"Hey!" Erin greeted, looking surprised when she opened the door to her apartment.
"Is there room for us in your Valentine's celebration?" Sarah wondered with a fake smile plastered on her face.
"Sure, come in!"
Erin patted Rooster on his way in. After spending hours at the beach, he was too tired to jump on her as he would normally do. He just plopped on the white carpet in the living room. Sarah's Labrador blended perfectly with Erin's monochromatic black and white decoration in the minimalistic apartment.
"Are you okay?" Erin asked with furrowed brows.
"Define okay..." Sarah sighed. "I'm breathing."
Erin gasped. "Oh my god! Did Nate show up again? Because if he did—"
"He didn't," Sarah cut her off.
Nate had fallen into Tom and Erin's blacklist after Sarah told them what happened at brunch the day after the wedding. Of course she had to modify the end of the story for Erin, there were no armed men in the version she gave them. On the way to the airport, Tom heard the true version of the events.
"Oh," she said, relieved. "How's your arm?"
"Green."
"Yikes..." Erin grimaced. "So, what happened?"
Sarah let herself fall onto one of the couches. "Have you opened the rosé yet?"
A bottle of wine and a few episodes of Sex & The City later, Sarah was finally done taking her friend through the roller coaster of emotions that was her story with Hamdan, all the way until the events of that morning. They were sitting on opposite sides of the couch in front of the flat screen T. V., facing each other with a wine glass in their hands.
"Shit, Sarah. That's Sheikh Mohammed!" Erin warned, clasping a palm on her forehead.
"I know... and he hates me," Sarah concluded.
"Oh no, he doesn't hate you. He could've done much worse things. Actually, I'm not sure there's any validation to you being fired."
"I don't think it matters."
"It does! Those stables are not his. I feel that what he did was more like... a message."
Sarah pushed her hair back away from her face. "Stay away from my son."
Erin nodded. "But what did Hamdan say?"
"Nothing, my phone is off."
"Why?" Erin asked with wide open eyes.
"Because I need to think! And I can't do that when he's around," Sarah covered her eyes with her hand briefly.
Erin put her glass down on the coffee table and hugged her. "I'm so sorry this is happening. You don't deserve it," her friend comforted.
Sarah tried to smile at Erin's gesture as she returned to her spot.
"Maybe I do deserve it... What was I thinking? I wasn't! See? That's what happens to me when I'm with him, that's why I can't see him right now," her eyes felt on the glass of wine in her hand.
"Well, the real question is: what is Hamdan to you? Because that's what's going to determine your actions. I mean, is he worth it? Is he your Mr. Big?" Erin asked, pointing at the screen with her glass.
The flat screen was showing a scene of Carrie and Big breaking up for the tenth time.
"Oh, great..." Sarah complained.
The exquisite pain of wanting someone so unattainable... Carrie's line resonated in her mind.
They watched in silence and when the credits started rolling, Sarah had an answer. "No, he's not my Mr. Big. He's so much better than Big ever was to Carrie."
The wine was over and they had moved onto a massive bag of potato chips and diet soda, the only type of soft drink Erin would have at her place.
"How long are you going to keep punishing him?" Erin asked, glancing at Sarah's phone on the coffee table. "He's probably looking for you like crazy."
"I don't know," Sarah shook her head.
"You had plenty of time for thinking and he didn't do anything wrong," Erin implied.
"I think he lied, Erin."
"How? When?"
"There's something off in Sheikh Mohammed's behavior. I mean, put yourself in his shoes; you find out that your son is seeing a girl that you don't like, so you go and get her fired?" Sarah pondered biting on the chips. "Doesn't seem like a first reaction, you know?"
Erin seemed to be dwelling on the idea for a moment. "Maybe you should become a lawyer, what you said makes sense. But Hamdan never mentioned anything about his father knowing?"
"No, he didn't."
After leaving the stables, Sarah picked up Rooster from her apartment and drove to the beach. Sitting on the sand, watching Rooster splash in the water, she went over every detail of what happened since she started seeing Hamdan, trying to figure if there was something she overlooked. The pieces of the puzzle slowly started coming together, flashes of the time Uncle Saeed saw them at the stables and the weekend at The Smeralda started popping in her mind. Her brain kicked into gear and everything fell into place.
"But that weekend at the yacht," Sarah continued sitting straight up. "He was acting weird, completely aloof, which is really not weird. I mean, he's got a lot on his plate, right? There were hundreds of things he could be worried about, but I asked him several times and he kept dodging my questions. And I know he would've told me about what was bothering him, unless..."
Erin gave her a knowing look. "Unless it was about Sheikh Mohammed finding out about the two of you! And whatever his dad had to say, it was obviously not good if he acted that way."
"I can't believe he didn't say anything," Sarah sighed.
"It's just a theory," Erin conceded. "And he didn't really lie, just refrained from sharing."
"And that's why you are the lawyer. Those are the same thing," Sarah asserted.
Erin rolled her eyes. "Just talk to him and figure it all out! Then, you can decide what to do."
