“Yeah. Laila?” Tahi asked quietly.
She looked up and met her cousin’s stare.
“I’ve always wanted to ask you, but I didn’t. Because I knew how much it hurt you, to think about him. But seeing as we’re on a roll tonight, maybe now’s the time.”
That old, too-familiar mixture of dread, helplessness and longing rose in her belly. Oh God, I was just a kid then. How could those old feelings still be inside me? She’d known that pain many times in the past eight years. Most recently, she’d experienced that rise of emotion when she’d followed his story about the Syrian family, the one for which he’d been nominated for a Pulitzer. But even then, the pain had been muted to a dull ache. Presently, it felt sharp. Piercing. It alarmed her, knowing the loss of him still lived in her . . . that it had been burned somewhere deeper than flesh.
She was a successful twenty-seven-year-old woman with her whole future in front of her. She might not have known at nineteen how to balance the demands of family, culture and her own desires and goals, but she’d learned that hard lesson now.
“What did you want to ask me?” she asked Tahi, determined to ignore the anxiety rising in her.
“You regretted it, didn’t you? That summer . . . you regretted letting them all talk you into not seeing Asher or talking to him ever again?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to deny it. But denial wasn’t what came out of her mouth.
“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ve regretted it.”
“You would have done things differently if you’d known what you know now?”
Laila shut her eyes. They burned. “What difference does it make?” she asked, feeling trapped by Tahi’s question.
“It does matter, I think,” Tahi said slowly. Laila opened her eyes at something she heard in her cousin’s tone of voice. “If you wish you’d done things differently, then maybe it’s not too late for you and Asher. He’s here in Chicago. Why not try and find him?”
“Because things are different, Tahi,” Laila insisted. “I broke things off with him. I hurt him. Even if I did decide I wanted to be with him, it’d never happen.” She saw the question and confusion in Tahi’s eyes. “Because he’d never want to be with me, given what I did.”
The teapot started to hiss. She pushed herself away from the counter and busied herself preparing their teas, trying to reign in her chaotic emotions. Tahi didn’t say anything when she placed their delicate tea glasses and the cookies on the cozy table surrounded by an upholstered booth, but Laila sensed her waiting patiently.
“I wrote to him,” Laila admitted after they’d sat, and she took several sips of atay.
“You did?” Tahi asked.
She nodded. “Six months or so after Crescent Bay. By that time, I realized it had been a mistake to cut all ties to him. I still didn’t think I should sneak around seeing him, when Mamma and Baba had expressly forbidden it and I still lived in their house. But I regretted breaking all contact with him. That had been wrong of me. I understand why I did it back then. I was young, and I was scared. I hated hurting everyone. But I hated hurting him too. It hurt so much more than I thought it would, living with that pain day in and day out,” she said quietly, setting down her cup. “It ended up being a worse hell than I’d ever imagined. And it only seemed to get worse as time went on. I tried to phone and text him. He never replied. So I found his e-mail at the L.A. Times, and I wrote to him. I told him I knew I’d hurt him badly. But would he consider at least talking to me again?”
“What did he say?” Tahi asked.
Laila tried to blink away the memories. “Say? Nothing. He never said anything. He never responded to any of my messages.”
“Ever?”
Laila shook her head. “I don’t blame him. He’d moved on. He was young. Driven. Extremely talented. He’d gotten promoted to a foreign post in Istanbul less than a year after starting at the Times. His dreams were coming true. Even if he did still think of me, it was probably with anger. Why would he want to risk being hurt again? Who was to say I wouldn’t reject him again, when backed against a wall?”
Tahi frowned. “But you changed so much in that time period. You seemed like you got ten years older overnight. It’s weird, I never really thought about it before . . . but your relationship with Asher changed you so much, but in a positive way, you know? While Eric had the opposite effect on Zara. When Eric cut all ties with her after that summer, she got bitter, like she was pissed off at the world and determined to flip it off at every turn. You got a backbone too, but in a completely different way. You were as respectful as ever to your parents, but you still found your own voice. You started working more hours at the restaurant, even though your mom hated it. You took those extra courses in poetry and music at the junior college, paying your own tuition. And you never told your parents about it, just like you’ve never told them you started singing. Even though you got your degree in business from Wayne State, just like Khal-ti Amira and Amu Anass wanted you to, you were different when it came to their demands. You tried to give them what they wanted when you could, but you didn’t let their preferences for your life get to you as much. Khal-ti Amira stopped having the power to push your buttons, a fact that I know bugs the crap out of her to this day,” Tahi said with a weary, but fond laugh. “When we graduated, they gave you such a hard time about moving to Chicago with me, but you wouldn’t bend. You started singing at O’Rourke’s a couple months after we got here. Even though you didn’t want to hurt your mom and dad by having them find out from someone else about you singing in public, you didn’t let it stop you from following your dreams. Our family doesn’t know about your career—true—but you haven’t let the fear of their disapproval stop you. Not this time, you haven’t.”
Laila smiled sadly. “It was because of him I’ve been able to do it . . . try to make things work in different areas of my life.”
“Asher?”
“Yeah,” she said, sipping her tea. “Somehow, as horrible as giving him up was, it made things clearer to me. I still live in two worlds, in a way. But I stopped feeling guilty about not sharing things with Mamma and Baba that I know they’ll make me feel bad about . . . that I know we’ll fight about. I wish they’d be part of my professional life, but I’ve accepted that they wouldn’t want to be. My lyrics and my performances would be just too . . . difficult for them. They’d never accept what I do. I do my best to respect them, but I know what I want now . . . what I’m willing to sacrifice. What I’m not. Or, at least I know better. I sacrificed what felt like everything for them, once. That’s enough for a lifetime.”
• • •
They continued to talk for hours. Both of them seemed liberated and energized by the idea of talking about topics they’d considered taboo for years.
“He was there,” Laila said suddenly at one point at around three in the morning, the realization hitting just before she said the words.
“What?” Tahi asked, turning from the stove where she’d been checking the kettle.
“Asher,” Laila said, amazement tingeing her tone. “Tonight. At the club. He was there. I just realized . . .”