Coming Home (English Version)

10. Right

Layla

I'm never eating anything ever again, I can't even open my eyes, seems like I've been asleep for days and I still feel so drained. I don't even know what time it is, I'll try to concentrate to gather all my energy to pat around with my hand and find my phone.

Wait a minute...

Hamdan!

He was here and that was not a dream. I open one eye and I don't see him or hear anything. Maybe he left. Good. That's good. Rolling around, now with both eyes open I see him sitting on the chair by the window, looking at me and I immediately pull the covers up to hide my face.

"Good afternoon!" He says.

"Why are you still here?" My voice muffled by the covers.

"You needed someone to look after you. How are you feeling?"

"Great, I'm feeling great!" I lie.

"Do you feel like eating something?"

"I'm never eating anything!"

"That's what you always say, remember that time you ate like half of that gigantic chocolate cake?"

Now he's reminiscing? Argh! He's so annoying. I push the covers down and sit on the bed.

"You know what? Thank you for staying but I'm all better now. So, I'm going to take a shower and you can leave."

I get up without looking at him or waiting for an answer and let the hot water run in the shower. After throwing all of my clothes in the hamper, I step in and the water starts soothing my sore body, everything hurts but this is helping. I step out wrapped around in a towel and curiosity gets the best of me, so I peek into the bedroom.

He's gone.

Good.

While brushing my hair I look at the clothes and pick a short sundress with tiny pink flowers, is not like I'm going anywhere today.

After getting myself ready I look around the bedroom and only find the apple juice Hamdan got me. But this thirst is calling for some water, I take the stairs humming a tune but I stop fully halfway down when I see him on the living room couch, arms extended on the back rest, beaming and looking up at me.

"I order us some food." He announces. "Chicken soup for you."

My jaw drops. "What are you still doing here?"

"Well, I still need to talk to you."

I grunt and finish going downstairs, heading straight to get my water from the fridge. When I turn around, he's standing on the other side of the kitchen island.

"Okay, fine!" I cave in, opening my water bottle. "What do you want?"

"Layla, I'm sorry. Not only about yesterday, about everything."

I swallow the water. "Everything?"

He nods. "When I tried to apologize to you over at Maktoum's you said it was pathetic and you were right. But I cannot change the past and this is the only thing I can do now."

"How about you stop doing things you then feel sorry for afterwards?" I suggest. "Because I still don't understand what happened yesterday."

"I don't know! I-- uh..." He pauses for a moment and sits down on one of the stools. "I miss you, I miss how things were before and since you came back it all feels so awkward and I figured it is because we haven't talked about that Summer eight years ago and what happened later."