is my brother? Where is Joseph?” I screamed my pain in my brother’s face.
He was taking everything away from me. I’d thought he was going to be here; he still had to take care of so many things here in the kingdom. There were so many things left to do for our business here. What happened now? Was he leaving to take care of the company while I took care of things here myself? Or was he going to cut me out of the company as well?
Would he really do that to me? Would he take everything I had worked for? My life, my job, along with my family and friends?
What did I ever do to him?
What?
Joseph’s eyes widened in a warning glare. He dared to warn me not to speak, obviously not wanting to deal with it, or with his wife knowing anything about it. I had no idea if he knew how much he was destroying me by the second, how much he was killing me slowly and draining my soul. I wondered if he even knew. Would he care at all?
“Mona!” the prince yelled. She’d left the room once Janna started begging her brother, for what I didn’t know. Once she was there, he ordered, “Take Janna out of here.”
“No,” Janna shouted. “What’s going on here?” she asked, taking a step back from my brother, so she was now standing between her husband and her brother, opposite me.
The prince squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head that was hanging in sorrow, lips pressed into a tight line.
He didn’t want her to know.
The heck if I cared. This was all because of her. She did this to me with her recklessness and her disrespect for her stupid rules. She destroyed my life. She deserved to suffer like I was suffering. I didn’t care if she knew what her husband had done to me. I didn’t care if it hurt her to learn that he had lied and betrayed me–his own sister.
Mona left when the prince said nothing. My eyes and Janna’s were on my brother, both of us waiting for his answer. He just stood there in silence, looking at the floor, not meeting our gazes. He, too, wasn’t happy that Janna was about to find out the truth behind all of those lies, of course.
“Yoseph?”
“Why the heck is she calling you Yoseph?” I asked in frustration. The mispronounced name was getting on my already-troubled nerves, especially since I knew that both of them–the prince and his sister–spoke English very well.
When Joseph wouldn’t reply after the long moments I stood there waiting for it, the prince replied for him again.
“Yoseph is the name he chose for himself after he converted,” the prince replied slowly, with a frown that told me he was surprised I didn’t know that.
Did I know anything at all?
“C-converted to what?” Voice shaking and head spinning.
“To Islam.”
I clutched the cross on my chest with one hand while the other I placed over my mouth and screamed into it, tears streaming down my face.
Merciful God!
I felt lightheaded, dizzy. I knew I was about to faint. I couldn’t control my breaths, couldn’t calm down even a tiny bit to get my heartbeat to slow, couldn’t heal the tightening in my throat or the wound in my heart.
God!
I was dying.
“Princess.” The prince’s hands found their way to my shoulders in an attempt to calm my panic. I shrugged them away.
“Don’t touch me!” I yelled. “Stay away from me!”
He backed away immediately, giving me the space I needed. My eyes wouldn’t leave Joseph. He was still looking down at the floor and not moving at all; you would’ve thought he wasn’t breathing at all.
“You became a MUSLIM?” I screamed at him, the words bitter on my tongue.
No answer.
“What. Is. Wrong with you?” I cried, all pained words and trembling lips.
“You didn’t know?” Janna asked with wide eyes that matched the prince’s.
“Of course, I didn’t know!” I yelled. “How could you do this? How could you, Joseph? How could you?”
“Yoseph?” Janna looked at him, waiting for an explanation.
“Uh…” was his only reply.
“Why would you leave our faith? How could you give up Jesus?” Venom laced my voice and fire filled my insides.
“I didn’t give up Jesus. I believe in him, still. Always will. Islam believes in Jesus,” Joseph said.
I didn’t believe him. How could I?
Lies.
Lies.
All lies.
“Why would you leave our parents’ and grandparents’ faith, Joseph? Just give me one reason why?”
“I wouldn’t be able to marry Janna if I