Stay

Chapter 23 - Anna

The days stretched into a gray, miserable haze. The books lay open before me, but the words swam on the page, meaningless. All I could see was him. All I could feel was the ghost of his touch

I was in love with Alan.

The realization was a devastating, beautiful, and utterly useless truth. I loved his laugh, his focus when he studied, the way he looked at me like I was the only person in the world. I loved the man he was becoming.

And it changed nothing.

The hurdles weren't just high; they were insurmountable walls. My parents... they would never, ever approve. They had already chosen Fahad. To even suggest Alan—a Christian, a boy with a past —would be unthinkable.

He was my best friend. And I had ruined it. I despised myself for my weakness, for that moment in the bathroom where desire had vaporized every principle, every rule. I had wanted to claim him, and be claimed by him, even if it was just for one stolen night. I was so grateful he had been the one to stop it, to save me from my own recklessness. And now, because of that recklessness, I couldn't even look at him.

I knew I had broken his heart, too. The idea of going back to him and suggesting we just be friends again felt like a cruel joke. How could we? How could I sit beside him and pretend I didn't know what his kisses felt like? How could I listen to him talk and not remember the sound of his moan against my neck?

But how could I give him anything more? To promise him a future I knew I could never deliver would be the true cruelty.

So I hid. I fell behind in my studies, because my mind was a prison of thoughts of him. I stayed cloistered in the hostel, venturing out only for lectures I couldn't skip.

The feel of his touch would invade my thoughts at random moments—during a lecture, while trying to sleep, in the middle of a meal—a vivid, sensory memory that would leave me flushed and heartsick. I was trapped between a love I couldn't have and a friendship I had destroyed, and I was losing myself in the miserable space between.

But then he had said it himself, hadn't he? To his mother, right in front of me. I've been with more girls than I can count. So why would I be any different? Why would I be special?

I clung to that feeling of foolishness. It was easier than the alternative.

So I resolved to stay away. Time. That was what I needed. Time and distance to scrape the feeling of him off my skin, to scrub the memory from my mind.

I made a plan. A good, solid plan. I would focus on my exams, I would go home for vacation and when I came back, it would all be behind us. We would be friends again. Time would heal us both.

The external exams arrived in a blur of anxiety and intense concentration. I poured everything into them. Then came vacation. I packed my bags and left the hostel, the city, and him behind.