Hi all!
Apologies again for the delay, no excuse, I'm just rubbish *hangs head*
I'm going to upload a couple of chapters today, since I really want to get caught up with this and I'm about 2 years worth of scenes behind! This is chapter 1/4 that I will be uploading.
This chapter is the day before the engagement party, when Amira has asked Christian to help her organise it.
xoxoxo
27th July 2009
Why did I have to agree to help out Amira? I must be a glutton for punishment! I don't even want to go to the stupid party, never mind help her organise the thing! It's still killing me, seeing Sy everyday and not being able to touch him. But I carry on, because that's what Christian Clarke does. He never lets anyone see that he's hurting, and he certainly never lets the person behind the hurt see him hurting. But I had looked into Syed's eyes as Amira begged and pleaded with me to help her out with the party, and I could see his sorrow written all over his face. He didn't want me to be involved any more than I had wanted to be involved in the first place. But right at that moment, I felt nothing for him other than bitterness. He had gotten what he had wanted from me and then he had tossed me to one side to resume his place as the 'good Muslim boy' as though I had no feelings. I knew that he was fighting against himself, against what he naturally felt when he was around me, so that he wouldn't lose the respect his parents had for him. Couldn't he see, as I could, that he was making a big mistake in going through with this marriage?
Maybe that was why he was so hostile towards me in the Unit today; he knew that I was right about him, about the way he felt, and he for some reason thought that I posed a threat to his 'perfect' life that he had with his family and Amira. He had asked me to stay away from him, and here I was, sticking my nose into his business again. Which would have gone down fine with me, had I actually been sticking my nose in, but Amira had all but begged me to help her out, and for some reason the 'friend' I had made in Amira wouldn't let me refuse her. Maybe it was because Amira just wouldn't let it drop that I agreed to help her just to stop her rabbiting on at me. But no, I truly did like Amira as a person, even if she was the main reason why I couldn't be with the man I...No, I stop myself in my tracks. I don't anything Syed. He'd been in my bed only a handful of times, and after each and every time he had been so cold towards me, as if I had done him some great harm.
Even so, when he had so forcefully said that he didn't want me at the party, I had felt my heart drop. It wasn't as though I actually wanted to be at the party and see him pledge himself to another, but I had thought, in the back of my mind, thta if I had been able to get him alone at the party, I might have been able to convince him that he was making a big mistake. I had told him that I, maybe not understood, but at least respected, that he had made his choice, and that in competition with Amira, I had lost, but really, I was just waiting for him to break down and confess that he had made a big mistake. Thankfully, I was saved from having to reply to him when Zainab had walked in, and he had had to at least be civil towards me, if nothing else.
We had worked in an uncomfortable silence, with Zainab positively gushing about the party and their 'special visitor', the Imam from the Mosque. It was as though she knew the turmoil I was going through and was saying these things simply to spite me. But of course, she knew nothing about what I had been up to with her son behind closed doors. Just as I thought I was going to be alone with Syed again, Amira walked in, gushing about her plans for the party, the colour scehemes she had chosen. Syed caught my eye, and I knew that I had to do as he had asked me; I couldn't go to the party. Amira, of course, refused to accept no as an answer, and so I'm stuck in a dilemna; do I go to the party and upset my...Syed. Or do I stay away and upset my friend?
Thankfully, Syed had made my decision for me, by putting words into my mouth and telling Amira lies about what I had - or, in this case, hadn't - said. He had said that I didn't think that their engagement party was important; that it wasn't important that I was there. But, in truth, I felt like I needed to be there, to see for myself that he was indeed happy that he was pledging himself to this woman - and to this lie. I knew Syed had told me not to go, but in that moment, I was so angry at him that any regard for him flew out of the window. He saw me agree to come to the party, and if the look in his eyes could have killed...I'd have been a dead man walking.