Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
“Gross.” I did take her, this time, because after one good burp like that, she was ready for a post-bottle nap. “Usually, I would feed her solids.” I nodded toward the pot of mac and cheese. “But, once she’s had a bottle and a mighty belch, there’s a short window of time get her napping, and we definitely need to talk about why you’re here.”
“Yes, we do,” he agreed. “Go, I will wait for you.”
“You can wait in the living room. It’s way more comfortable in there,” I told him, and he got up and followed me.
After a quick diaper change and some gentle tunes from the light-up seahorse, Olivia was down for her nap. I found El-Mudad in the living room, one arm thrown along the back of the couch, his head tipped back, mouth open. Apparently, I’d put him to sleep, too.
Just as I was trying to decide whether or not to wake him, he snored and woke himself. He blinked at me.
“Sorry to disturb you,” I said, wincing internally. I was never going to be as cool and confident as he was, but very few people on Earth were.
“No, it’s fine. I didn’t come here to sleep on your couch.”
I went to him and sat on the other end, pulling my feet up beneath me. “So, I’m glad you’re here, but…why are you?”
“I’ve spoken to Neil. He contacted me from…Arbor Rest, I think it was?” Apology colored his words. He knew I hadn’t talked to Neil. But he had? I felt jealous and destroyed, all at once.
Was Neil leaving me for El-Mudad? He obviously loved him more than he loved me, if he couldn’t even talk to me on the phone, but he could contact our lover. I actually felt the wash of bitter acid that filled my stomach, and tasted it on the back of my tongue. A month. Neil had been gone for a month, and in all that time, he hadn’t spoken to me.
“He thought that news would hurt you. Please believe me, and him, when I tell you that he wants to see you. He is just unable to,” El-Mudad tried to reassure me.
“Why?” It was an unfair question to ask him. “Why can’t he see me, but he can see you?”
“He spoke to me on the phone,” El-Mudad clarified. “And he only called because he was concerned about you. He asked me to check in.”
“Oh.” I bit my lip. “Sorry. I’m just—”
“Defensive?” Emir smiled faintly. “He knew you would be.”
Great. Neil knew me well enough to gauge my emotions from the freaking past, but I didn’t know him well enough to know that he’d gone back to drugs and alcohol to cope with his daughter’s death. I hadn’t known he was suicidal.
“I am truly sorry that this has happened to the two of you,” El-Mudad said, reaching across the back of the couch to take my hand.
To the two of us. My heart ached at the truth of the statement, something which I hadn’t acknowledged. Neil was going through a rough time, and so was I, but we were in the same terrible situation together.
“I’m not mad at you,” I said, and just saying it made it true. “I’m really glad you’re here. I’ve been super lonely.”
“That was why he sent me. He knows you very well.”
“Not well enough to know that his death would have utterly destroyed me.” It was churlish and horrible to blame him for putting his needs before mine, and I hated myself for saying it, but when it was someone who was your whole heart and soul…
“He knows. And I have faith that he will tell you that one day.” A fleeting twinge of sadness passed over El-Mudad’s face, then vanished. “He has the opportunity. Some are not so lucky.”
“There’s a story here,” I said, not out of sarcasm, but solidarity.
He nodded. “I told you about the name I use in clubs? Emir?”
“That…it was from a Turkish guy who fucked you,” I remembered aloud.
“Yes. He was my very first.” El-Mudad paused, sucking on his bottom lip. “My first fuck. My first love. And my first heartbreak.”
I waited in silence until he continued.
“You see, he has a problem, like Neil’s. Sadness turns to excess, excess turns to illness. There came a point where I couldn’t stay, anymore.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. “You don’t think I should leave Neil, do you?”
“What happens between the two of you, that is for you to decide. But I know that, no matter how often I drove Emir to the hospital, I lied to doctors, I held him in my arms as he shivered and vomited all over himself…never once did he show remorse.” El-Mudad looked away. “Neil, for all of his flaws and excesses, knows that he is hurting you, and he cares. Emir knew how he hurt me. And he did not, or could not.”