Beckham

He’s trying so hard to wear me down, but I’m not budging. Some days, I feel bad about it, but I need to worry more about protecting myself than possibly hurting his feelings. Or should I? Do two weeks of romance, and respect, make up for two weeks of ignorance? How about the things he did before that were already forgiven? Do they even count, or is it time to let that all go, and try again?

All I know is that I’m not ready to give in so easily. I did it once already, and ended up in an even worse place. If it happens again, I don’t know that I’d survive it.

Tonight, I agreed to meet Aqeelah and Nev for dinner. I’m expecting them to plead Sully’s case, but I like them, and I didn’t want to say no. As I’m not sure how formal to be, I keep on my work dress. It’s grey, with a small collar at the neck, short sleeves, rucching from waist to hip, and a hemline that’s not too far from my knees. I pull my hair back, and spray on some perfume, before heading downstairs to drive over to Nev’s house.

“Hey,” Dylan says, opening the door in a t-shirt and basketball shorts. It should be a sin to have a body like his, but I force myself to meet his eyes, and not his sculpted chest.

“Hi.”

“They’re in the kitchen. I’m going to make myself scarce, but make sure you say goodbye.”

“I will.”

I head towards the massive kitchen, my mouth watering as I get closer. Nev sees me first, and comes over to give me a hug, before Aqeelah does the same.

“Thank you for coming,” she tells me, looking at me like my mother might, as she searches my face for something she won’t find.

“I want to be friends with both of you, even though Sully and I are no longer together.”

“You know we’re going to talk about this, right?” Nev asks, cocking a hip against the island.

“I came for the food.”

“We’ll feed you, Becks, but we’re also going to talk.”

“I know.”

We sit down for the meal, and I pile my plate with vermicelli, thinly sliced lamb, and pita bread. God, I love this food so much. They let me have a few bites before they start talking.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t go to my house, but there are some complications with my husband.”

He’s creepy, and if I never have to see him again, I’ll be happy. I don’t tell her that, of course, but I’m totally thinking it.

“Complications? Really, Mama? The man blackmailed Dylan into trying to kidnap me, and you call that a complication?”

“What?”

“Sully has told you nothing?” Aqeelah asks me.

“No. I’ve asked, but not pushed, when he said he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why are men so stupid?” Nev asks, before looking at me. “I’m going to give you the Cliff Notes version, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Matt thought he killed my father when he walked into the middle of a battle. As a result, he broke up with Reina, and moved my family to the U.S. He gave us everything we could want, and more. Despite our wealth, we were treated badly because of our religion, until those around us realized we could do things for them. My mother and I chose to keep to ourselves, but Sully was always an outgoing kid, and he started buying everything he could think of for everyone.”

“Matt really gave him no limit?”

“No. He had so much guilt. Unfortunately, that guilt was misplaced. My father was never shot. He had been informing for the U.S., and was about to be exposed. He was brought to the U.S., and ended up living down the street from Dylan’s family. He saved him from bullies one day, and Dylan promised to do anything for him. That ‘anything’ turned out to be me. My father decided I would be a perfect companion for him, because he missed his family, and wanted at least one of us by his side. It backfired brilliantly, and now only my mother and Sully speak to him.”

Whoa. Just whoa. “But you and Dylan are together.”

“It was Dylan’s love for me that made him refuse to follow through.”

“Your father is sorry,” Aqeelah tells her.

“Is he? I think he’d do it all again if he could.”

I agree with Nev. “He almost ruined so many lives. I’m not happy with my parents right now, but they’d never go that far with anything.”

“You came here so we could talk about Sully,” Aqeelah says, letting me know she wants to stop talking about her husband.

“There’s nothing for me to talk about. We’re just too different. Our cultures are too different.”

“You fasted with him, you’re here eating with us. You fit right in with all of us,” Nev says.

“He has something to prove to himself, and everyone else, and that made him push me aside. Missed dinners, and other dates, ignoring me like I was some groupie he’d used up, and more.”

“I’ve seen him with you at lunch most days.”

“Yes, he’s trying to win me back, and show me he can include us all in his life, but it’s too late. I’ve been pushed aside twice by him, and I can’t do it a third time.”

“It’s not a problem with culture. Different cultures can be combined. Sadiq and I did it. You know I’m from Guyana. My native language is English, although I also learned Urdu, because our country was very heavily Hindu. I loved learning languages, but I did not yet know Arabic when we met. I fell in love with him, married him, and moved to the Middle East, not knowing the language. I was embarrassed, and sometimes shunned. Sadiq refused to let me fail, because he loved me.”

“Loved. Past tense.”

“Enough, Mama,” Aqeelah tells her, and my mouth drops open.

Nev waves her hand at me. “It’s an Arab thing. I’m not her mother, although sometimes I feel like I am.”

“Your father loves me in his own way.”

“You were better off without him, and you’ll never convince me differently. Matt, either. You and Sully can embrace him all you want, but he needs to stay away from the rest of us.”

