Page 37 of Yours for the Season
She appealed to her father, but Naveed shared her mother’s confusion. “What is the issue, Sameerabeta?” he asked.
Sameera tried to take a deep breath and calm down, but suddenly, she wanted to throw something. Her fingers itched to smash her mother’s newly purchased crystal glasses, but she settled for kicking at a pile of snow. Her parents stared at her.
“You always do this,” Sameera said. “You never listen to me. You assume you know best. You barge into my life and then try to take over.”
Tahsin and Naveed looked at each other. “Beta, you need to calm down. You’re making a scene.”
“Stop calling me ‘beta.’ I’m not a little kid, and I amnotmaking a scene!” Sameera yelled, and a handful of pedestrians looked over. Okay, maybe she was making a scene, but they had started it. Her parents reached for her arm, tried to pat her on the shoulder, but she took a step away from them.
“Do you want us to tell Abu Isra not to come over?” Tahsin asked. “I can tell him right now that my daughter is not comfortable with his presence. Of course, his children will be so disappointed.”
Sameera closed her eyes. This entire trip was spiraling out of control. She should have stayed in the guesthouse and worked. No, she should never have gotten on the plane in the first place. Her presence here had not stopped her parents from their usual kooky behavior. It never did.
“I wish you would listen to me,” she repeated, suddenly feeling defeated and tired. “I don’t understand why you’re even here.”
“I think you do,” Tahsin answered, and her tone was hard now. Beside her, Naveed tried to defuse the situation, but both women ignored him. “If you had been honest with us from the start, we would all be in Atlanta right now.”
“I was honest! There is nothing going on between me and Tom!” Sameera said.
“Just as there was nothing going on between you and Hunter? Or you and Colin? Or you and Umar? You have lied to us again and again.”
Sameera flinched at the names of her high school and college boyfriends—all fleeting relationships. She hadn’t realized her parents had known about them. But of course they had—her mother was not above snooping in her room or even on her phone. She closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down.
“Remember what you did when you were eighteen?” Tahsin said, referring to the infamous overnight cabin trip. Her mother’s voice was goading, as if she, too, was tired of skirting around the issue. She sounded furious now, too. “You’ve proven again and again that we can’t trust you, Sameera. That you are incapable of thinking clearly when aman is involved. That you still need us to save you from yourself. Look at what happened with Hunter—if you had only been honest with us about your relationship, we would have been able to stop what he did to you. We could have guided you. Instead, you messed up your life.”
Ice entered Sameera’s veins as she stared at her mother, before her gaze traveled to Naveed, who couldn’t meet her eyes. This was what they really thought of her, she thought: that she was naive, weak, her judgment innately flawed. They thought she deserved every single setback. That she had deserved Hunter’s cruelties, small and large.
She was so sick of it.
“I’m sorry I’ve been such a disappointment. I know I’m not the daughter you wanted. But you’re not the parents I wished for, either,” she said flatly. With a sick sense of satisfaction, she watched as her words landed, watched as Naveed’s face grew pale, watched her mother’s sharp inhalation. Good. She wanted them to hurt, too.
She handed her father the car keys and walked away before she started to cry.
Somehow, she found herself at Hilda’s Bakery, nursing a chili hot chocolate. The temperature and the spice level of the drink both fit her dark mood. She had regretted the words the minute they were out of her mouth, and she hated her momentary happiness at seeing them land even more.
If Nadiya were here, she would know what to do. She would have forced Sameera to be brave, to talk to her parents. Their argument was even more proof that they had things they still needed to say to one another, but she had messed it all up. Instead, she sat and sipped and seethed quietly.
Hilda had left her alone, but when Tom showed up twenty minutes later, she knew the baker must have called him, and part of her was grateful. He settled into the seat across from her, and she stared out the window at the people walking by.
“Want to tell me what happened?” he asked gently.
She shrugged. “My family is crazy.”
Tom’s laugh was soft, and kind. “You’ll never believe this, but same.”
“I’m the little girl who cried wolf, and now no one will ever believe me again,” she said. She felt ridiculous even trying to explain the situation to Tom. “They still haven’t forgiven me for the way I kept things from them. For lying to them about Hunter. They think I deserve what happened.”
She waited for Tom to ask for details, to press for the whole, sorry story. Instead, he put his forearms on the table, leaning forward. “When I was in middle school, my dad thought it would be a good idea to sponsor the local hockey league. Not a team: the entire organization.”
“That sounds ... generous?” Sameera said, wondering where he was going with this.
“He had only one condition—I had to be a starter on the twelve-and-up boys’ team.”
“Sounds like a nice opportunity,” Sameera said cautiously.
“It would have been nice, if I knew how to skate. Or liked hockey. Or was friends with anyone else on the team,” Tom said.
“Oh no,” Sameera said, covering her mouth with her hands to stifle a horrified laugh.
