Behind the Curtain - Page 52

Laila swallowed thickly. “I don’t know. Maybe,” she whispered. But the true answer rang in her head like a resonant bell. She lay on her back and stared blindly up at the beams on the ceiling.

I am so screwed.

“Tahi?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever felt like . . . like your whole world—the one that you’ve always known and loved—suddenly got too small? And you feel like you’re going crazy? Like you’re suffocating, and you just want to burst out of it?”

“Sure. All the time. Doesn’t everybody our age feel that way? We’re not kids, but we’re not adults either. Not completely. It sucks.”

Laila lifted her head. “So what do you do when you feel like that?”

Tahi shrugged. “Deal with it. It usually fades with a good night’s sleep. It’s all going to turn out, eventually. You and I will get our degrees from Wayne State. We’ll get jobs. We’ll get married. Then we’ll be in a position to call the shots.”

Laila laughed at her friend’s practicality and rested her head on her pillow again. “It’s just so hard to know sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Know what?”

“What’s selfish and what’s courageous?” Laila said softly. “What’s being naïve and immature, and what’s being adult and strong?”

“I wouldn’t know. You lost me. Let’s get back to Asher. Are you worried you’re being selfish when it comes to him?”

For a moment, she didn’t answer. She just stared up at the beams on the ceiling, trying to find the right words. Maybe she was being selfish. But was being selfish always bad?

“He’s so incredible. So brave. So independent. Fearless. He makes me feel so much. Not just in regard to him. About myself. He makes me want to take chances. Live bigger. Deeper.”

“You mean like run off with him or something?” Tahi asked, sounding incredulous. Mystified. Maybe a little awed.

“I don’t know. It’s not just that. That’s not what I’m trying to say,” she said, frustrated that she couldn’t make Tahi understand.

“I was half joking about Nadine keeling over if Zara ever pulled anything scandalous with Eric the Jerk. But I’m serious when I say Khal-ti Amira would have a stroke if you ran off with Asher. That’s definitely not what Auntie has in mind for her precious little girl,” Tahi said drolly.

“I know,” Laila whispered, hiding her wince at the mere thought of her mother’s pain if she ever did something so drastic. Her shame. And Lail

a’s subsequent shame, at exposing her need . . . at making her dreams and desires more important than those of the ones she loved.

What was selfish, and what was brave?

That question made her dizzy. How was it that when she asked that question from one point of view, the answer was so drastically different than when she asked it from another?

Chapter Twelve

Wednesday morning, she and Asher texted.

I missed seeing you last night.

I missed you too, she wrote.

Eric is a jerk, getting Zara drunk like that. Is she okay today?

She’s pretty hungover still, but surviving.

Do you think you can meet me at the sl at one?

SL was their abbreviation for secret lake.

You know I’d like to. I’ll try my hardest to be there.

Tags: Beth Kery Erotic
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