said two words in Arabic, sounding as if it stung his tongue to say them. “You’re divorced, Princess.” Tears glistened in his eyes again.
I smiled sadly through my tears and nodded. “You can stop calling me Princess now.”
He shook his head. “I never called you ‘Princess’ because it was your title, Princess.”
And that caused more tears to come. His lips kissed my tears away, and then he pressed his cheek to mine and whispered, “I’ve never yelled at my mother until she wanted to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to kill anyone until someone treated you with disrespect. I never knew what falling for someone truly was until you came into my life.”
“Falling?” I gasped.
“So hard, Princess,” he said, pulling back the slightest bit to look into my eyes. “Can’t you tell?”
I replied to him by pressing my lips to his. I kissed him hard. I kissed him ‘don’t let go.’ I kissed him ‘let me stay.’ And I kissed him ‘please, understand.’
He kissed me back, just as hard, just as passionately, but he kissed me ‘I’m sorry.’ And he kissed me ‘I have to let you go.’
We kissed ‘Goodbye.’ Because it was our only option. A choice forced upon us.
Saying goodbye to Mona was more emotional than I’d expected, I hugged her for a long time, and we both cried heavily.
“Take care of yourself, Benty,” she said through her tears.
“You’ve yet to tell me what that word means, Mona,” I smiled sadly, my own tears rolling down my cheeks, feeling how much I was going to miss her already, this woman who held a place in my heart I’d never thought she would own.
“It means ‘My child…My daughter’,” she replied with a sad smile of her own, and it was too much for me not to hug her again and cry some more.
When I asked to visit the Queen Mother before I left, I was welcomed with open arms, kisses and more prayers which, even though I couldn’t understand, warmed my heart to the highest point.
Prince Fahd was waiting by the main entrance of the palace. He wished me a safe flight, and I asked him to take good care of Hope and Faith; I wasn’t going to take them away from their mother. He then assured me that he’d have the best people looking after the branch office until I decided what I would do with it, telling me that Princess Huda had been taking care of it for the past two weeks and would do it for as long as I wished. I didn’t even know she was doing that, though I was grateful.
I sent the king my goodbyes and best wishes with Prince Fahd, wishing I could tell him so myself, but too afraid because I didn’t know if I would meet the queen there or not. She certainly wasn’t someone I wanted to see...ever again.
“Are you ready, Princess?” Mazen asked softly.
Not at all.
I nodded, despite myself, and Mazen put one hand under my thighs and the other around my back, carrying me bridal style, and then walked us out the door as I buried my head into his chest and breathed him in.
“The third day after the wedding my whole family came to visit you as the traditions say,” Mazen had told me when I asked what had he come up with to explain my departure from the kingdom to his people. “I told them you couldn’t meet with them because you were sick. Now I’ll tell them you got even sicker when you left the wing to visit Princess Rosanna after we thought you’d gotten better. Since then we’ve been trying different medications on you but nothing has helped, so we had to go visit your doctor in the States.”
A few months later he would say it didn’t work out and we had to get a divorce. We’d go our separate ways, like we had planned from the start, and he would take care of the paper work.
It broke my heart all over again just hearing those last words.
Outside, there was a huge gathering of black cars, one ambulance and four police cars. Once we stepped outside, the sounds of fireworks rang out one after another, and they flashed in the sky enough to light up the whole place. The sky actually brightened with the amount of fireworks they set off.
Too bad I was too heartbroken to even smile at the sight that had always made me grin enthusiastically and scream cheerfully.
“Why are they