Because of You
I don’t know how much time passes, but I know it’s hours. The sun shifts through the window and I twist to lie on my back.
There’s a lump in my throat, everything inside of me struggling to come out.
I sigh, and Zaid looks down at me, his fingers trailing down my arms. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I swallow. “I’m not pregnant.”
He frowns at that, breathing slowly to prepare himself. “Did you want to be?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t think so.”
His fingers draw circles on my skin. “It makes you sad?”
I sigh. “She told me I could’ve been pregnant at one point. Something about my hormones or something.”
He pulls slightly away, looking down at me, eyes searching mine. “Love.”
I don’t want his pity, I just wanted someone to know, someone to be in the darkness with me. “I don’t know how to feel about it.”
He closes in on me, his hands finding their way under my shirt and around my waist. My stomach twists and I push at his chest “Zaid, not know, I don’t want to-”
“Fuck, Alina. I’m not trying to have sex with you.”
I look up at him, new tears streaming down my cheeks. He looks pained, hurt, surprised that I would assume that.
“I just want to hold you.”
My skin breaks out into goosebumps, and I press into him. “I’m sorry, I just-”
“Don’t apologize. There’s nothing to apologize for. I can’t even imagine. I’m the one that’s sorry.”
I shake my head. “I just, I feel stupid that it bothers me.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t really pregnant. I didn’t want to be. And now I feel guilty.”
His hold on me tightens.
“It would have made everything more complicated. It kind of scared me.” The confession slides out of me smoothly. All the gnawing and worrying finally felt like it softened.
“You have nothing to be scared about. I’ll be here, always,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to my temple.
I blink at that.
He clears his throat, chest rising with his next words. “I know it was impossible for the baby to have been mine, but I would have
taken care of her as if she were.”
A sob tears through me, “Her?”
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He shrugs, “You feel like a girlmom to me.”
I struggle to breathe.
“I would have loved her so much. Regardless.”
I try to keep my heart in check. “Well, she would have been either your sister or your niece, so that makes sense.”
I chuckle, trying to make that part of the conversation much less awkward.
Zaid grips my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes, forcing me to understand how serious his next words are. “I don’t give a fuck about that. Fuck Jake. Fuck Aiden, I would have loved her simply because she came from you. Because of you, Alina.”
“Zaid-”
“Because I love you.”
Zaid says it so quietly that for a second, I think I imagined it. But I didn’t. The words are real, and they melt into the air around us.
My body locks up. My breath catches.
No. No, no, no.
My heart pounds so hard I feel sick. I can’t do this. I can’t hear this. I can’t even think about this.
I shake my head, the walls closing in. “I can’t.”
His brows furrow, but I don’t let him speak. I press my palm to my chest like I can physically hold myself together, because inside,
I’m falling apart.
My family was ripped from me. I loved them, and they were stolen from me. I can’t love someone and lose them again.
Zaid just watches me as I explode inside. His eyes dark and steady, his jaw tense like he’s biting back a thousand things he wants to say. Then, in a voice raw with emotion, he murmurs, “I don’t need you to say it back. I don’t need you to do anything. I just needed you to know that you are loved. Deeply, Alina. By me.”
The words crack something inside of me, but it isn’t relief. It isn’t comfort.
It’s rage.
I glare at him, something sharp and painful twisting in my gut. “You can’t say that.”
He doesn’t react, just keeps watching me.
“That’s bullshit.”
Zaid flinches like I struck him.
“Am I supposed to feel loved after everything? After Sadje? After you left me in that diner? After you pushed me away, refused to make love to me even though that’s all I’ve been wanting from you?” My voice rises, my throat burning with the force of it.
His entire body tenses, his nostrils flaring as he struggles to breathe. His eyes dark with something I can’t read. Pain, regret, something heavier.
“There are things you still don’t know,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Things I struggle with. I have shown you my love
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Because of You
in the best ways I know how. Fuck, it’s hard, trying to love after years of neglect and pain.”
“I don’t care.” The words rip from me, jagged and unfiltered. “I don’t care about whatever it is, Zaid. Because if you really loved me, you’d try.”
Silence.
“You’d try like I’ve been trying.”
His expression cracks for just a moment, just long enough for me to see how deeply my words have hit him. He can’t be oblivious to my feelings, I might not be able to get them out of my mouth, but they’re there.
And what I’ve said now? I won’t take it back. Because love isn’t just words thrown into the dark.
It’s choices.
It’s actions.
We stare at each other, the space between us thick with everything unsaid. And I don’t know if I want to run or scream or take it all
back.
I slowly get up from the bed, shaking my head. “I’m sorry.”
He blinks, but says nothing.
I back away, making my way to my room, where I cry until I fall asleep.