I feel like I need to tell them about Sadiq approaching me, but I don’t want to watch them fight any longer. “This has all been enlightening, but it changes nothing. I can’t trust Sully. I want to—you don’t know how much I want to—but I can’t.”

“You can honestly say you’ll be happy without my brother in your life?”

No, I can’t. These past two weeks have been everything I’d wanted from him before. Well, not everything, because we’re not having sex, or going on dates, but they’ve been great. Not having anything with him would be devastating. Maybe it’s time to give him another chance, even if I’m afraid.

“I’ll give him a chance.”

* * *

Sully

Tonight’s dinner at Matt and Reina’s is for my family. Only my mother and I knew she was bringing my father, and it hasn’t gone over well. We knew it wouldn’t, but it has to be done. Yes, he fucked up big time, with Matt and Nev especially, but he can’t change that. He’s apologized, and practically begged for their forgiveness, and it’s time for them to give it to him.

“We can’t change what happened, but we can live together now.”

“It’s not so easy to forgive someone trying to kidnap you,” Nev tells me.

“Or letting you take the blame for his death,” Matt adds.

Dylan speaks up next. “Being blackmailed isn’t exactly fun, either.”

“I did many things wrong, but I don’t regret them. I’m sorry I hurt all of you, but we are all alive, and that is what is most important,” my father tells them.

“Is it? Is being alive enough? I was alive for ten years, but I wasn’t living.”

“You got what you always wanted, Matt. In the end, you are here with Reina.”

“Only because I wouldn’t follow your plans, Sadiq,” Dylan tells him. “If I hadn’t fallen in love with Nev, and put her before you, no one is this room would be okay.”

“They would be fine,” he says, and my blood begins to boil.

He thinks I’d be fine without my sister? “Fine? Without someone I love?”

“You are fine without that ridiculous girl you were infatuated with.”

“Do not speak of Beckham like that. In fact, don’t speak of her at all.”

He is showing me the man Nev and Matt tried to tell me he is. He’s showing me the ugliness I’ve refused to see before now. Even my mother looks horrified.

“She is too different from you.”

No. He didn’t. “What did you do?”

“Do?”

“You just used the same words she said to me. I’m going to ask you again—what did you do?”

He sighs, regarding me as if I’m a boy, and not a man. “I merely showed her some pictures she needed to see. She was already doubting you, and I merely helped her on her path of knowledge.”

“Sadiq, no!” my mother says, and I hear the anguish in her voice.

“What pictures? Show me the pictures.”

“I will not be spoken to like this.”

“I will kill you, right here and now, if you don’t show me those pictures. Is that how you wish to be spoken to?”

“You don’t have it in you, Baba.”

“For Beckham? Fuck yeah, I do.” I pick up the steak knife next to my plate as I stand.

“Neveah, Matthew—do something,” my mother wails, but they don’t move from their seats.

The man who gave his seed so I could be born takes out his phone, finds what I want, and holds it out to me. My stomach turns as I flip through them, knowing how Beckham felt after seeing these pictures. I treated her like shit, and now some pictures taken at just the right angles made it seem as though I had interest in other women. I fall back into my seat, and throw the phone back at him.

“How could you? How could you show her those pictures, knowing what they looked like?”

“Those women in the pictures are better suited to you.”

“Because they’re Muslim? I should just marry any random woman I meet, and forget the Christian woman I love. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes.”

“You are dead to me. Dead.”

“Stop being so dramatic. She’s just a fuck to you.”

I leap across the table, only stopped by Matt and Dylan’s hands on my arms. “He isn’t worth it,” Matt tells me.

“You need to leave, Sadiq. I do not care where you go, but you need to leave us, and never come back.”

We all turn to look at my mother. Her eyes are like ice, and she is shaking with rage. None of us have ever seen her like this, and it takes the bastard before me a moment to speak.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do. I took you back, because I believed you when you said you wanted to change, but what you have done to our son, and Beckham, shows me you haven’t.”

“I will have a team meet him at your house, Aqeelah, so that he takes nothing of yours,” Reina tells her.

“Thank you.”

“I can ruin you! I can tell the world the truth about what you do!”

Reina looks to my mother, who nods. “Do what you must, Reina.”

“What? No! Aqeelah, no.”

Security comes through the door, and I move to my mother’s side. Nev does the same, all of us holding hands as he’s led out. He was dead in our minds for many years, and now he will possibly be dead again. Either that, or his mind will be wiped of all knowledge of us. It is probably better that we don’t know.

My mother reaches up to cup my cheek in her palm. “Go to her, Sully. You now know what was stopping her from giving you the chance you want so badly.”

“What if she doesn’t believe me, or thinks I’m like him.”

“You are nothing like him, my son. Nothing. She knows this.”

I hope so. Only one way to find out. I practically run to the elevators, because it’s time to lay it all on the line, and hope she believes me this time.