Dare You To Love Me

«19» can we... surrender?

Her fingers tightened against her knees to the point of pain, but she paid no heed to it. She swallowed past the sob trapped between the columns of her throat, cursing the day she met him, cursed his smiles that turned her head, and the gentle ways he treated her.

Inhaling deeply, and pushing all of her thoughts and emotions back into the box in her head, she pushed the stool back, putting some distance between them.

Yaseerah wanted to look at him as she stepped away, but she didn’t want him to see how heartbroken she was, or how much it hurt her to step away from his embrace.

“I should get going,” she said after a while, uncertainty in her eyes, when she glanced back at him. “I’ve already burdened you enough.”

He shook his head, dispelling her hesitation. “You’ll never be a burden to me, Yaseerah.”

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said, risking a glance at him. “My presence is tainting someone else’s space...”

“Wallahi Yaseerah no woman will ever call this house her home, except for you,” Fulan vowed, cutting her off.

A tiny sob escaped her lips before she had the chance to stop it, and all she could do was stare at him, as she processed his promise to her.

Her heart was at odds with her mind, as it so often did whenever she was with him.

How could something feel so right yet wrong at the same time?

Fulan’s phone buzzing on the countertop distracted her for a second, and when she saw her photo as his phone’s wallpaper, fear and hope flared across her heart.

“Why?” she whispered, hating herself for the warmth she felt.

Fulan glanced at his phone, dismissing the call, before he stared at her for a long moment, like he was debating whether to respond or not. “You know why.”

For some reason, he needed her to come to her own conclusion, like saying his feelings out loud would merely be empty words from him, because no words could ever do justice for the way he felt about her.

Yaseerah shook her head, taking a step back, and another, and another, as tears began to slide down her cheeks in tandem.

“No,” she shook her head again, her voice firm, despite the tears that kept running down her cheeks.

“No,” she reiterated when his gaze clashed with hers. “You can’t. We can’t.”

A long tension filled moment passed between them, as they simply gazed at each other, their eyes conveying the truth their lips refused to say.

All Yaseerah could think in that moment was how she had doomed both of them. If only she had been selfless enough to put a stop to things before they had reached this point, then none of this would have happened.

She wouldn’t have been feeling like her heart and soul were being ripped to shreds, neither would she have ever questioned her loyalty to the man who deserved neither her love or her loyalty.

Fou’ad had made it clear with his actions that he didn’t want her. And Fulan stood, before her, his eyes mirroring the love she felt from within, the love she was trying so hard to squander.

Was an apology enough for all the heartache she was going to put him through when he finds out the truth about her?

“Fulan, I...” she choked back on another sob, unable to finish her sentence. She continued to stare at him, even as tears made her vision blurry, hoping that he understood the apology in her gaze. “This isn’t right.”