♥ ♥ ♥
I DON'T KNOW MUCH ARABIC. I know the basics. And I know how to curse out bitches like Buttercup. The last one felt very important to younger me, as I wanted to make sure that when Farrah Zahed and Daniel Fakhoury fell away into brisk Arabic conversations, they weren't blatantly trash-talking me to my face.
And I knew enough Spanish to know when Rafael Herrera was spewing cuss words back and forth, no filter.
Cursing was always a priority of mine, clearly.
Other than fuck you, I was never good with words though. Maybe that's why my father spoke to Aryan first. Because I must be glaring. I was good at glaring where I failed at talking.
Ivan once told me I could turn a man to stone with just my eyes. However, Ivan was poetic and pretentious and often said whatever pretty words it took for us to fuck. And it usually worked.
Pretty words and tightly-woven history always chipped away at me and today is no exception.
Aryan's hands are still on my waist but they fall away when I feel my grip on the Dija's to-go bag slacken. He moves quickly and intercepts them.
He's protecting the cookies, I tell myself and curl my hands into fists in the aftermath as he brushes away and drops the bag quietly onto the counter, nearing my father while I stay planted.
My mother's eyes flick over him then back to me but I can't look at her right now. Petra is scowling into her cup.
There's my mother's glittering, shiny dallah coffee pot that she'd gotten as a wedding gift to Petra. It glints gold on the kitchen island and I can't help but think about how she'd taken it and matching gold-trimmed ceramic cups out of the cupboards for him.
Aryan does me the favour of not turning to look at me and my expression, shrivelling apart where I stand and I can't help it, and I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for Aryan Shankar. The world has shifted off its fucking axis.
He says nothing to Daniel Fakhoury.
I can't look away from him. I can't even remember the last time I'd seen him in this house. My glare is so hot I feel like I could burn up with it.
And to think only moments before, I was willing to burn up with Aryan Shankar again. My heart is made up of wilted flower petals and I should know better than to risk it.
I should know better than to risk it for the starlight in his eyes.
When I was younger, and the flowers on the kitchen island were still whole and I could point out and name the constellations in the sky, we would sit on the same cushion on the couch, the tv screen lit up with Arabic soap operas that had my father roaring with laughter. I never knew what was going on sometimes, no subtitles, but I just liked to sit nearby and hear him laugh. He'd even translate the funny parts for me.
He'd tell me how he grew up watching these old films from the small television set perched above the refrigerator in his mother's kitchen in Nablus. He'd tell me the names of the pretty Egyptian actresses with their jet black hair, twice his age, who he'd had a crush on as a boy. My mother would roll her eyes. Mosalsalat, he called the soap operas. At the ripe age of four, I'd just called them overly dramatic. My father took great insult to this.
In the very old tradition of Arab men being more dramatic than they need to be, he'd hold his hand to his heart and exclaim, "Ya Emira, you're going to hell for that." Granted, that wasn't a very nice thing to say to a four-year-old, I'd had tough skin from a very young age and we'd proceed to argue about it.
I know that some part of him would've traded Hollywood fame for those films— the ones he'd watched in his mother's house that no longer stood, that even when he'd moved to Beirut as an adult and met my mother at AUB, later to venture as a married couple to The States, that some part of him would still trade it all.
I hadn't expected to be part of the trade, though.
"Son, this is a family matter," he says to Aryan. He claps a hand on Aryan's shoulder and pats and I watch Aryan, blazing Aryan Shankar and his hellfire kiss, turn to ice. "You should get going."
A family matter?
Daniel Fakhoury had lost himself a long time ago, left somewhere in a little house with a television above the refrigerator, a home never to return to, and he tore apart his family trying to find himself again. I wonder again, do trees feel it when their roots are pulled out? There was no family here.
Aryan carefully slides away from the hand on his shoulder. He doesn't look at me but he grins, nice and slow, that one that makes me want to punch him in the face, but it's tipped with cold as he says to Daniel, "I'm not your son."
