school that we all went to. I was there with friends and briefly spoke to a boy, and my parents found out—one of their friends drove by and saw me—so they dragged me home. My dad spat on me and hit my leg, said he’d kill me if I did anything like that again, and I just remember being so shocked.” Soraya choked on the last word, and covered her mouth with her hand.
“This is so fucked up,” Magnus whispered.
His words were only semi-comforting. He was missing the point, focusing on her dad’s rage as though it was a singular problem, not an issue a lot of British Muslim girls faced to some degree. It wasn’t Hossein Nazari that was crazy, it was the attitude of many men in her culture, the way they saw their daughters as pets to be controlled.
“I don’t know what to do,” Soraya said, her mouth pressed against his chest. He didn’t loosen his hold, and she was glad. “I like being with you, but it’s so complicated. My brain is just…I feel guilty all the time when we’re with each other. I feel like I’m already going to hell. And then there’s this pressure from my family, and I’m so scared I’m going to get caught again.” While she spoke Magnus continued to hold her, stroking her back gently.
“Why hell?” he asked, quietly. She imagined the frown forming on his face, uncomprehending yet again. “You’re a good person, Soraya.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Having a boyfriend before marriage is reason enough to go to hell. I don’t even pray or wear a hijab. I mean, look at me. I’m semi-naked with my white boyfriend, and five minutes ago I invited you to you know, and you’re the one who stopped us!” She paused to breathe deeply.
It was obvious he didn’t know what to say. “I can’t pretend to know how to be a good Muslim, but what we’re doing doesn’t feel wrong to me. We’re not hurting anyone, and the way I feel about you, Soraya, I’ve never felt like this about anyone. It can’t be wrong to feel this way about another person.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, aware this conversation was a prime case of the blind leading the blind. She knew next to nothing about Islam and didn’t practice her religion at all. She believed in God, but apart from that what did she know that Magnus didn’t? What did she know about religion, heaven and hell, that he didn’t?
“I’m falling in love with you, Soraya.”
Speechless, she kept her eyes shut. Unintentionally, he had made things so much harder for her.
He needed to stop talking. Stop saying the words he was never meant to say. It wasn’t meant to be like this. And yet part of her was
glad it was.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he said quickly. “I just want you to know. To know that I’ll always be there for you.”
“Magnus…”
“My dad used to hit my mum when his drinking got really bad,” Magnus said. “She’d have black eyes, and I’d hear her telling her friends she got them from slipping in the shower or some other crap excuse. But I heard them shouting, her screaming, so I always knew.” There was a brief silence. “I just want you to tell me things. I want to help. You need help, Soraya, you know that, right?” He said the last bit quietly.
“How can anyone help?”
“You can’t go back to them after all this and pretend nothing’s happened. You need to talk about these things. Bottling it up won’t help.”
“My mum always told me not to tell people about us.”
“It’s important to, though. Especially me.”
“I can’t. I want to. So many times, I’ve wanted to.”
“What’s stopped you?”
“Well, I don’t know…maybe that then you’d realize how fucked up my family is. I didn’t want to add to the stereotype of coming from a dysfunctional Muslim family. Plus, I was scared it’d put you off.”
“Soraya, it’s me. I’m not going anywhere. There’s nothing you can say that will change that.”
“I was told to break things off with you, to be a good Muslim.”
He loosened his arms so that he could look at her face. “What did you say to that?”
“I said I wasn’t going to see you anymore.”
He nodded. “And do you want that?” Magnus’s voice was controlled, in a way that surprised and irked her. But it was a good question.
She opened her mouth, once, twice, three times, but didn’t know what to say. No words would come. Her usually busy mind was suddenly blank.
“That wasn’t why…I don’t know what I want.”
He grabbed her hand, began stroking the back of it.
“There’s something I never told you.” She felt the familiar buildup, of wanting to tell him something, and usually she’d push it back down. Except, this time, she let it rise, let the words come out. “My dad’s an addict like yours.”
The room was silent bar the hum from the pipes, which groaned momentarily. Soraya almost wanted to comment on it, create a joke out of it, distract them both from what she had just said. But she didn’t.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
They heard a key turn in the door and then the sound of it closing. Oliver’s lazy stumble to the kitchen, the lights being switched on. Soraya listened to his movements for a while, imploring her senses to distract her from this situation.
“Soraya?” Magnus pressed her. His expression was concerned, eyebrows furrowed. She settled her gaze on the small mole at the center of his neck.
“My mum always told me to keep it secret. I have school friends I’ve known nearly all my life and they still don’t know. Oliver is my only friend who does. My dad became addicted to opium originally, I think. And now his doctor prescribes him methadone, which he takes every day. My parents always told me to hide it, hide his secret. As though his shame is ours too. And I guess, in a way, it is.”
Magnus looked intently at her. Now all she could focus on were his brown eyes, and the flecks of gold in them. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” he breathed. “I’m so sorry.” He rested his forehead against hers, holding her like she was precious.
She had never been held this way before.
On one of the rare weekends that Soraya wasn’t working a Saturday shift, she spent the day with Oliver. It was the first time they had hung out during the day in months; their schedules constantly clashed now. They could go days without seeing each other despite living in the same house. Oliver worked nine to five Monday to Friday and her shifts varied each week. Sometimes she would work late and by the time she returned home he would be getting ready for bed.
