The Easiest Target

What Doesn't Kill You

A gentle knock wakes me some time the next day. I open my eyes and stare at the door directly in front of me.

Athan is leaning against the frame, watching me patiently, still wearing his dress pants and white shirt. I don't move or freak out so he comes closer. I don't remember getting into bed.

He sits on his knees on the floor and leans his elbows on the bed. We stare at each other for a moment and for some reason, we smile.

"I finally get to see a smile. You looked like you were gonna get hung yesterday."

My chest fills with a strange sedation. Nothing but silence comes from behind him. I look around the room properly: it's modern and wide with ebony colored furniture, gray tiled floors and a fluffy white carpet under the bed to give the room light. The walls are white with beautiful canvases hanging around for decoration, the curtains a simple black and white pattern. The bathroom is in the corner behind the room's door.

There's no TV. No phone, which makes me wonder if this is a hotel at all. I ask him.

"This is our apartment. Welcome home, Hadeel."

I get up doubtfully and fling the curtain open. I scream and stumble away from the waterfront that looks just a few steps from the floor-to-ceiling window. My head swirls as stumble away from the Brooklyn Bridge practically below us.

Athan pulls me away from the window and closes the curtains. "Don't tell me you're scared of heights."

I stare up at him, my hands covering my mouth in disbelief. "I've never been somewhere high to know!" I cling to his arm and inch the curtain open, my heart hammering. "Why so high? Is the building stable?"

He chuckles and pulls me to the doors to the left of the bed. He opens them and reveals a closet the size of my old apartment's living room. My boxes are sitting in the corner under a couple of long aisles of sparkling, brand new clothes.

I run to the door he first came in from. I peak out, hiding behind the door.

"There's no one here?"

"Why would anyone be here, you idiot?"

I run out to a kitchen and living room I can fit six buses inside of.

"Do you like it?" Athan asks.

"It's big," I whisper.

"Is that good?" I don't answer. He ruffles my hair and announces he will change and shower.

As soon as he's inside the room I burst into a sprint and launch myself onto the fluffy, charcoal gray couches. Athan has a thing for black and white — that much I could clearly tell by now. I get up and jump from couch to couch then find the remote to a TV the size of a chalkboard hanging up against a wall above a bookshelf brimming with medical books. I turn the TV on and turn on music and start running around and jumping and singing like I'm five years old again.

Not again, actually. I was never awarded a childhood. I was always the older sister and that title never granted me any freedom. I was the second mom.

Athan suddenly leans over me after I run at the couch and flip over the armrest to lay down. I roll off so fast and stand my hair wraps around me like a shawl I untangle. He chuckles. "You have a lot of fun on your own, don't you?"

My face burns red: he was watching me run and jump around the whole time?!

He grabs me by the waist and heaves me up over his head. I scream and grab him just as I fall, my arms wrapping tight around his head. His arms encase my entire back.