At that, Petra snorts into her cup of steaming coffee near the toaster, her hands curled so tight around the cup that I know part of her has considered throwing it at my father.
Aryan's eyes flick to me now. I catch the message. My keys glint between his fingers and I guess he took them when he took the bag. Getaway car, Zahed?
This is my house.
I inhale under his gaze and tear my attention sharply to my mother.
"Why is he here?" My voice is betrayed.
But Farrah Zahed is a no-nonsense type of woman. I'd always loved it about her but today I hate it. "Mira, he's your father."
I hate her in that moment. I hate her because she doesn't hate him.
"That's an interesting word." I'm sneering, full of anger. "Say it again. Say it in English. Say it in Arabic. It still doesn't mean anything to me."
She never likes to fight with me. She never gets angry like me. She doesn't raise her voice. She's patient. And her hands don't shake, not around her coffee cup, not around her scalpels. Mine curl into fists. I hate it. Because it means all my anger, all my restlessness, is his.
I give up on getting a reaction out of Farrah Zahed. Petra lowers her cup under my accusing glare. "You knew about this?"
I'm being a brat, I know, just like Aryan likes to call me. But he's quiet, keys in hand.
I keep going on, as Petra and my mother share a look, one of those quiet, communicate with just our eyes type of looks reserved for people in love. Petra rolls her eyes. But she's on my mother's side. On his side.
My head jerks to him then and I snap harshly, "Get the hell out."
"Emira—," he starts, holding up his hands to show he comes in peace. I don't want fucking peace.
"Mira," I belt out, so hard and so loud that everyone looks at me. Aryan takes a single step forward and I realise that he knows the war in my tone better than all of them. I ignore him. "Zahed. Mira Zahed. This isn't your house. Get out."
"Your father wants to speak with you, Emira," my mother's voice breaks through. The ground shifts under me at that but I ignore her too. I ignore everyone aside from the grey-eyed man who's looking at me like I'm the greatest mistake of his life.
Daniel clears his throat softly. The funny thing is, I've seen him in movies. I've seen him cry and make the audience cry with him. So I have no idea if that look, the deep-rooted regret, the penance, the wounded look is real at all. And even if it is, I'm glad of it.
"The last time I tried to reach out, I could understand why you were upset," he started and I didn't stop glaring, couldn't stop glaring. He waves a hand. An old wedding band flashes on his ring finger. "The cameras," he was saying, "the attention. It wasn't. . . ideal."
His manager, his wife, had advised him against showing up at the UCLA campus. But he was reckless, impulsive even. Just like me.
Before I could form the impulsive words at the tip of my tongue— Get the fuck out, this time— he goes on, "But I meant what I said." He inhales. Get the fuck out. "If I'd known— if I'd known how you felt, I would've tried sooner." Get the fuck out. "I want to fix things."
I'm moving before I can stop myself, tearing across the kitchen, whipping past Shankar until my palms claw onto the edge of the kitchen island separating me and Daniel. Yet, I can't form any words to describe what I think. Why? Why the fuck? It's at the tip of my tongue yet all I can do is glare and cut my palms into the marble counter.
Remorse filters in Daniel's grey eyes and I have my answer anyway. It leaves me boiling.
He goes on, right past the hell in my gaze, because he's impulsive and reckless just like me.
"No steakhouse," he says and I almost laugh. "My house." This used to be his house. "We're having a lunch." Him and his wife? "Your mother and Petra are coming." I can feel Petra's scowl at this but still, I consider them both traitors. "You can even bring your boyfriend if that makes you comfortable, Mira." His eyes flick over my shoulder and I still.
Aryan Shankar is not my boyfriend.
I don't even turn to look back at his reaction to that.
And Daniel just keeps going like he isn't pulling apart my carefully built house on uneven earth brick by fucking brick, "I just— it would be nice. If you'd come. It can be a start." His heart is in his eyes— my eyes. A start, he'd said. Is there a beginning and an end to a home?
