Layla
We squeeze our faces together to look at the phone in my hands and there she is; smiling in a hat with feathers next to my husband. Almost next to him to be exact, but still too close to him.
"Who is the guy between them?" I ask.
Sheikha answers. "That's Amir, her brother."
"He's so cute!" Maryam squeals.
"Ha," Latifa chuckles. "Dad would be so happy if you married him, he appreciates anything that gets us closer to the Saudis."
"But then, Nafisah would be your sister," Sheikha points out.
"Yeah," Maryam laments. "He's probably not worth it."
I swipe with my finger to look at the rest of the photos, there are a few of them and she is almost in every shot, never alone with Hamdan like I saw them, but still... There. She. Is. And I can tell by the pictures that they are having a pretty good time.
"Why?" I wonder. "Why did she have to be there today when I wasn't?"
"I understand that she bothers you, but you really have nothing to worry about," says Sheikha at my right, with her face still next to mine and her eyes on the screen.
"That's true," to my left, Latifa agrees. "Hamdan practically drools every time he looks at you."
Above me, Maryam also concurs. "Yeah! Did you like the bunny slippers? I ran into him in the hallway yesterday and he was so excited to show them to me, he's totally head over heels with you and the baby."
"I know, I know," I put the phone down and all of them disperse and go back to their places. "In my head I know that but when I see her I just..." I trail off, unable to put into words my feelings, until an idea comes to mind. "You know that scene from Mean Girls? When Cady imagines how she would settle things in the animal world with Regina?"
"When Regina was touching the boy's hair?" Latifa asks.
"Yes!" I reply, pointing at her with my finger. "And she flies across the table and pins Regina down on the floor and goes completely primal on her!"
They all start to laugh.
"That's what I feel like doing to her!" I start laughing too.
"I would so help you, sis." Sheikha offers.
I sigh. "But I have to be better than that. You guys are right, I have nothing to worry about and I'm not making any sense."
"Talk to him," Maryam advises.
"Yes, come on, it's Hamdan," Latifa tells me. "He's the sweetest, he loves you, you're pregnant... of course he will understand."
I know he will, but I feel very guilty for all the drama that I caused, it was definitely not worth it. Hamdan and I spent so many years apart and I never want to feel like we're somehow distanced, more than enough time has already been wasted. I want to do something special, I want to make it up to him and I'll figure something out.
---
Hamdan
I walk into our suite and hear nothing. Slowly, I close the door behind me, trying to not make any noise in case Layla is asleep. I truly wanted to get out of the Ascot, my mood is weird because of how things are between us but now that I'm here, I'm not sure how to proceed. Maryam said that Layla was feeling better and that they had fun. It's still early, all I want is to have some of that fun with her even if it only means watching a movie or something like that, I just wish for things to go back to normal.
I avoid the bedroom and instead decide to head to the dinning area to leave my hat and coat there but I freeze when I see her on the living room couch, wearing jeans and a black top.
"Hey," she says to me, putting her phone down.
"Hi," I reply, leaving my stuff on the table.
We stare at each other for a moment and it seems like we're still not going anywhere, so I scratch my head.
"I'll go change," I say.
"Can we talk first?" She requests, right when I'm about to turn around.
Yes! Finally! Yes! Let's talk!
"Sure," I reply casually.
As I'm walking towards her, I realize I haven't kissed her yet and I always do when we see each other after being apart, so I kiss her on the forehead before sitting next to her. She brings her leg up on the couch to turn her body in my direction and I do the same. Her face, her expression looks entirely different from yesterday and that gives me hope.
"Okay, first of all, there are a few things you need to know," she begins.
"Fine, go ahead."
She clears her throat. "I had already met Nafisah before, years ago."
"What?" I frown. "Where? Why didn't you say something?"
"We were just kids and I didn't say anything because I was terrified of her and I think I still am," the emotion soon can be heard in her voice.
I scoot closer to her with immense curiosity about where this is going, and she starts telling me the story of her multiple encounters with Nafisah. Turns out the princess wasn't a sweet one and used to make fun of Layla.
"But what did she make fun of?" I wonder, unable to comprehend how anyone could do that to Layla.
"Anything and everything!" She says, lifting her palms briefly and then letting them fall back on her legs. "My clothes, my hair, the fact that she was a princess and I wasn't royalty... She used to claim I had an accent when speaking Arabic and that she couldn't understand what I was saying."
"You did not have an accent!" I deny, this is ridiculous, that woman... well, that girl back then was insane.
"That's what she claimed!"
"Where was I when all of this was happening?" I ask her.
"We were not that little, I don't think she and her sisters were allowed to play with you guys, the boys," she explains. "Same way we were not allowed to play with her brothers."
