Page 24

I set off down a gravel trail, intent on finding Mr. Tahir and Nayim, but I’m so lost in my thoughts, I end up wandering farther than intended.

“Psst, Zahra,” someone calls.

I glance around the forest on either side of me, unable to hear past the faint strains of conversations in Bengali and folk songs blasting from faraway speakers. Nayim waves at me from under the tree he’s propped against.

“How’d you find me?” I ask.

“Once I helped him get ready, Mr. Tahir said I should go have fun,” he replies. “It sounded more like a demand, actually. Then I noticed you all by yourself and figured I should follow so you don’t end up getting eaten by a bear.”

I scoff. “A bear? Are you serious?”

He points at a sign I somehow missed that reads BLACK BEAR CROSSING . “Deadly.”

“My hero,” I snark, then bite my tongue when the conversation with the aunties rushes back. “Nayim, look, I—”

He closes the gap between us and takes my hand. “Whatever you have to say, it can wait. There’s something I want to show you first.”

“But—”

“We’ll be all alone,” he promises.

Reluctantly, I let the matter drop, since I’d rather not air my family’s dirty laundry in front of a hundred gossipmongers who’ll never let us live it down.

Running with his hand in mine is a familiar comfort. I try to write this moment into memory, despite Amma and the aunties warning me that I’m dooming everyone I love just by letting myself feel anything for him.

Nayim’s breathless, “Ta-da!” stirs me from my waking nightmare.

He’s shepherded us outside the barred-off entrance of Lambert Castle, the private-residence-turned-museum formerly owned by silk baron Catholina Lambert, who ran a prominent mill in historic Paterson.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I hiss. “It’s closed.”

“Only the museum,” Nayim replies breezily.

He releases my hand and vaults himself over the wooden gate, then pitches a daring look my way—the same look that emboldened me to do things I never would have dreamed of until this summer. The look that always unleashes a dozen butterflies inside my belly.

Shaking off my nerves, I link my fingers with his and climb into the granite and sandstone courtyard. Across from the stone lions that guard the arched doorway, facing a fountain, sits a wrought-iron bench. Rather than dropping ourselves onto it, Nayim lures me deeper into the castle until we reach the entrance to the observation tower.

Surprisingly, no one tries to stop us.

We’re alone here.

Any remaining opposition dies in my throat when I stare out past the narrow stone columns of the tower toward the city. All around us, the world unfurls itself, providing a panoramic view of Paterson framed by the New York City skyline.

I’ve never been up here.

A breath catches in my throat as I stray to the lip of the tower, but it’s the first note of Nayim’s song that makes me hold it. I swivel to find him clasping his guitar and realize that’s why he’s brought me here, so he can play for me at last.

Before I can utter a single word, his enchanting voice permeates the gazebo. “Zahra, tumare sara zara zai tho nai.”

The lyrics echo off the pillars surrounding us, cascading over me with such love and yearning that my eyelids fall shut of their own volition. Every other sound dies away, stripping the world empty of anything but Nayim and his assertation that he can’t bear to be apart from me.

“My north star, to you my heart like a compass always guides.”

His song is the most bewitching thing I’ve ever heard. On his perfect lips, my name is a prayer. Even in my wildest fantasies, I could never have imagined someone wanting me the way he claims to. It’s an invocation in English and Bengali, at once only for me, and something he proclaims to the world.

“Zahra,

Zahra,

Zahra…”

My knees buckle me onto a convenient bench, but the cool stone does nothing to bring me back to my senses. Tears bead like dewdrops on my lashes, and in spite of my best efforts to blink them away, a few trickle down my cheeks to the hard floor.

Nayim’s fingers fall still over his guitar strings when he notices. “Whoa, Zahra, you’re crying! Do you… not like it?”

“No, I love it,” I say on a shuddering breath, but I can’t bear to look at him.

He sets his guitar on the ground and kneels in front of me, taking my hands in his own, his chin cradled atop our entwined fingers. His eyes shine like gold in the sunlight that streams between the pillars, though shadows dance across his cheekbones and frowning mouth.

