The Easiest Target

I feel the dresses rustle over me, waking me. Carla sifts through Khala's dresses and abayas.

"Oo, this is gorgeo—"

"Get out of my mom's closet, Carla!" Athan snaps. I hear a phone ringing nearby then it fades. "Where are you, Mama?" I hear Athan's frantic breathing as he paces. "What do you mean you're in LA?! When did you leave? Who the hell's been with Hadeel? Mama," his voice breaks at the end. "I LEFT HER WITH YOU!"

So that's what happened. Did he think she would take care of me when she's avoided me like I was diseased since I showed up? Did she leave because she thought she could finally take a break from him? So I'm just the tennis ball abandoned in flight in their game?

"What's wrong with you? It's like you actually care about that bitch." Carla giggles. "Did you forget why you married her?"

"Shut up, Carla," Athan's voice gets closer and lower.

"Why? Are you scared her ghost will hear?"

Silence and then Carla yelps. "Did you do something to her?" he snarls.

"You're so pathetic," she laughs coldly. "You should be worried about that rich bitch in Jordan you couldn't divorce." My eyes shoot open, the cold in my heart spreading throughout my chest, gripping me by the neck.

"Shut up, Carla," Athan's tone becomes cold. "They made me marry her."

"Boo-hoo."

"I am so sick and tired of you blackmailing me with this. All this bullshit was your idea!"

"Why don't you try taking your mom's meds again to forget?" she says.

"I almost died," he shouts. "You told me she was faking everything. I don't even remember what I did to her because —"

"She forgave you, didn't she? Do it again and make her feel bad enough for some pity sex."

What the hell did she just say?

"I almost died," he repeats, his voice low, broken. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"You're the one that didn't wanna wait until I was twenty-one. You could've waited and married me to get rid of your Jordanian bitch."

"I had to marry some Yemeni girl for my mom to believe it. Hadeel was the easiest target."

I curl my fingers slowly to keep myself from covering my mouth. I hold my breath and close my eyes, my heart pounding so loud I'm almost positive they can hear it. They'll find me any second!

"Not as easy as you thought, is she?" Carla laughs. "Your times up. You have to go live in Jordan in a couple of weeks."

"Please, Carla. Please, I just need a pregnancy. I can win her over. She's nice — really really nice and ridiculously insecure. I just have to let her think she's pretty and that I like her. I just need to have sex with her once this week. One time! She won't even know it if I can get her to drink a pill."

Tears squeeze out of the corner of my eyes and I bite down a sob, a scream — my frikin heart? I can't even tell anymore. Was that why he married me? To get me pregnant?

"Why can't you just tell Sworski about the marriage and ask him to intervene?"

"This isn't any of his business," he snaps.

"It'll be his business if you start impregnating random bitches! What if she has a boy?" Carla yells angrily.

Athan clicks his tongue impatiently. "She won't make it that far in the pregnancy no matter what. I already got the pills for that. We'll go to California together after I separate from Rana. Hadeel stays here with my mom dealing with a miscarriage. Everyone's happy. Now, where is she?" he whispers.

My lips tremble and sobs rattle my body.

"You're a bullshitting liar. You want her to have your kid so you can use it as a leash to keep her in your life."

"Why would I want a kid with someone who hates me?" he scoffs.

"Because you're not someone anyone can love. So," Carla says in a low voice, "someone dutiful and self-sacrificing is the closest thing you'll ever get to it. That's why you're with her, isn't it? I bet if she wasn't a prepubescent minor, you wouldn't have come crawling to me every time she made you feel horny."

"She's not prepubescent," he says, his anger barely restrained.

"You still you gotta wait till she turns eighteen or you're going to jail," she says matter-of-factly. "When's her birthday again? Not in the next two weeks. Too bad."

Athan laughs coldly. "Coming from the walking vagina spreading legs for food and fillers."

I hear their voices getting farther and Athan calls my name loudly, so far away I can barely hear it. I raise my hands to my mouth, cover it and cry as quietly as I can.

***

It takes me a while to calm down and come to my senses. I take a deep breath, cover my eyes and shake my head. Calm the hell down, Hadeel. I have to get out of here. I need to escape. I know his reason now. I know I'm alone in all of this. I can't open the windows without the alarm going off. I can't open the doors without the code. But Khala's balcony door doesn't have an alarm on it.

I wait and wait until I don't hear any noise. The front door clicked shut a while ago and the sound of Athan's car sped away. He left.

I crawl out slowly into darkness and drag myself to the hall towards the light. I feel my pants drag down and pull it up, taking several breaks, my whole body aching. The lights in the hall are blinding, never going off. I stop for a moment and let my eyes adjust while I catch my breath and fix my pants.

I don't think I can just jump off the balcony to the pool below. I'd just drown. But I doubt I have the strength to lower myself with a rope or something — no, I have to try. I have to try something. Anything. Maybe I can find a phone or catch a neighbor's attent—

"Hadeel?"

My heart stops. Athan's hand touches my forearm and I scream, the pure terror of the situation finally sinking in. I scream, unable to stop. He lowers me and says something, his eyes empty and cold — just like that day in the bathroom. "No," I scream. He's not here mentally. I push him and squirm and bawl like an unconsolable child until something whips across my face, knocking the literal light out of my vision.

My sobs shrivel up in my chest, my breathing slow and shallow as something warm and metallic slithers down my throat. I cough, staring at the splatters of blood that stain the carpet. The pain quickly ebbs as a new one replaces it, the loud ringing in my ears deafening — no, that's not ringing. He's yelling. He's shaking me. And then it comes down again — his fist. And again, the lights go off, the ground shaking.

I tear my eyes open as they focus. His hand comes at me again. Only this time, it wraps around my neck, squeezing until my eyes pulse into darkness.

I guess ... if no one came to check on me in five months, I really was the easiest target.