Finding Mr Perfectly Fine

Chapter 22

The journey home is painfully quiet, with neither of us knowing what to say. I keep wondering how to break the silence, but the atmosphere is so charged that I’m too scared to. What if he kisses me again, this time for real? Then I’ll be forced to make a decision on whether or not to let Hamza go.

Adam says nothing either, and every time I sneak a look at him, I see him staring straight ahead with a grim expression.

When we finally pull up outside my house, I’m relieved to see that my dad’s car isn’t parked in its usual spot, and all the lights are off. I bid Adam a hasty goodbye and clamber out of the car as quickly as I can, given the fact that I’m wearing skyscrapers on my feet. The car speeds away before I get to the front door.

Around three I finally give up on sleep and take a long, hot shower. For the first time since Ramadan, I’m awake for Salaatul Fajr – the dawn prayer – so I wrap a pashmina around my head and seek solace in pressing my forehead on the prayer mat. The repetitive and rhythmic Arabic words manage to calm me down, and when the prayer is over, I continue to sit there for a while, beseeching God to help me and guide me towards what’s right for me.

When I collapse into bed, I glance at my phone for the first time in hours to find three missed calls from Hamza and a few messages to go with them, asking if I still wanted to meet up. I stare blankly at the screen for a moment, trying to pull up the memory of Hamza with all his kindness, stability, decency, from the depths of my Adam-induced stupor.

All this time I’ve known that something’s missing in the relationship, but I’ve struggled to articulate what it is, beyond ‘chemistry’. Now that I’ve kissed Adam, I know exactly what’s absent. Fire.

I type out as my eyelids begin to droop with sleep:

Hey, Hamza, Sorry for missing your calls and messages. Got home just before 12 so wouldn’t have made sense for you to meet us. Been in bed, just got up for fajr. Hope you’re OK. x

When I finally awake around eleven, still emotionally and physically exhausted from the previous night’s action, I find his response, reminding me that we’re meeting his sister at one thirty.

Shit! His sister. How could I have forgotten?

Every single part of me wants to back out, but instead, I reply ‘Of course, let me know where,’ to erase some of the guilt I’m experiencing. It doesn’t work, though. I keep reminding myself that not only did I NOT initiate the kiss, it wasn’t even real. It was acting. Actors do it all the time. It means nothing. Except Brad did fall in love with Angelina after all their ‘acting’. Shit! How am I supposed to face Hamza AND his sister when I look like death and feel like a two-timing bitch?

As I get ready, I realise that my features reek of betrayal; from my sunken sockets, to my glassy pupils and my swollen lips. I get to work concealing the bags under my eyes and brushing some colour onto my sallow complexion, whilst trying not to look overdone. It works, sort of. If only I could brush away what was going on inside me as well.

I pick up my phone at least twenty times to back out of the meeting, but each time I start writing the text out, I imagine Hamza’s crestfallen face and how embarrassed he would feel in front of his sister, and I delete the whole message. I can’t let him down like this. Plus, he knows I was out with Adam last night and I can’t do anything that will make him suspect that something went awry.

An hour later, I’m sitting on the Westbound Piccadilly Line train in sensible pale denim jeans and a simple white cotton blouse. I look like the picture of serenity, but my insides feel like scrambled eggs. What Hamza’s super-successful and intelligent doctor sister thinks of me is way down on my list of things to stress about, though. The first ten pages of the list revolve around Adam. Is he as torn up over the kiss as I am? Could he sleep last night, or was he up most of it, thinking about me? Is he beginning to see me as more than a friend? Does he view me differently now that he knows about Tariq? I hope he doesn’t pity me.

The fact that I haven’t heard a whisper from him makes me inclined to believe that the kiss meant nothing, even though he said I was different from all the other girls. He kisses people every weekend. Snogging comes as naturally to him as eating comes to me. It’s a good thing, I tell myself. Fancying me is one thing. He fancies everyone. But Adam actually liking me will complicate things further.

As the stuffy carriage gets closer and closer to my destination, the Adam-inspired worries merge into full-blown nerves about meeting Hamza’s sister. Whose name I can’t for the life of me recall.

I keep reminding myself that he had the guts to meet both my sisters at the same time, and he did it beautifully. I only have to meet one of his siblings (he has a younger brother, too), so how hard can that be? I get along with most people anyway.

But what if she takes one look at me and can tell that, a mere thirteen hours ago, I was in another man’s arms? OK, the chances of her being Mystic Meg are slim, but what if she’s good at sussing people out and she can tell that my heart isn’t 100 per cent in this? What if it’s Hamza who can tell that something’s up with me? What if he can smell the unintentional betrayal on me?

When I get off the train at Rayners Lane, I want to throw up. How am I supposed to keep it together in front of him AND his sister? All I want is to cross the platform and go back in the direction I came from, and I’m about to do so when I see Hamza hurrying towards me, beaming from ear to ear.

‘Zara! Ahlan wa sahlan, habibti! Welcome to my neck of the woods!’

Now that he’s seen me, there’s no going back. My stomach twisting and flipping over and over again, I lick my dry lips and smile a wobbly smile back as I make my way over to him. He hugs me, I stiffen, and then he grabs my hand and pulls me towards his car. Which, I’m surprised to see, is a massive BMW 4×4. I remember Adam’s brother’s Porsche and guilt swishes inside my belly like a gone-off seafood pasta, ready to come out at any moment.

‘Nice car,’ I croak as he opens the passenger door, waits for me to climb in and then closes it firmly behind me, almost as though he knows I want to make a run for it.

‘Thanks, I bought it last year with my bonus.’ His response is casual, and not boastful in the slightest, but even so, I find myself sinking lower into my seat. Bonus? Seriously? I have no idea how much these things cost but I’m pretty sure it’s more than my entire yearly salary.

Hamza puts the car into gear and starts driving through leafy suburban streets and I stare out the window longingly, wishing I could throw myself out of it. I don’t know where he’s taking me and where we’re meeting his sister, and I don’t ask because I’m scared that if I open my mouth I’ll throw up all over the beautiful leather interior. Instead, I let him ramble on about his work event last night, and ‘mmm’ in what I think are the right places.

After about ten minutes which feels more like ten hours, he pulls up outside a large, single-fronted detached Edwardian-style house with a front garden that could do with a bit of a weeding. I presume this is where we’re picking his sister up, but instead of waiting for her to come out, he kills the engine and turns to look at me with a guilty expression.

‘Er, so .?.?.’ he begins, shamefaced. ‘So, uh, this is where we’re going to meet my sister. At my house.’

‘Mmm,’ I reply absentmindedly. ‘OK.’ And then my breath catches in my throat as I realise what he’s said. ‘Did you say at your house?’

‘Uh .?.?.’

‘She’s there alone, right?’ I demand. ‘No one else is home? You haven’t ambushed me, have you?’ My voice rises to a shriek as the weight of the bombshell he’s dropped on me threatens to crush me.