Little by little, everything starts making sense, but I still have more questions.
"But maybe that just was kid stuff, maybe she's different now," I suggest.
Layla shakes her head. "The thing is, it really affected me. I couldn't understand why she didn't like me, it made me wonder if there truly was something wrong with me. I always got along with the other girls at school, it didn't make any sense to me. And the worst part is that I cared, you know? I wanted her to like me for some bizarre reason. One time, she called me fat for eating so much chocolate and told me I was going to get even more fat if I kept eating like that."
As she relieves the memories, I stop seeing grown up Layla in front of me and she somehow transforms into that little Layla I used to know, the one that suffered all this bullying.
"And I believed her," she continues. "I stopped eating sweets. Of course that only lasted for like two days but still," she chuckles in the midst of the tears about to leave her eyes.
I reach for her hand and share a brief smile with her. "I'm so sorry for what she did to you."
"And that's not even the worst," she warns me.
"It gets worse?"
She takes a deep breath in an obvious attempt to get herself ready for something truly hard to share. "One time, she came up to me and asked: Where are your parents? Your real parents."
My jaw tenses up, what kind of a person would use something like that to hurt another? I am now disgusted that I even exchanged a word with Nafisah.
"I didn't want to answer, so I remained quiet and she asked one more time; where are your parents? I turned around and started to walk away and she chased after me, tapping me on the shoulder, asking again and again where my parents were," tears finally roll down her face.
I stretch my arm to get a couple of tissues from the box on the coffee table and hand them to her.
She wipes her cheeks and nose to continue talking. "And then Sheikha completely lost it; she pulled Nafisah's hair and wouldn't let go," Layla recalls with a pained laugh.
My little sister is tiny but fierce, I would never mess with her and I'm glad for what she did.
"Latifa had to break them apart, it was crazy," she sniffles. "Sheikha was yelling at her, telling her to leave me alone but then Lati, like the good big sister she is, said something to Nafisah, I don't know what it was, I never asked her and I don't think she even remembers. But after that, we ignored her for the rest of the day and she stayed away. And that was the last time I saw her, until yesterday."
I extend my arms to her. "Come here."
She rushes to straddle me, putting her legs to each one of my sides and wrapping her arms around my neck.
My hands fall flat on her back. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry about yesterday," I apologize.
"Well, you didn't know," she mumbles. "And I'm sorry too for not being able to tell you sooner."
I push her back gently to take her face with both hands, making sure she's looking at me. "And I love your hair, your clothes are awesome, your Arabic is perfect, you should always eat all the sweets that you feel like eating and I'm sure your parents are looking down on you and feeling extremely proud."
She smiles through the tears and kisses me on the lips. "Thank you, habibi, but there's one more thing."
My hands go up to my head. "There's more? What else did she do to you?"
"No, it's not about me, it's about you," she says. "She likes you, she always has."
I shake my head slightly and close my eyes trying to understand but it doesn't work. "What?" I repeat.
"She likes you," Layla shrugs. "Back in the day she was very vocal about it, she even tricked Maryam once into taking her to your room."
"My room? What was she even doing there?"
"I don't know."
This is simply weird and creepy on a whole new level. I can't believe she is related to Amir, he's nothing like this; he's respectful, honest, a down to earth guy and a good friend.
"Okay, let's just say she liked me before, I mean, I have been handsome my entire life," I joke. "I don't blame her."
Layla lets her shoulders hang and hits my arm with the back of her hand.
I let out a laugh before continuing. "But that was before and you hadn't seen her in like forever, what makes you think she still likes me?"
"The way she was looking at you," she replies quickly. "The moment I saw her, I knew. It's all in the way she looks at you, Hamdan..." Layla trails off. "I feel it is the same way I look at you."
I want to deny it, tell her that she is imagining things, that it is not possible to know something of that nature just by seeing how one person looks at the other, but her expression has turned somber again and I can almost see the emotion building up inside of her.
"When I saw the two of you yesterday," she lowers her gaze. "I felt like she would want to take you away from me, she always wanted to hurt me somehow and that would be the absolute worst thing she could do. Suddenly, I felt like I was twelve again and she represented a real threat," Layla takes the collar of her top to bring it over to her nose and mouth and looks at me again with pure fear in her eyes. "I know it doesn't make any sense but that's exactly how I felt and I wanted to run to you and take you as far away from her as possible."
---
I had never talked about bullying in any of my stories so, I really liked this chapter because of that. And because vulnerability and opening up to someone else is really lovely and brave, I think.
If you have ever been bullied, I'm sending lots of love to you.
Sophie.