“What is it?”

The sight of him only guts me more. “It’s—you’re so good, Nayim.”

“That’s no reason to cry, is it, love?” he asks, quirking a tiny smile.

I don’t smile back. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair how no one will know but me, just because of who you are. Not fair how no one wants us together or how we can’t pursue our dreams because we’re poor. I always thought Amma and other adults were ridiculous for caring so much about something so vapid, but money decides everything, doesn’t it? It isn’t fair.”

New teardrops leak from my eyes at every word.

Nayim murmurs soothing nonsense in an effort to comfort me, and when that doesn’t work, says, “I’ve been writing this song for you for ages. I hoped this would be the most romantic place to sing it. Instead, you’re sad.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, gazing over his head at the breathtaking view, which twists a knife in my heart. “It’s beautiful here. Your song was beautiful.” You’re beautiful. “But being in this castle reminded me how easy Catholina Lambert must have had it. His lovely life, high above the clouds, watching people like us toil far below. It’s been more than a century since this place was built, but nothing ever changes, does it?”

Nayim’s brows draw together in concern. “You’re scaring me, Zar. Are you okay?”

“No,” I confess. “I’m not okay. I’ve always known it, but the fact that I’m far from a princess feels more real to me than ever.”

“What’s going on?” he asks. “Is it… your mother again?”

All at once, I blurt out everything that happened with Amma, as well as how the women at the picnic have only reinforced the idea that there’s one path for me, the one where I let a nice wealthy guy like Harun take care of me forever, because otherwise I’m sentencing myself and my family to a lifetime of struggle.

By the time I finish, I’m sobbing openly, until Nayim’s arms wrap around me. I dry my face on his soft shirt, which smells of sugar, the lullaby of his heartbeat against my moist cheek.

“Everything will be okay,” he whispers into my hair.

I choke out a watery laugh. “It might not, actually, but if I have you, maybe at least some of it will. Thank you for being here.”

His arms tighten around me, but he goes quiet. I worry I’ve offended him with my lack of faith, but then he pushes me back by the shoulders enough to peer into my face, the light in his golden eyes dimming.

“I mean it, Zahra,” he says. “If you’re unhappy here, you don’t have to stay. Let’s leave.”

“L-leave?” I stare at him, uncomprehending. “What do you mean? Where would we go?”

“Anywhere you want,” he replies. “Everywhere, if need be.”

I laugh again and start to say, “That’s sweet,” but the stubborn set of his jaw doesn’t falter, stopping me in my tracks. “Wait, are you serious? We can’t run away. My whole life is here. What about your guitar shop? Didn’t you always imagine it in New York City?”

“I did,” he answers. “But Paterson, New York, Bangladesh… They’re just places, and if I’ve learned anything since leaving home, it’s that places are temporary. You, Zahra. You matter to me. As long as I’m with you, I can figure out somewhere else to open my shop. Texas, California—hell, maybe Paris, like we talked about that one night.”

My head begins to shake of its own accord. This can’t be the Nayim I know, who’s sacrificed everything in pursuit of his dream. The Nayim who inspires me. It can’t be so easy for that Nayim to up and leave the future he had his heart set on.

“Everything I know is here,” I say. “My family is here. Even if we could somehow afford jetting around the world like that, I couldn’t possibly abandon them.”

Nayim’s grip tightens on my shoulders. “Zar, please. I know something about families like yours, who try to make you into their puppet, pulling your strings till they snap and you’re left broken. I don’t want that to happen with you. We can leave before it does, and we’ll be okay. I know… because I’ve done it before.”

“You’ve done it before?” I parrot. “I don’t understand….”

I gape at him. How does this fit into the pieces of the Nayim puzzle I’ve collected so far? Now that I think about it, there are so few, because we’ve known each other for such a short time. Because he shares so little.

If he wants me to run away, perhaps he doesn’t know me very well either. Losing my father changed my world for the worse. Robbed my sky of the sun, reaped the life from my earth. Nayim should know that. Nayim should know how much the people I have left mean to me. How scared I’ve been of them slipping through my fingers too.

