Free 53 Letters For My Lover by Leylah Attar Page B

you.”
    “Maybe it’s for the best. If I see him, I’ll kill him.”
    “Hafez—” I reached for him, but he flinched.
    “The day we first met, I just wanted to get Ma off my back. I thought I’d say, ‘There. I met her. I don’t like her.’ I’d done it before. I couldn’t tell her that I was damaged, that no girl deserved that.” He stopped playing with the glass shaker.
    “But I liked you,” he said. “You were sweet. And innocent. I thought that if I could hang around you long enough, I’d become less...dirty. So I put you on a pedestal, like those figurines that Ma loved. I wanted to keep you pure and safe. Instead I dragged you into the mud. I let you down, Shayda, just like I let Ma down today.”
    I watched him lay his head on the table. He was surrendering, letting waves of guilt and shame toss him around. The painting of Poseidon, hanging across the restaurant, mocked me. I saw Pasha Moradi, rising from the depths, ready to spear Hafez with his trident.
    No.
    He had taken the boy. He was not going to get the man.
    I held Hafez. I rocked him. I brushed the hair away from his face. I gathered the drifting pieces and stuck them back on. When he finally looked at me, I kissed him. When he turned away, I kissed him. I kissed away the layers of stuck-on grime so he could feel clean again. I gave him all the things I wanted for myself. Love and tenderness and a place to belong. And slowly, he turned to me in the dark, resting his forehead on mine.
    I slipped the straps of my nightgown off my shoulders and let him look at me. Red, amber, green, my skin glowed. I took his hand and placed it on my soft, warm flesh. He gasped, finally allowing himself to breath.
    “Shayda...” He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me off the table.
    We made love for selfish reasons, clutching at other. He needed to claw his way out of the pain and I wanted to be needed. We shared a bond beyond our gold bands. A common predator haunted us, and I knew, even as Hafez shut out my face when he took me, that we were always going to be.

10. Tangled

    November 11th, 1995
    I reach for the crimson coat that Hafez gave me that first winter. It’s frayed around the edges now, but it reminds me of hot pizza and new dreams.
    I head to the community centre with the kids. Zain has just switched from swimming to guitar.
    “I hate it!” he said of the beginner’s aqua class.
    “It’s an important life skill. You have to learn.”
    “Next semester. Pleaaase?” He pulled puppy dog eyes. We caved and bought him a guitar.
    Between his music, Natasha’s art classes, and my open houses, weekends are a blur of activities. I head to the grocery store after seeing the children off.
    “$84.56, please.”
    I hand my card to the cashier.
    “Shayda?”
    I look at her for the first time.
    “Marjaneh.” Hossein’s ex. My one time sister-in-law.
    She seems embarrassed as she hands my card back. “I just started here.”
    “How are you?”
    “Good.” Her eyes move to the line forming behind me. “How is Maamaan?”
    She still calls my mother ‘Maamaan’, but I know she’s asking, ‘How is Hossein?’
    “Fine,” I reply.
    The man behind me coughs, not too discretely.
    “Good seeing you.” I pick up my bags.
    “You too.”
    I walk out of the store, thinking about her.
    Marjaneh, the girl whose fate I may have stolen.
    Our fathers had been business partners in Tehran. The plan was to send Marjaneh and me abroad. Every month, they put aside money for airfare. When there was enough to send one of us, they held a big picnic to celebrate. All of our extended family joined in.
    We ate and played games, and then it was time to decide which one of us would go.
    “We’ll toss a coin,” says Baba. “Hossein, get my wallet from the car.”
    “We don’t need a coin. We have these.” Marjaneh’s father, Amu Reza, pointed to the pebbles on the ground. “We’ll use two—black and white. Black means stay, white means