LIMITLESS

Chapter XVIII

"He's not leaving, abo." Rayan said. On the outside she sounded brave, but in that moment she had never been more terrified.

"Be quiet, Rayan." her father snapped. "You've embarrassed me enough."

"We want to get married." Rayan said, seriously. Her father began to laugh.

"Oh wow. Let me guess, you love him too huh?" he pointed to Asad.

"I do." she nodded her head.

"Not too long ago it was that white boy from your school, yesterday it was Hakeem, and today it's Asad." he looked at him. "I wonder who it's going to be tomorrow."

"With all due respect, we're serious about this." Asad tried to convince her father. "I care about Rayan. At this point, what do you have to lose by letting us get married? You know Rayan," he looked over at her. "She'll never do anything she doesn't want. If you make her marry someone else she's just going to run away again."

"Is that a threat?" her father asked.

"I'm just saying that she only wants to be with me. She's never going to marry anybody else."

"Are you telling me that you know more about my daughter than me?"

"No sir. I just really want to be with your daughter. That's all I'm saying." he explained. "I know that I ruined my chances when I ran away with her but I couldn't stand to see her marry Hakeem. I'm sorry about that but it doesn't change the fact that we still want to get married. We can only do this with your blessing."

"And what have you done to earn my blessing?" her father asked. "Hakeem came in here like a good man and did things on my terms. You took my daughter and ran away with her overnight."

"I would have loved to do things your way." Asad shrugged. "But I knew how Omar would feel about it. I tried to keep my distance for his sake but I can't hide it anymore. Like I said before, I love Rayan."

"Omar, come down here!" her father shouted without taking his eyes off of Asad. They immediately heard stomps coming down the stairs.

"Yes, abo?"

"I want to talk to you about this."

"About what?" Omar asked.

"About these two wanting to be together."

"I'm not a part of that." he shook his head. "I'm not going to be a part of it either. There's no way." Rayan and Asad looked at each other. She rolled her eyes, she wasn't expecting anything else from him.

"Good. We don't care if you're part of it." she shrugged. "But it's happening either way. We're going to get married."

"Go ahead." he said, emotionlessly. "If my sister wants to be a hoe that runs around with my friends, then that's on her. This isn't my problem anymore." Rayan gasped at the sound of what Omar said. She never in a milion years expected that her brother would say something like that about her.

"Is that really how you talk to your sister?" Asad asked him angrily. "You wonder why she always rebelled and kept things from you. It's because you're a psychopath."

Their father looked back and forth between them and watched the scene unfold.

"You have a lot of nerve coming into my house and telling me about Rayan. Nobody knows her better than me. She's not this misunderstood innocent girl that she made you think she is. She's stupid. She's spoiled and stupid."

"Omar," his father began.

"Am I lying? We did everything for this brat. We bent over backwards to protect her and raise her right. I sacrificed so much so that I could set a good example for her."