He smiled and nodded, running his hand through his hair, the glossy strands glinting in the light as he pushed it away from his face. “Yeah. I found a subject I love after all. Are you surprised?”
I looked around, taking in all the piles again, including the bookshelf in the corner, the hundreds of hardback books he had presumably read. “A little. You could have studied all of this. You could have earned a degree.”
Zakai walked toward me, leaning against the arm of his couch. “I did study all of this. But school wasn’t for me. What we were offered was with good intentions and it was generous but . . . I struggled, Karys. I was never . . . the reader you were. I didn’t grasp the work, or the rules of the language, as quickly as you and it made me feel embarrassed. Lost. Alone.”
“Oh, Zakai,” I breathed, sorrow welling inside me.
But he shook his head and smiled as he waved his arm around. “Turns out, however, that with a library card and plenty of free time on your hands, you can educate yourself.”
“I see that.” I paused. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize your struggle more clearly.”
“I didn’t let you.”
“Still—”
“No, Karys. I didn’t let you.”
I blew out a breath, looking around again. “It's very nice. Your place.” And it made me realize how much we didn’t know about each other. How much the years had changed us both. Something about that excited me. I’d once thought I knew everything there was to know about Zakai, but I now saw that there were depths to this man yet to be discovered.
Zakai stood. “So, uh, can I get you a drink?” He pointed to two bottles of wine sitting on his counter, one red, one white. “I wasn’t sure what you liked.”
“I’ll have a glass of red.”
I followed him the short distance to his kitchen where he opened the bottle and poured me a glass. “Are you going to have one?” I asked.
“No. I, well, alcohol and I were never a good mix. I’m sure you’re well aware.” He paused. “I stopped drinking completely the day after . . . what happened at your engagement party.” He looked down and I sensed his embarrassment. “I hated myself so much for what I’d done to you.”
Oh.
“Ahmad warned me, remember? He said drink can turn on you. I only wish I’d listened. I wish I’d stopped sooner. That damn New Year’s Eve . . .” He grimaced.
That damn New Year’s Eve. Yes. The vision of that wintery night on the rooftop came back to me, as did the day of my engagement party. Both of those times I’d smelled the alcohol on him, I’d seen the dullness in his gaze. He’d been angry, out of control. A shiver of pain trembled through me. I swirled the wine in my glass, waiting as the sharp grip of the memory loosened. “Yes,” I said softly. “You hurt me. So badly, that for a long time, I didn’t think I’d recover. But I did.”
Zakai released a long breath, his shoulders falling as he placed his hands on the counter and hung his head. When he raised his gaze, his expression was as full of the pain that had just overcome me momentarily. “I’m sorry, Karys. You’ll never know how much. Can I attempt to explain a little more?”
“It’s not necessary—”
“Please.”
I paused. “Okay.”
Zakai came around the counter and sat on the barstool, turning toward me. I did the same so that our knees almost touched. So close and yet in many ways, still miles away. Zakai looked behind me, seeming to be gathering himself, or perhaps traveling back to the past, across an ocean, over the sun-burnished sand. “Haziq found me when I was a little boy. He used me to convince those he wanted for his act to come with him.”
“Cody told me,” I said softly. “When I ran into him many years ago, he told me how Haziq used you.”
He blinked and then swallowed. Nodded. “So you know—"
“That you were there the day I was taken?”
Zakai pulled in a deep breath. “Yes.” His shoulders curled forward, pain altering his features. “I could have cried out. I could have yelled. But I was mesmerized.” His eyes searched mine, seeking redemption, I could tell. “I’d never seen anything as beautiful as you. He used me, Karys. He used me to lure you away. And I did it because I was so pulled to you I couldn’t turn back. I had to get closer . . .” He let out a shuddery breath. “You came to me willingly, seemingly drawn by me as well. I tried to shake you loose, but you held on. There was this puddle that I considered pushing you into.” He paused, looking behind me again. “I pictured it sometimes after that, over the years. I wished I’d been strong enough to do it, to push you down, to leave you crying on the ground. The woman inside the house would have heard you. She would have come outside and picked you up and taken you home. You would have forgotten all about me. You would have been safe. Instead . . . I didn’t push you away. I held on. And the next thing I knew, you were next to me and we were heading to Sundara. I could have stopped it. But I didn’t. My infatuation, even as a nine-year-old kid, ended up being your downfall.”
Something clicked into place, something both dreadful and illuminating. He believed his love had been responsible for all my misery, from the moment he saw me and beyond.
“Oh Zakai,” I said softly. I thought back to the way he had protected me on Sundara, with the glowing radiance of a million stars. I remembered the night he’d been willing to die in that effort. And then I’d wondered hopelessly why he’d wounded me so terribly when we’d left there. And it was suddenly so very clear—out in the world, Zakai was still protecting me, but he’d come to believe the thing I needed protection from the most . . . was him. He’d done what he’d wished he’d been strong or wise enough to do that day so many years before when we were only children. Push me down. Walk away. Cause me momentary pain, so that I might be spared worse.
I thought of another puddle, one I remembered clearly. I recalled lying on the ground under the rain after we’d had sex at my engagement party and unknowingly created a new life. Ironic, I supposed. I’d ended up sprawled and sobbing in a puddle, after all. But no one had picked me up off the ground. I’d picked myself up.
And I’d healed.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said to Zakai. “You were a child. And so was I. Haziq is responsible,” I asserted, reaching out and taking his hand. His gaze snapped downward and he was silent a moment as he watched my hand curl around his, our molecules fusing, warmth radiating. “Only him,” I whispered, withdrawing.
He looked away though his shoulders straightened. “Thank you, Karys,” he said, his voice gritty. We sat in thoughtful silence for a moment and I swore I smelled the scents of date sugar and jasmine as though the strength of our joined memories had conjured Sundara, the place where we’d been used, but also the place where we’d first fallen in love.
I hadn’t needed an apology from him. I had moved on without one. I’d even managed to find some amount of peace with the fact that Zakai was gone from my life for good. But I couldn’t deny that his explanation, along with the heartfelt sorrow I saw in his gaze, helped to stitch closed the final wound upon my heart.