Chapter 9

"I happen to enjoy being in Berlin, so I won't be going over to France… One less thing for you to have to worry about then… I don't fly everywhere; the trains here are amazing… Perhaps… Of course things have been quieter; that's the point in keeping a low profile… As if seeing my name in the tabloids was a good thing… Yeah, well, he has a funny way of showing it…"

Zahra watched as Harry paced around while talking on the phone. He had been dodging calls from New York for a couple of days, but they couldn't keep any longer. Eventually he ended the call and gave an exasperated sigh.

"That was my father's assistant. I really don't like him," Harry explained. "I was originally going to spend the spring between France and New York, which would correspond with events and other stuff."

"You're staying here for a while, then?" Zahra asked.

"Well, you're here, aren't you?" he replied with a grin.

Suddenly spring had arrived in Berlin and everything was starting to bloom. The snow had finally given way to remarkable greenery that sprang up in even the most industrial of areas. There were so many new spaces to explore and places to go throughout the city. Yet, for all the time that Zahra and Harry spent together, they still hadn't addressed the lingering question of where they stood with each other. She didn't want to admit it, but she was terrified at the thought of him leaving. Meanwhile, Harry was desperately trying to plan how he could stay in Berlin until the summer. He grasped her hand and they continued strolling through the park.

"You will have to go back to the States at some point?" Zahra murmured.

"Probably. I only return when I absolutely have to. Why don't you come with me next time?"

She bit her lip. "I haven't been back to the US for a long time."

"Well, your graduation is coming up soon. Did you want to travel anywhere this summer?"

"I hadn't planned on it. I was thinking of doing a gap year somewhere, so I would probably just work this summer to save up." Zahra let out a sigh. "I just don't know anymore. I just…" She stopped and locked eyes with Harry; his widened under the intensity of her gaze.

"You just what?" he prompted gently.

Zahra grew flustered and dropped eye contact. "I just have so much to work on between now and grad. I feel like I have to plan out my whole life right now."

Harry smiled at her, though she didn't see it. He wouldn't know what that felt like – it was as though his whole life was already planned out for him, but it wasn't the plan he wanted. Did he even know what he wanted? Harry glanced down at her hand in his, and then brought it up to brush her fingers with a kiss. Zahra looked up at him in surprise.

"You don't have to do anything right now," he said.

There seemed to be no end to the studying that Zahra had to do as the end of the school year approached. She was holed up in a library for the day, and Harry would be coming by later so they could go on a lunch break. Zahra sensed someone approach and she started speaking before glancing up.

"Hang on a moment, just let me finish writing this thought… Alright." Brushing her curly hair away from her face, Zahra looked up with a smile for Harry that disappeared when she saw that it wasn't him.

Staring down at her was a tall, blond-haired young man with a muscular physique. "Hey, Zahra. I thought it was you sitting here."

"Derek," she replied, her mouth suddenly feeling parched. "It's been a while."

"You look great."

"Thanks."

Derek pulled out the chair beside Zahra and sat down facing her. "I'm glad I've finally run into you. We have stuff to talk about."

"I'm really busy with studying; maybe some other time."

"I've been trying to talk to you for like a year – this is definitely the right time."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Come on, Zahra. We never really talked about what happened. I can't put it behind me until we do, and you can't move past it until we do – am I right?" Derek leaned over, prompting her to look at him. "Just give me a chance to explain, please?"

"Explain what?" a third voice cut in.

Harry stood there coldly surveying the other male. Derek stood up slowly and his hands flexed instinctively. Zahra scrambled to her feet to stand between them.

"Harry, this is Derek, a student from my school. Derek, this is my close friend, Harry."

"Well, I should get going," Derek said. "Talk soon, Zahra."

Harry stared the blond guy out of the room before turning to her. "Are you alright?"

"I'm okay."

"You don't look okay."

"Let's go for lunch," she replied, packing up her things, "I'll tell you about it then."

"I met Derek a couple years ago; we go to the same bilingual school and his family also moved here from the States. He was and still is pretty popular. I had a crush on him, like every girl in the school, but he always had a girlfriend. The next year though, something changed and he started noticing me. We flirted back and forth, but never got really serious. There was this upcoming party and I was sure that he would ask me out then, but it turned out to be one of those gross house party where people and alcohol kept showing up.

"At some point, Derek and I were alone together and we started making out, and things got kinda intense. Even though I liked Derek, I didn't want to sleep with him and I swear I never gave him the impression that I was going to sleep with him, but in the moment I wasn't sure he wouldn't force himself on me because I couldn't make him stop. Suddenly, his friends burst into the room, taking photos and videos – I was half undressed, so it looked really bad – and I just bolted.

"I found the girls I came with; two were pretty wasted but functioning, the other girl was really out of it and we had to take her to the hospital. Turns out she was date-raped. The next day everything started coming out. Other people also had their drinks spiked, and there were awful photos and videos being shared, even some of me with Derek. It was absolutely humiliating! I could have easily ended up like one of those girls. And my mom and step-dad were upset because Derek is the son of a big lawyer – they basically said I encouraged him. Derek didn't really do anything wrong, but his friends did and received minimal punishment for their involvement in some of the stuff that happened."

