I Can't Think Straight by Shamim Sarif

Author:Shamim Sarif [Sarif, Shamim]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Love, Business, Coming Out (Sexual Orientation), Fiction, Romance, Family & Relationships, Lesbian Erotic Romance, Lesbians, Lesbian
ISBN: 9780956031617
Publisher: Enlightenment Productions
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘I see. So we each get five minutes of hand-holding? I get a night in Oxford, he gets a night in London?’

She felt Tala pull back slightly, felt her panic at the harshness, felt her turn a little to where Reema’s voice rose and fell in the room beyond.

‘That’s not fair, Leyla…’ she began.

‘What is fair?’ Leyla demanded in a fierce whisper. ‘That I make love to you and then make conversation with your fiancé?’ She paused, trying to control her voice which had the sound of tears etched into it. ‘How can you bear it, Tala?’

‘We can’t live like this,’ Tala said. ‘Our families would never understand.’

Perhaps that was true, but Leyla realized that she didn’t much care who understood anymore.

Leyla looked down at Tala’s hand, entwined with her own, the fingers grasping hers, communicating a need, a desire. She bent her head and touched her lips to it, gently.

‘Last night wasn’t just an affair. Not for me, anyway,’ Leyla looked up, into the eyes that watched her. ‘Thanks to you, I know what I want. I want to be with someone who, ten years from now, makes my heart jump when I hear her key in the door.’ She hesitated. ‘And that someone is you.’

Tala was right there, then, against her, kissing her, and Leyla closed her eyes, relieved to have made sense of this mess, to have found the simple way through. They loved each other, and that was truly what mattered.

‘Tala! Are you okay?’ Hani’s concerned voice, calling from the dining room was a jolt to Leyla, but it had some other, deeper effect on Tala. Leyla felt the hands drop her own, and leave her standing isolated.

‘I can’t hurt him,’ Tala breathed.

‘Are you in love with him?’ Leyla saw the hesitation, or was it just a pause while she tried a find a way to be kind?

‘There are things I love about him.’

Leyla stared at her. Behind them, the grandfather clock began to chime the hour, a sonorous, desolate noise.

‘Tala. This is wrong. Tell me you can do this.’

Quickly, she moved forward, clasping Tala’s head, kissing her hair, her cheek, but unable to reach the mouth that Tala held away.

Leyla pulled back and watched in silence as Tala turned and walked back down the hall before disappearing into the darkened doorway of the dining room. She stood alone in the hallway, and found herself waiting, waiting for Tala to reappear, to realize that her life – her real life – was out here. But all she heard was the commingling of Tala’s voice with the others in the room beyond, and the voice was faintly embarrassed, doubtless making excuses for her friend’s sudden disappearance. Silently, with a leaden heart, Leyla turned and left the house.

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