Mad, Bad & Dangerous to Know - Samira Ahmed Page 0,64

scream into the gag, swallowing my own blood, and flail against the aga, who lifts me up and places me into my burial sack.

“I’ll dispose of her myself,” Pasha says.

Hands lift me up and place me sideways over the saddle of Pasha’s horse. He mounts, and we ride toward the sea.

Khayyam

“Khayyam, I’m so sorry. I guess you’re ignoring my texts. Not that I’m blaming you. I should’ve told you the truth about Haydée from the beginning. It’s over with her. Absolutely over. Finalement. I just . . . it wasn’t a clean break. I wish . . . I’m sorry. Oh, this is Alexandre. In case . . . well”—long sigh—“obviously you know it’s me. Sorry.”

That is the voice mail I woke up to. Voice mail. After finally turning my phone off last night, after an entire afternoon of Alexandre’s texting me apologies and explanations. After I poured my heart and spleen into an email to Julie, even though she’s not going to get that email anytime soon. After all that, he actually called me and left a scratchy-voiced, sad message. That is desperation. A stitch of guilt sneaks up on me because I understand the pain of relationships that end without really coming to a close. Maybe Alexandre is desperate, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be sincere, too.

A knock on the door pulls me out of my guilty-angry brooding funk. “You need to come out and eat something.” My mom knocks again. “It’s almost eleven. Papa went to Pain de Sucre and brought that fraise crème gateau you love.”

“Fine, Mom. Give me a minute,” I say with virtually zero enthusiasm, but the prospect of cake for breakfast . . . er . . . brunch propels me to the door. I twist my hair into a bun at the back of my head and run a pencil through it to keep it in place. The dirtier it is, the easier it is to keep knotted up. I take a quick glance in the full-length mirror propped up on the wall opposite the bed. I’m currently rocking the death-warmed-over look: blue-and-green plaid cotton boxer shorts and the same RBG tee I’ve been wearing for the last twenty-four hours.

My parents wait for me behind the bar in the small kitchen at one end of the large common space of our apartment.

I trudge over to a stool and slide on to it and face them. An espresso and the promised cake are waiting for me. “Merci, Papa,” I say with a sheepish smile.

“De rien, chérie. You know it’s not winter, no need to hibernate.” My dad winks at me.

I raise the small pale-green espresso cup to him like I’m making a toast, then take a little swig, licking the crema off my upper lip. It’s strong and smells chocolaty, but all I taste is the bitter. There’s this verse by Omar Khayyam:

Whether the cup with sweet or bitter run

The wine of life keeps oozing drop by drop

The leaves of life keep falling one by one.

Basically, c’est la vie. Sometimes life sucks. Get over it, because one day you’ll be dead. How cheery! It’s like I have my own personal scribe chastising me from the beyond.

If I have to have the bitter, might as well take the sweet, too. I pick up the fork and devour the fresh strawberry slices, cream, and vanilla biscuit-y thing on the bottom of this pastry. Pain de Sucre is a matchbox of a pastry shop, but obviously ancient sorcerers run the kitchen. There is no other explanation for the alchemy occurring in my mouth right now. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the pastry chef laced this cake with some kind of love potion, because it’s so good I want to marry it. And with my luck, that is exactly how a love potion would work for me. At least it wouldn’t cheat on me. Khayyam + Pastries: a love story in four bites.

I glance away from my pastry to notice my parents trading worried looks. “Hello. I see you. I’m literally in front of you. I’m fine. Just tired.”

“What do you think about getting out of town for a bit?” my mom asks. “Do you remember