How can he ask me to go?

“Zahra…” He licks his lips and considers his words very carefully. “The truth is… my family is still alive in Bangladesh.”

Shock jolts me out of his grasp.

“Wh-what…?” I stammer. My feet back away of their own volition, and I can’t stop shaking my head in disbelief. “What do you mean, they’re alive? How could you even joke about something like that, knowing what happened to me? Knowing…”

And yet, I desperately want it to be a joke, because if it isn’t, it means he lied to me. That he’s been lying to me since the moment we met.

“I didn’t lie,” he says, like he’s reading my mind, smiling at me as if I’m some stray to mollify with crusts of kindness. “All those rumors about me started the second I arrived in Paterson, so I just… let everyone believe what they already wanted. It was harmless.”

“But you let me believe it too,” I snap, angry tears flowing freely now. When he tries to reach for me again, I slap his hand away. “I get that you didn’t owe me anything at first, but after you found out about my dad… how could you not tell me?”

Nayim watches me for a long time, before he whispers, “I liked you not knowing who I was before. I spent my whole life trying to live up to what my father wanted me to be. Playing a role for everyone around me. But you, Zahra… You’re the first person to like me as I am. Like me for me. I wanted to hold on to that for a little bit longer.”

“Except this isn’t you,” I snarl, willing myself not to care about the hurt that makes him flinch. “You’re still playing a role, Nayim, but what’s a game to you is my life . I’m not just playing at the poor orphaned immigrant like you.”

His lips tremble, then squeeze together. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he says, amber eyes piercing and voice suddenly forceful. “But what if that didn’t have to be your life? No matter what you might believe, my feelings for you have always been true. We can run away. We can go to a place that has stars, see the whole world . Be each other’s family.”

Fresh tears well in my eyes as I shake my head. “No. You say your feelings for me are real, but if you actually loved me, you’d know I have to be here for my mother, grandmother, and siblings. I can’t leave them. I’m sorry.”

As I make to climb out of the observation tower, he calls after me, “I thought you were adventurous. I thought you were brave. A dreamer. The Zahra I was falling for would never be a puppet for her family.”

His words are a slap to the face.

I spin around. “My family is all I have left in the world.”

“Some families only hold you back and keep you small,” Nayim says, fury rising in his voice. “If they cared about you half as much as you do about them, they’d want you to come with me. Don’t you see that your amma is making you miserable?”

A flare of indignation sparks in my chest. My mother may be far from perfect, but how dare he judge her after two meetings without knowing all she’s been through? All she’s sacrificed?

“I don’t want to go!”

At this, Nayim goes quiet for a moment before his jaw tightens. He picks up his guitar and straightens. “So what will you do now? Stay here and be with Harun like an obedient little girl, just because it’s what she wants?”

The sparks billow into an outright flame.

How can he stand here talking about Harun when I ruined our friendship to keep him? To make him happy?

“Well, at least Harun isn’t a selfish ass,” I spit, fists balled at my sides. “Unlike you, Harun cares about the people he loves. Harun is reliable.”

Nayim considers me, heartbreak written all over his face. “You’re not who I thought you were. I thought you loved me.”

I stare at him in total disbelief. Love? How could he presume to know what love is truly about after this? It’s not just a feeling. It’s about trust. And showing up, about commitment, about putting the needs of those precious to you before your own.

Like I did for him.

I set aside my dreams all over again, gave up Harun, for a chance for Nayim and me to be happy together, here, only for him to ask this of me. Ask me to choose between him and my family… that’s not love. I’m starting to wonder if we knew each other at all.

“It’s not enough,” I whisper heatedly. I barely know myself anymore, much less the boy who stands before me. “Goodbye, Nayim. It’s—it’s over.”

He doesn’t chase after me. I’m not sure if I wanted him to, but I wait until the tower is a speck in the distance to drop to my knees under a silver bell tree and cry.