Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,6

almost forgotten.

Tonight, it is my portal to a tiny world outside my golden cage.

I step through the door into the second courtyard. The smallest of the courtyards, it lies abandoned. Even the gardeners have forsaken it in fear of the jinn that lurk in the trees. Though their branches arc and reach to the heavens, heavy with green leaves, the trunks of all the trees here are hollowed, carved out into perfectly smooth caverns. They say the jinn whittled away the trunks to create hiding places. In the center of the courtyard, two trees grafted together over the years stretch to the sky, branches intertwining like lovers’ arms. Their hollows meet to form the heart of the courtyard.

The night smells of damask roses.

He is near.

Khayyam

On cue, life reminds me once again that magical thinking doesn’t work. Sometimes shit is just shit. Period.

Stepping in that merde yesterday? It’s not going to bring me “a-penis” after all. Sure, I inexplicably ran into a French guy who may possibly be able to help salvage my academic self-worth. Did I mention that’s he’s hot? Or that he is an actual descendant of Alexandre Dumas? Or that for one fleeting and lovely art-filled afternoon, I was tempted to believe in magic? Fate, even?

For a few brief hours, the Métro shutdown didn’t seem like such a pain. I spent the dreamy walk home posting scenic Paris shots on boats on the Seine, a lone red love lock attached to a bridge, even a Robert Doisneau–style pic of a couple kissing with a black-and-white filter. I’ve been posting almost nonstop since I landed, detailing every step of this trip—except for my chance encounter with the cute Frenchman—hoping to inspire Zaid to appear out of thin air.

And now he has. With Rekha in his lap.

I squirm on the sofa, glaring at Rekha’s feed. Even on my phone’s screen she is larger than life: heart-shaped face, golden-brown skin, impossibly long lashes, and eyes that smolder for the lens. A classic Rekha selfie—stunning. Only this time her arm is hooked around Zaid’s neck. It’s classic Zaid, too—mischievous grin, long coffee-brown bangs partially obscuring his beautiful dark eyes that are clearly fixated on her. And he’s wearing his Chicago Brown Line ‘L’ T-shirt.

I gave him that shirt.

It was a memento of our first date. We took the Brown Line ‘L’ to the Music Box, where they were screening movies set in Chicago, and saw While You Were Sleeping—a classic, corny holiday rom-com that somehow takes all the clichés of mistaken identity and misunderstandings and makes them charming. Turns out that the Brown Line plays a role in the movie, too. Hours later when we shared our first kiss under the rumble of the Southport stop on that “L,” I almost fooled myself into believing that maybe, just maybe, life did have magic in it.

For the one-month anniversary of that kiss, I bought Zaid a Brown Line T-shirt. Soon after, he gave me a tee emblazoned with a dorky, desperate While You Were Sleeping quote: i got ice capades. It was so silly and so us, romantic in a completely unromantic way. Unassuming. Comfortable.

That’s why the gifts were special. Sentimental, even. Until right now.

Maybe I need to adopt Zaid’s nonchalance and focus on something more rewarding. Say, the French guy who literally almost fell into my lap. It’s infuriating that Zaid was even a stray thought yesterday. That pang of guilt I felt? Tragic. Why does my brain (my heart?) do this to me? The actual facts are right in front of my face, but still, my reason always seems to lose out to my stupid feelings.

Zaid literally introduced me as a “friend” on prom night to a new neighbor—a gorgeous college sophomore with bright hazel eyes. Half the block was on the sidewalk, an informal party since so many kids on my street were going to prom. The parent paparazzi were out in full force, snapping a million photos—group shots, couples, obligatory family formals, and a bunch of me and Julie and other kids goofing around then pinning boutonnieres on our dates. Zaid had to run back to his car because he forgot my wrist corsage. Of course he did. Julie had had to remind him to get