They went to bed after midnight, when they could finally declare the end of a dreadful Valentine's Day. Erin lent Sarah a pair of pajamas and offered the spare room for her and Rooster. At 3 a.m. Sarah was still awake, replaying everything in her mind and the more she did, the more it seemed her theory, as Erin called it, was correct. She was almost certain that Hamdan had hidden things from her and that was more heartbreaking than getting fired.
Maybe he didn't, maybe he has an explanation.
She groaned in annoyance to her naive thoughts. She went to the kitchen to get a glass of water that she drank in front of the sink. When she came back to the bedroom, she stopped and stared at the phone on the bedside table. She turned it on and placed it face down on the table. Lying in bed, she waited for it to stop buzzing with notifications.
When she picked it up, there were over 50 messages from Hamdan and he had been online 10 minutes ago. She started scrolling through them only reading a few where he basically kept asking her where she was. At the bottom there was a longer message he had sent after midnight.
Hamdan
Ok. I'll stop. I understand if you don't want to talk to me, all I want you to know is that you are not fired. You can keep training as usual, only Salem knows about what happened and I settled that with him. I know how much this means to you and I don't want you to give it up. I won't set foot in the stables during training hours if that's what it takes.
Tears began to run down her face, she had not really cried all day, except for the few tears that she wiped furiously as she drove away from the stables. On top of everything she was feeling, she missed him, missed him like she had never missed anyone before. It was their relationship that had brought her to that miserable place she was in and yet, she felt as if Hamdan was the only one who could save her from it.
She sniffed and took a deep breath when she realized he was typing a new message.
Hamdan
I miss you...
She started sobbing when she read it. Hugging the phone against her chest, she slowly curled up in bed and cried herself to sleep without looking at the screen again.
---
Sarah came home and went straight to the bedroom. She had been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling since then. All of her emotions were replaced by a numbness that kept her from doing anything, she did not feel like she had the energy to even cry anymore. It was close to lunchtime but she had not eaten breakfast yet. She even refused the coffee Erin offered before they left her apartment. All along, she knew something like this could happen but that did not make it easier for her to cope with it. She was supposed to go training the next morning and she did not know what to do. It would be certainly easier not having to explain to her parents why she was fired, but how long would that last? She could not just go and carry on as if nothing happened. Her getting fired was not a misunderstanding, it was a message, like Erin said and it was a clear one.
Her phone buzzed with a text.
Tom
Just talked to Erin. How are you? We're worried about you. I'm going into this stupid meeting right now, but I'll call as soon as it's over. Love you.
She read it and let her phone back down on her side when she heard a knock on the door. For a second, her heart jumped at the idea that it could be Hamdan, as unlikely as that was, it was still what she wanted deep down. He had not messaged or called since she turned her phone back on.
Ali's usual grin faded when he looked at her.
"Are you sure you're okay, Miss Anderson?" He had already asked on her way in.
She only nodded politely.
He was holding a black box and a bouquet of red roses. "This came for you."
"Thank you," she muttered, taking the box and closing the door without looking at him again.
She placed the box and flowers on the kitchen counter and stared at them for a moment. She turned around ready to go back to bed but she could not make herself start walking. She exhaled and turned back around. She opened the black cardboard box and found a smaller box inside, along with a folded note and a handmade card that was obviously made by a kid.
Hammed...
The front of the card had some red hearts made with crayons, on the inside there was a drawing that she deciphered to be herself, Hammed, Rooster and Princesa, green grass beneath them and the sun and two clouds above them. She giggled and put it down with watery eyes. She glanced at the small box and the note, somehow the box made her less nervous, so she opened that one first.
Inside, there was a rosé gold bracelet with a plaque. She picked it up and noticed the plaque had a symbol engraved on it; she could not make much sense of it until she angled her head and finally saw it; the letters H and S intertwined in an intricate monogram. One tear rolled down on her cheek when she blinked. She turned the plaque over and there was a set of letters engraved on the back.
IX . XIX . MMXVI
Seems like a date...
She bit her lip doing the math to convert the roman numerals.
Nine...
Nineteen...
Two thousand... and sixteen!
Her eyes opened wide and she ran to the bedroom to get her phone. She went into the chat group she had with her friends and searched for the date.
So, guess who I just met... Was the first message sent by her on that day, the day she met Hamdan.
She covered her mouth with her hand to keep herself from sobbing again. With the bracelet clutched in her hand, she ambled back to the kitchen where the note was still waiting to be opened. She put the bracelet back in the box, grabbed the note and sat on the living room carpet to read it. Her breathing was cut short at the sight of Hamdan's handwriting.
I got you the flowers and the bracelet for yesterday and thought you should have them anyway. After all, it's not your fault that the day got ruined. The card is from Hammed and he said that he hopes you like it, he's been feeling guilty because he lost the bracelet you gave him.
I know I don't deserve it, but please, can we talk?
H.
***
Don't forget to vote and comment. Your feedback is what really inspires me to keep writing! I hope you liked this update.
XOXO,
Sophie.