12
Omar sat on his couch, running his thumb over the rim of his whiskey glass. Zahir stood at the bar by the bay windows, filling his own glass for the second time.
“Why do I feel like there’s still something you haven’t told me?” Zahir looked back at him, one dark brow arched accusingly.
Omar sighed. He’d asked Zahir to come back to his penthouse to discuss some matters, but still hadn’t made it to the most pressing issue: Marian.
“Because I haven’t told you yet.” Omar set his glass down and then ran his hands through his hair. He’d wanted his older brother here specifically for his wisdom, even though Zahir had never had a serious relationship in his entire life. Still, he trusted Zahir to offer clarity. Or at least a push in the right direction.
“Well, tell me then.” Zahir rejoined him on the couch, crossing an ankle over his knee. He sipped at the whiskey. “Or do I have to beat it out of you?”
“I think I’m falling for Marian.” The words tumbled out of Omar’s mouth, and he clammed up after he’d said them, afraid to meet his brother’s gaze.
Silence settled as his brother nodded slowly, clearly mulling over the admission. “Great. And?”
Omar took a deep breath, preparing himself to speak the words. “I just never planned on falling in love. With anyone. I wanted it to be Anahita and that was it. It doesn’t seem fair to her to move on.”
“To…Anahita?” Zahir creased his brow.
Omar nodded. “Why should I move on if she can’t?”
Zahir blinked, studying him. “But you’ve been out with women…”
“One-night stands,” Omar said, waving his hand in the air. “That’s all. They don’t mean anything.”
“But Marian does.”
Omar nodded glumly, reaching for his tumbler. “Yeah. She does.”
Zahir tapped his glass, narrowing his eyes. “I thought you were the problem solver of the family.”
“This is one problem I can’t figure out,” Omar said, taking a sip of his drink. “I’m too close to it. All I know is that when I’m around Marian, I feel great. But then the guilt comes crashing down, and I want to die. Because I know that by all rights, I should still be with Anahita, and we’d have children by now, and I wouldn’t even take a second look at Marian.”
“But that’s not what life is, brother,” Zahir said, placing a hand on his shoulder. Omar deflated a little. “That’s not how it turned out.
”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Confront what life is giving you.” Zahir slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re living in the past. It’s time to move on. Anahita would have wanted that.”
“She wanted to be alive and to be with me,” Omar said softly. “She wouldn’t have wanted me to be with someone else.”
His words lingered in the air, drifting strangely between them. They sounded absurd as he thought about them, but this was the personal hell he’d created for himself since her death.
“Obviously, being with you was the first plan.” Zahir’s voice was soft, compassionate. “But you can’t be married to a ghost. You can’t build a life with someone who isn’t here. She never wanted you to suffer for the rest of your life. But the more important question is what do you want, in the life you’re living now?”
Omar rubbed at his face. Zahir made sense—these were the words he’d needed to hear for too long. Far too long.
“I never realized you felt this way, brother,” Zahir said, squeezing his shoulder. “I just thought you had…moved on.”
Omar swallowed a knot in his throat. It didn’t help that he tortured himself with his wife’s memory by keeping her pictures all over the house and rereading her letters to him regularly. Maybe you should stop doing those things.
“Yeah, well, I guess I just wanted everyone to think I was fine.” Omar squeezed his hands together, as if it might relieve some of the pressure inside him. And even now, in the midst of mourning Anahita, he craved Marian. So badly that he almost didn’t know how to handle it.
He’d ignored her texts from earlier that evening. He had to, for his own sanity. He couldn’t be trusted to respond or talk to her until he got his head straight. But Zahir had screwed it back into place just enough.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like,” Zahir said. “We all grieved when she passed. But you were the closest of anyone.”