'Christian-' I laughed seeing Christian's pout upon being batted away when he tried to kiss me, just before entering the cafe.

The door opened and I saw my mother, straightfaced and stern, sitting at the table facing the door.

I turned around. 'Actually I don't feel hungry any-'

'Syed.' Both my mother and Christian had spoken. I inwardly smiled at how similar they were.

Christian led me to a corner table, ignoring my mother shooting daggers at him.

'It's ok, Sy.' He whispered. He shoved the menu at me and took one for himself.

'Syed!' My mother shouted from her table, a good few feet away. 'What are you doing with that man?'

I closed my eyes in frustration, trying to think of food. The egg butty sounded good...

Christian squeezed my knee under the table. I caught his eye and smiled.

She marched to our table, looking like a woman scorned. Which she essentially was.

'I thought you were trying to rebuild our family. Clearly, not hard enough.' She gave Christian a scathing glance that could have withered a man less used to her barbs.

'Where were you last night Syed?' I didn't even bother to give that question a response; I merely looked at Christian pointedly.

'Sy stayed with me. Problem?' Christian asked, placing a hand on my arm possessively.

My mother whitened. 'Syed? Is that true? I thought you were seeing that therapist.'

Christian's eyes narrowed. I could tell that without even looking at him, our bodies and minds were so connected.

'It didn't quite work out.' I mumbled.

'So you're just going to give up? After all the pain you've put your father and I through? What about me? I can't have a homosexual son. Try harder.'

'No.'

'Excuse me, Syed? You can't talk to me like that, I'm your mother.'

'In name, perhaps. You've never really been a mother to me.' In that moment I realised. I could not go on living for a mother who would always raise the bar higher, love me only if I met a standard- I realised now- that was impossible to reach.

'Who was in labour for 24 hours? Who bathed you? Fed you? Clothed you-'

'Mum. I love you and I always will.'

Christian sighed, no doubt pre-empting what I was going to say.

I took Christian's hand. He looked at me with wonder in his eyes.

'But, I love Christian too. He is...' I swallowed, embarrassed, not at my love for Christian but my clumsy verbalisation of it. 'If the way I feel about him hasn't changed through prayer, through marriage, through therapy... nothing will change it. Allah must have made me this way. And if he made me this way...' I stopped to collect my thoughts. 'then he made Christian for me.'

Christian and I shared a long lingering look.

'I'm going to call Allen. He clearly hasn't done a very good job.'

'Mum- it's impossible. Plus, I don't want it. Not anymore.' I smiled at Christian, my saviour, my superman.

'You know...' I continued, dryly. 'I've finally realised why I have such a problem with therapists. They have 'rapists' in their job title.'

My mother gaped, putting a hand to her mouth.

'He didn't...' my voice shook, 'but he could have. Did you ever stop to consider that while you were my biggest cheerleader to work with him? Of course you didn't.' I answered my own question, getting increasingly worked up. 'Because you were too busy worrying about what Bushra would think. Mum, I love you, but I can't- I won't – live for you. Not anymore. You can disown me, cut me out of the family photo and it will be sad. Tragic, even. But I'm not going to lose my best friend, my lover, my... boyfriend.'

Boyfriend sounded like a question. In a way it was. The words I'm not your boyfriend flashed through my head.

My heart raced as I slowly lifted my eyes to look at Christian. His eyes were brimming with tears.

He took my hand and stroked it with his thumb. My mother tensed but I didn't care. The rest of the world disappeared when I was with Christian.

My mother was flabbergasted and feigned anger though in reality I knew she was too stunned to feel anything. 'Well... don't blame me when you go to hell.' She stomped out.

'You ok Sy?' Christian looked at me with concern.

I forced a smile. 'Yeah.'

'Don't give me that Syed. ' He used my full name, a sign he saw through my lies.

My smile collapsed and my shoulders hunched. 'I'm not ok.' I said quietly. To my annoyance, my mouth wobbled and a sob escaped. Christian pulled me into an embrace as I sobbed.

'Shh.' He rubbed my back soothingly.

I made a sound that was a cross between a moan of pain and a whimper, not caring where I was. I pressed my face further into Christian's shoulder, mortified at my, all too public, display of pain.

'It... hurts. So much...'

Christian did not attempt to placate me with empty words of sympathy and false understanding. He could never understand the situation I was in, we both knew that. In that moment, with his hands tracing circles on my back, his strong, protective form holding me and the utter lack of pretence between us, I had never loved him more.

After what felt like hours, though in reality, it could not have been more than a few minutes, I raised my head and looked at Christian. His emerald eyes, shining pure and true, held no judgment, no pity. I searched in his eyes for any sense of derision and saw nothing but love and devotion. My breath caught in my throat, so in awe was I at his love, his failure to give up on me, no matter how hard I tried to push him away.

His finger traced my red rimmed eyes. 'What are you thinking Christian?' I asked. His face was usually so open but now it was clouded with an indefinable look. His eyes suddenly seemed to flash grey. That was one thing I loved about Christian; how expressive his eyes were. How they changed from the emerald green I loved best, to grey when he was thoughtful, to almost hazel when he was angry and then there was the beautiful fleck of aquamarine blue in his right eye that flashed when he laughed...

'I'm thinking how much I want to protect you. And how wrong that is.'

'It's wrong?' I asked, looking at him worriedly.

'Sy.' He sighed. 'It's wrong because I can't protect you. It's wrong because I shouldn't want to murder your mother, murder that filthy, conniving bastard with the ferocity I do. It's wrong because as much as I wish we could live in our own perfect bubble...' He smiled sadly. ', we can't. Maybe... maybe the world doesn't want us to be together. Maybe... we can't be.'

I felt tears spring, unbidden from my eyes. I grabbed Christian's hands, holding them between my own, savouring the connection. 'Don't say that.' I commanded. 'Don't you dare.' I was aware I was being absolutely pathetic. The former Syed, pre-Christian, would have resented the tears running openly down my face, the lump in my throat making my voice hoarse. The present Syed didn't really care. He pulled his hands from mine. Did my face look like his? He looked like a man utterly heartbroken. 'Sy... this isn't right. It is, but it isn't.'

'You're not making any sense...'

He shook his head, as if shaking the thoughts out of his mind. 'This. Us. It's happened too quickly.'

'What? Christian! We've been together for over a year-'

'No. Not us then. Us now. After him. You haven't had the chance to process this properly. It went wrong, so you ran to me. You didn't get the chance to choose me, not properly. If I let us... happen. Sy, you know, I want this. I want us. I want there to be an us. More than anything. But this isn't right... you'd feel you'd never made a choice. You'd resent me.' I began to interrupt him but he held up a hand. '-Sy. You would.' He pulled his chair back slightly, the noise cutting through the silence that formed a blanket around his words, stopping me from making sense of them. 'So I have to make the choice for you.' He kissed me on the lips, a soft, bittersweet kiss, that ended almost as soon as it began. I touched my lips, in dazed disbelief. 'I love you Syed. Never, ever forget that. I'll be here when you're ready.'

'But... Christian-' I closed my eyes, hoping, wishing, praying, this was all an awful nightmare.

By the time I had opened them, he was gone.