"No," I state firmly.
My mother sighs off to the side. Daniel's face colours with distress. It's a bleak aged grey of a colour. Rotten and ruin.
He lifts a hand off the counter and grasps at air in a last-ditch effort. His hands drop and he says, "Min fadlik, ya Emira."
I don't know much Arabic. But I understand this enough.
Please.
My palms slip off the counter at that and with one last look at my father, I turn to Aryan Shankar to find him staring back, keys in hand. "Get me the fuck out of here," I say to him. I don't say please.
I don't wait for him either, out the kitchen door before anyone could say another fucking word.
My shoes are on and I'm out the door, breathing in outside air, fingers grappling impatiently for the locked passenger door.
Aryan is slow to come out and when he does, he carries the to-go bag with him. He took the damn cookies.
He doesn't ask why I'm letting him drive as he clicks the button to unlock the doors and I all but fly into the passenger seat without wait.
He's in after me, tossing the cookies into my lap, weaving seatbelt across his body, then driving the keys into the ignition with one hand on the wheel.
As soon as I assume he would stay quiet and let me stew in peace, I'm reminded once again of who he is.
Aryan turns the key and glances over to me. "Where to, Zahed?"
"Target," I say, blowing out a decisive breath. "We're gonna but a fuck-ton of toilet paper."
He doesn't utter a word at this, hand on the wheel.
But before I can stop him, he leans over across the glove box, grabs my seatbelt off the door into his free hand, pulls it neatly across me and buckles it in place in one smooth motion.
Then, he floors it.
♥ ♥ ♥
WE'RE STANDING IN THE CHOCOLATE AISLE at Target.
I'm never taking Aryan Shankar anywhere ever again.
"You bought an entire trolley full of toilet paper, Mira," he tells me. "It's like you're preparing for the end of the world or something."
He taps at a box of M&M's. Regular M&M's. As a vegan, I don't have M&M's but even so, everyone knows Peanut M&M's are the way to go.
He wisely drops his attention from the boring M&M's and carries on, "Anyway, you got your toilet paper. Let a man have his chocolate." He looks up at me where I stand, arms crossed beside the trolley full of toilet paper that he was supposed to be pushing until he ditched me for the chocolate aisle. "Don't tell me you don't like chocolate, Mira Zahed."
I drop my crossed arms and sigh, walking toward him. "Of course, I like chocolate. I'm not a fucking heathen."
Aryan peers down at me and my newfound place at his side, my hands impatiently on my hips. He goes back to surveying the shelves after a beat, taking his sweet time to do so. "Could've fooled me," replies Aryan.
I resist the urge to bash his head in with a box of Peanut M&M's. Maybe it would give him some tastebuds though.
As I'm considering that, Aryan straightens, something on the shelves capturing his attention, his dark eyes sparkling like— well, like a kid in a candy store.
He drifts away from me and picks up a heart-shaped box. He holds it up and grins like he's unlocked treasure.
"That's a Valentine's Day box," I inform him with a roll of my eyes. "We're in September."
"Exactly, which means it'll be on sale. Tell me I'm not a fucking genius, Zahed."
"You're a cheapskate, that's what you are."
He glares at me, offended with a heart-shaped box in hand. Then, his lips tilt up into a grin.
"You're paying though," Aryan tells me.
"I'm not buying you fucking chocolate, Shankar." I close my arms over my chest.
"Because you're a cheapskate, Zahed?"
"No," I say. "Because you don't fucking deserve chocolate."
Aryan balances the box in his hand and treads toward me. I realise we probably shouldn't be swearing up a storm in the middle of a Target. A blonde lady even throws us a dirty glare and ushers her toddlers away. Aryan ignores her though, nearing me until his head dips and his breath curls around my ear. "I so fucking deserve chocolate."
