“Can I ask you something?”

I nodded.

“Zain. From what you told me, he wasn’t the one for you.”

“That’s not really a question,” I teased.

“It’s not.” Hisham smiled, leaning in toward me. “But I just thought you should know.”

“What makes you so sure he wasn’t the one?”

“Easy,” he said, gently placing his finger under my chin and lifting my face up to his. As he pulled in closer, my body instinctively gravitated toward his until we were no more than a few inches apart. I could feel the coolness of his breath. Hear the sound of his heart beating. Or maybe it was mine. I couldn’t really tell. “He let a girl like you go.” My knees weakened as I felt myself being swallowed in his soft brown eyes.

I turned away, suddenly feeling nervous. What is happening right now? Is Hisham flirting with me? Does he feel for me the same way I feel for him? Maybe it was the food, or the touch of his skin so close to mine, but I felt sort of in a haze, like my thoughts were all jumbled together.

“Leila,” he continued, speaking gently, “maybe all the answers you are looking for are right in front of you. You just have to be willing to take that leap.”

I looked up, this time allowing myself to get lost in his gaze. We stood there for a moment, our faces almost touching, the sound of my heart pounding against my ear.

Suddenly, a taxi pulled up. Hisham quickly stepped back and cleared his throat. We stood there awkwardly for a second and then got inside—the driver placing our bags in the trunk—as the sound of thunder roared in the distance, closely echoing the rumblings in my heart.

Bombshell

“I like him,” I whispered, sitting up on the bed. It felt liberating to actually speak those words aloud.

“What are you going to do?” Meena asked, rolling onto her stomach. Her eyes sparkled with curiosity as the moonlight from the windows cast faint shadows across her face. It was one in the morning, and everyone else in the house was fast asleep. I had been thinking about Hisham ever since I had returned home from our afternoon together—the touch of his fingers against my face; the warmth of his skin; the sound of his heart beating against mine. I desperately needed someone to help me make sense of the feelings racing through me.

“I wish there was some way of knowing if he feels the same about me!”

“Maybe you should tell someone.”

“Who?”

“Your ammi . . . my ammi . . . someone who could speak to his parents for you.”

“No way!” I said, plopping down on the pillow. “Meena, I’ve gone that route before. It only makes things worse.”

“But this is India. This is how it is done here.”

“I think I’m just going to tell him.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, hesitation in her voice.