She had missed him, missed his energy and the way that she felt completely comfortable around him. Unlike any romantic interest, their friendship would never end, and unlike family, he had no unrealistic expectations about her and how she should act—he accepted her for who she was.
They had begun the day at Deptford Market, a short walk away from their flat. The market sold an array of bric-a-brac, furniture, brand-new, secondhand, and vintage clothing. As usual, it was the vintage jeans section that Oliver immediately headed over to. On the huge folding table were piles and piles of denim, all five pounds—Lee, Levi’s, and Wrangler were the brands they both particularly kept an eye out for. Then once they had collected a variety of jeans, they assessed whether they would actually fit them, whether they were high-waisted enough, and whether alterations could be made.
The air was sharp and cold, making the rummaging not quite pleasant, but it was their tradition and for that reason Soraya was content to be rifling through the stiff fabric for a potential treasure.
“How are you finding your job anyway? We’ve literally not had a chance to speak about it in person until now,” she asked.
Since their first year at university Oliver had known he wanted to work in book publishing, and every summer he would do unpaid work experiences at the big publishing houses, returning at the end of each two-week stint with a pile of books and a huge smile on his face, motivated to make his dream a reality. It was inspiring seeing someone know exactly what they wanted and run after it. Inspiring but still not enough to push her into action.
“It’s good,” Oliver said, but his voice was pitched a little too high on the last word, discrediting him entirely. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“You sure?” she asked, undecided how hard to push.
“Yeah, it’s fine.” He sighed. “My love life on the other hand…” He let out a low whistle. “That is wretched. Every so often Charlie texts me—always on a weekend at like three a.m. mind—and I just wish he would fuck off. Can you find me a Magnus, please?” He smiled but she knew he didn’t really find it funny.
“Do you reply to Charlie?”
“Sometimes, but I always feel dirty afterwards, like I’m doing myself a disservice.”
Oliver’s honesty was refreshing; he didn’t sugarcoat things and often said what everyone else was thinking.
“It’s whatever,” he said quickly.
She knew not to prod too hard with him. Unlike her, Oliver didn’t word-vomit his feelings but processed them internally in a possibly more healthy way.
He fished out a dark-wash denim that almost looked like a winner, until he realized it was dangerously low-rise. He sighed, throwing it on the top of the pile before asking, “How are you feeling about everything with Magnus now?”
She had of course told Oliver about her dad immediately after it happened, but hadn’t really explained how she was feeling about Magnus and their relationship following the incident.
“In some ways I feel relieved that he knows everything. Well, not everything…” But did he ever need to know about her intentions when she first messaged him? People began relationships for stranger reasons every day, but now that things were irrevocably different between them, now that she really knew who he was, she couldn’t help but feel guilty. “It’s a bit weird between us now—I can’t tell if I’m being paranoid but it feels like he’s acting a bit colder towards me.”
Oliver folded a pair of jeans over his arm and looked at her for a moment. “How so?”
They shuffled a little to the side, so other shoppers could access the table.
“I could be totally imagining it, but I don’t know…he looks at me a little different, seems to think a lot more before he speaks. I guess that’s inevitable after everything he’s learnt about my family, but I’d hoped it wouldn’t
be the case. It kind of feels like he thinks I’m made of glass now, like I’m supersensitive.”
“I don’t want to tell you not to trust your instincts, but you are very paranoid a lot of the time.” Oliver smiled before adding, “You’re right though—if anything, it would be weirder if he acted like everything was perfectly fine. Like it was before. It shows he’s trying, at least. You’ll find your groove, trust me.”
She gave him a faint smile back, not sure she believed his words, but not wanting to continue this conversation. This was her worst fear coming true: when she told people about her dad, about her often dysfunctional family, they would see her differently.
It was clear Oliver could feel her need to change the subject because he said, “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve resorted to putting on a posh accent in the office.”
“Erm, what?”
He moved over to the stallholder, cash in hand. “Everyone is so bloody posh in publishing, it had to be done!”
She began to laugh and grabbed his arm. “Wait, Oliver, you can’t be serious?”
“Honest to God—or should I say Allah?—I am. You would laugh in my face if you heard it. It’s the only way, firstly for people to understand me, and secondly for me to be taken a bit more seriously. This is what graduate life is, Soraya, hiding your Brummie accent from posh white people in the workplace.”
“Right, I need to hear it!”
“Yeah, I’m afraid that’s happening never.”
It was a misconception, Soraya mused, that the baring of one’s soul brought relief. In her case, sharing unraveled further issues, further destructive thoughts.
Despite knowing it was futile, she couldn’t help but compare her relationship with Magnus to those of other couples on social media. On Instagram couples proclaimed their love for each other, with shots of their picturesque dates and selfies that showed them to be aesthetically pleasing couples.
Since the incident with her dad, Soraya and Magnus had not been on any outdoor dates, unless you counted popping to the supermarket. She could see this was getting to Magnus—the extrovert who loved nothing more than going to the pub—that and the fact that they still had not had sex fully. She didn’t want him to grow to resent her; didn’t want even to be thinking such thoughts herself.