I push him away and glare. He grins and goes so far as to tear open the box and pop a ring-shaped truffle into his mouth. My glare burns brighter as he lets the truffle melt in his mouth and faux moans. I hate his guts. Once done, he licks his fingers in the middle of the fucking Target, then says, "I would share, Zahed, but you don't eat dairy so I guess we can improvise."
"I don't want anything from you," I snap at him as he unceremoniously shoves the box into my hands.
"Yes, you do." With that, he starts to walk away.
"Fuck you," I call after him.
At that, the mother straightens and scoffs loudly, "I'm calling security."
Aryan, without turning around, waves a hand over his shoulder and sings, "You do that, Blossom."
I nearly laugh. I hold back on the principle that it is Shankar who is making the joke. Albeit, a funny one. I will not laugh.
But then Blossom, hands on her hips, looks ready to charge at six foot something Aryan Shankar and it's an image that makes an unwilling smile crack past my lips. I know, without having to see, that he's grinning with himself too as he disappears from our lane.
That asshole left me to push the shopping cart. And with Blossom.
I handle the latter with a quick middle finger and a smile. She covers her toddlers' eyes. Then, I'm out the aisle, pushing the cart myself because Aryan is an asshole.
I turn my attention away from the chocolate aisle and back to the overflowing rolls of toilet paper. It was a split-second decision and a tad juvenile but I haven't regretted it yet so that has to count for something.
It helped that my mother texted me the details of this fucking fabulous lunch while I was busily throwing toilet paper into the cart, as if I hadn't just told Daniel to fuck himself. Every message made me grab an extra roll or two.
Besides, toilet paper is biodegradable and Daniel's Beverly Hills mansion is easy to pinpoint thanks to that Architectural Digest YouTube video he'd done a year ago.
I don't give myself time to reconsider, pushing the cart into the checkout lane. I wait in line for a while, this store particularly busy for it being 2 pm on a Sunday.
When it's finally my turn, I'm met with a raised, judgemental brow from the cashier toward my trolley full of toilet paper and my half-opened on-sale Valentine's Day box of chocolates.
Over my shoulder, Aryan's voice rings with explanation, "Explosive diarrhoea."
My face hardens and I spin on him, intent on pinning him with a dagger-eyed stare, and he takes to opportunity to pick another chocolate from the box in my hands. My glare only makes him chuckle around a hazelnut truffle.
"Thank you for holding that for me, Zahed," Aryan chimes with a winning smile, eyes bright as he steals the box from my hands. Within my empty hands, he drops a new item.
I glance down, tearing my stare away from his mischief-filled one. From the way he smirked at me, I fully expect to look down and find something inappropriate in my hands. A box of tampons and a PMSing joke. A Justin Bieber album. A dildo— do they even sell those at Target? Probably not.
No dildos, just a slender chocolate bar. A dairy-free chocolate bar. I blink.
Aryan's grin is easy, luring my stare back up to him from the chocolate. "Happy Valentine's Day, Zahed."
I clutch the chocolate and roll my eyes. "It's still September."
"Which makes it ten times more romantic," he argues and proceeds to dole out toilet paper from the trolley, shooting the annoyed cashier a charming smile. Aryan Shankar's smiles are so magical that the woman's stern expression for me disappears entirely. The bitch is biased.
"It's not romantic if I'm buying myself chocolate," I reply and pick up a roll with my spare hand.
We move in steady sync, unloading the cart with an obscene amount of toilet paper.
Once the last roll was passed through the scanner, Aryan glances up at me and says, "Who said anything about you paying?"
"You did." His wallet is already in his hands and I'm glaring now. "You're not buying me fucking chocolate."
"Yeah, you're right," he states with a shrug. "I'm buying you fucking chocolate and," he says, lowering his voice, "funding the start of your criminal career."
The cashier glances between us. We're in each other's faces and she probably just wants Aryan to swipe his damn card and maybe smile at her again. She's definitely on his side. I glare at her for it. But she pays me no mind because Aryan hands her his card and smiles. I hope all the teeth in his mouth fall out so he could never smile at stupid Target employees ever again.
