“Nour.”
My mother turned toward him.
“What did you call her?”
Zayd didn’t answer.
He was still looking at me.
My father stepped closer.
“Who is Nour?”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
My mother grabbed my wrist.
“Layla, answer him.”
I looked at her hand around my wrist, then at her face.
She had spent my entire life believing that she knew every important thing about me.
Now she was looking at me as though I were a stranger who had somehow entered her home.
I swallowed hard.
“I am Nour.”
My mother’s grip loosened.
“What?”
“The woman he met last night,” I whispered. “That was me.”
Silence fell over the room.
It was the kind of silence that makes every tiny sound unbearable: the ticking of a clock, the rustle of fabric, the unsteady breath of someone trying not to cry.
My father stared at me.