Zahra put her face in her hands, and Harry sat there in a daze. It was like she had described some of the sketchy parties that he had been to, with some people, young women especially, facing identical outcomes. His skin prickled as a feeling of shame swept over him. Harry had always believed that as long as he didn't do anything wrong, he could just have a good time and ignore the negative things happening to others, as though they weren't his problem.

"That's how you knew I had been drugged at the restaurant," Harry said quietly.

Zahra looked up at him. "After that incident, I was so scared it could happen to me."

"Do you think Derek wanted you to be less than sober?"

She sighed. "I'm not sure. I've thought about it a lot. The only conclusion that I've come to is that Derek wanted to hook-up with me. Yet, if I had been drunk or even drugged, would he have forced the issue? I don't know… In any case, I decided to forgive him."

"'Forgive him'?" Harry spluttered incredulously.

"I didn't want to carry around all the negative feelings and resentment that I had, so I decided to free myself of dwelling on it and move on. That's not to say that what he did was okay. I'm simply not letting that situation control and consume me. Derek is not someone I want in my life. I went to counselling for a while before I came to that conclusion."

"I don't know if I could do that…"

"Well, it hasn't been all sunshine and roses. I transferred to online courses after that. I just couldn't deal with continuing to see all my classmates after that."

Harry couldn't do much else other than stare at Zahra as she finished her coffee. After revealing her story, so much about her finally clicked into place in his mind – why she had been so nervous around him at first, why she seemed to be a loner, a factor in the rift with her parents… Yet, she was determined to move past what had clearly been a turning point in her life.

"Thank you for telling me," Harry said, when he finally found his words. "I'm glad you didn't face a worse scenario, but I'm sorry that it cost your trust in people close to you."

"Thanks for not giving up on me, even when I kept you at a distance," Zahra replied. "You let me trust you on my own terms."

"I think I've been more stressed for Zahra doing her finals than I ever was for any exam; I didn't really have to worry about scores, scholarships, acceptance… Maybe I missed out on something in high school and university," Harry mused aloud, partly to himself and partly for his audience of Brady.

He and his assistant made eye contact through the rear view mirror. "Returning to university is always an option," Brady remarked.

"No, thank you. Not right now, at least. However, if Zahra wants to take a gap year and then go, we could enroll at the same time."

"As long as it's somewhere she could get accepted and afford it."

Harry frowned slightly. "Of course I'm not going to pick some Ivy League place. It will probably be somewhere in Europe anyway. Maybe we should do some college scouting in the fall…"

Lately, Harry had been thinking about the future. For once in his life, he wasn't feeling pressured by his father's expectations or thwarted by his own vices. The only anchor point that he found he needed was that his future included Zahra. Everything else could flow around that, and as long as she was happy, he would be as well. All that remained was how – how would he make it happen? The answer Harry kept coming back to was that he would have to tell her how he felt, even if it meant pushing their comfortable friendship into uncharted waters.

The car pulled up in front of Zahra's house and Harry was startled to find Zahra on the doorstep with Derek; they looked to be having an intense discussion. She left him there and walked over to the car, but Derek persisted. Harry opened the car door and stood there glaring daggers.

"Oh, so you have a date with him," Derek was saying, "I guessed as much. Now I see why your parents are less than impressed – he's out here skulking in the shadows."

"I said good night, Derek. We're done here," Zahra rebuffed and got into the car.

Harry closed the door behind her and began to walk around to the other side of the car, when Derek motioned him aside.

"I don't want Zahra to hear," Derek spoke quietly. "You're Harry Osborn, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"Does Zahra know who you are?"

"Of course."

"Does she know who you really are? International playboy? Wealthy brat? Most likely to end up in rehab?"

Harry's jaw clenched. "I haven't kept any of that a secret from her."

"Then why are you toying with her like this? You and I both know that you're going to drop her as soon as you're bored."

"From what Zahra's told me, I could accuse you of exactly the same thing."

"Yeah, I screwed up, I admit that – in fact, I was here tonight to apologize to her and her parents. I'm graduating and I want to start fresh. That includes fresh starts with people I've hurt. Even if you don't believe me, I still care about Zahra and I'm not going to see her messed up by someone like you. I know all about your type."

Harry was seething at this point, and it was all he could do not to punch Derek in the face. Instead he grabbed Derek's shirt front and muttered with a barely contained violence: "You think you know me? You don't know the first thing about me!"

Derek shoved him away but didn't retaliate. "I know one thing – if you hurt Zahra there's going to be a problem, I don't care who you are."

Suddenly his eyes focused on something beyond Harry, and they realized that Zahra was standing there, looking fearful.

"We're alright, aren't we, Harry?" Derek asked, the tension in his voice evident.

Zahra broke the silence once she and Harry were back in the car; "What were you guys talking about?"

"Forgiveness," Harry replied.