"I have a better idea on how to start my criminal career," I tell him as he casually pushes the cart out into the lot. The sun glistens against the top of his hair and his lashes flutter low as he fixes a small smile on me.
"Yeah?"
"Homicide," I say, deadpan.
"Who's gonna unpack all of this fucking toilet paper then, Zahed?" comes his easy response, coupled with an arrogant little smirk.
I blatantly ignore him, unlocking my car and letting him pull open the back and start unpacking. I can kill him afterwards.
My phone rings and I think it's my mother but a quick glance down at the screen proves me wrong.
I hit decline on Dima's brother way too quick.
Because I have a lot of shit going on and one of them is the fact that I fucked Aryan Shankar. I said it to Charlie in the heat of the moment, otherwise, I haven't allowed myself to process it too much. I want to decide that it was just a dream but that also implies that Aryan Shankar is in my dreams.
And I wouldn't even admit that under a court of law.
But it hadn't been a dream and there's yet another thing I wouldn't admit to: the sore ache in my legs which is calling me a stupid bitch for picking a car of all damn places.
It wasn't exactly a bitch, put your knees in the cup holders type of screw but it wasn't exactly kind either.
I think he knows what I'm thinking about, his dark eyes flitting to me as I pull out the reusable laden with TP. I fish a roll out of a bag and throw it at him to divert his attention. He catches it neatly between two hands like an American footballer would. I don't think he'd appreciate that comparison. Aryan lifts a brow at me.
I flip him off and leave him with the few remaining bags.
The leather seat is hot under my ass and when the back of the car slams shut behind me, I tear open my chocolate bar. I'm about to break a piece off when the driver's door opens and in piles Aryan. I roll my eyes at him out of habit and quickly grab my seatbelt. I scowl, "I can buckle my own damn seatbelt, by the way."
Aryan starts the car and pulls his on as well. The AC fans against my cheeks and he leans closer. For a quick moment, I think he's going to kiss me again. My heart picks up in my chest.
Stupid bitch, my legs scream at me, not the car again.
Then, when he simply snaps a piece of my chocolate bar, I'm reminded that we're in Target's car park. "No you can't," he answers.
Before I could snap back, Aryan wrinkles his nose after tasting the chocolate. "Tastes like shit."
I shake off my thoughts, roll my eyes at his reaction and I try a piece. "It's shit," I decree, sticking out my tongue.
I drop the chocolate bar in disgust and Aryan twists around in the driver's seat and grabs something from the back. He returns and drops Dija's cookies into my lap.
"Here," he says. "Eat a damn cookie."
"Take your damn chocolate," I tell him back, shoving the chocolate at his chest.
"Hell no," he says and dodges it and we eventually compromise and resort to disposing of it in a trash can outside the car.
When he returns to the car, he fixes a look on me. I stop nibbling on Dija's frosted cookie and narrow my eyes at him like What the fuck do you want, Shankar?
It's a look he knows well by now because he asks, "Are you sure about this?"
I know that he's asking about my evil plan to rain toilet paper all over Daniel Fakhoury's house. Well, it's Dima's plan. I have to give my best friend credit. He's an evil genius in hiding.
Aryan's tone is completely unreadable and so is his expression. But he doesn't grin at me either. I can't sense whether he disapproves or not.
But I also don't care about his opinions. He's not my boyfriend. He's not even my friend. That's Dima and my next stop is to his apartment.
I've had the media pick apart my relationship with my father, diagnosing daddy issues. Hell, I've picked it apart myself. So, I have no shame staring down Aryan Shankar as he lounges behind the wheel of my car and letting him know about all the ugly rage at the very centre of me. I don't even need words. It's there. In my glare.
And he knows my glare well because he doesn't need a translation. He nods once and starts the car without another word.
♥ ♥ ♥
i had to edit in the Valentine's Day piece but i love it even tho it's like late September in the story lololol
also mira's character development is going to be so fun to write