Chapter 5: Breakfast and a Careful Plan
Omar woke before the sun.
It was still dark when his eyes opened, the apartment steeped in that deep, pre-dawn blue that made everything look underwater. He lay on the couch for a long moment, his back aching from the awkward angle, his feet numb from hanging off the armrest. The blanket had slipped to the floor sometime during the night.
He sat up slowly, quietly, listening.
The apartment was silent except for the soft rhythm of Layla's breathing. He looked toward the bed. She was curled on her side, facing the wall, her dark hair spread across the pillow like ink in water. The blanket rose and fell with each breath.
He watched her for a moment. Then he stood.
His shoes were by the door. His keys were in his pocket. He could be out of here in thirty seconds. Down the stairs, into the car, back to his own apartment across the city. She'd wake up to an empty room and a note he didn't know how to write.
He took a step toward the door.
"Don't."
Her voice was soft, sleep-rough, but it stopped him cold.
He turned.
She hadn't moved. Still curled on her side, still facing the wall. But her eyes were open now, he could tell by the way her voice had come—alert, aware, watching him even with her back turned.
"I wasn't—" he started.
"You were."
He didn't argue. Just stood there, caught, his hand still reaching for his shoes.
"Where were you going?" she asked.
"Home."
"Which home?"
The question landed harder than it should have. He didn't have an answer. The apartment he'd rented three months ago, the one with the bare walls and the single chair and the mattress on the floor—that wasn't a home. It was a holding pattern. A waiting room.
"I don't know," he admitted.
She sat up. The blanket pooled around her waist, and he saw the curve of her belly beneath her tank top, small but unmistakable in the dim light. He looked away.
"You were going to leave without saying goodbye," she said.
"I thought it would be easier."
"For who?"
He didn't answer.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Her hair was a mess, tangled and wild, and there were creases on her cheek from the pillow. She looked like she hadn't slept well. She looked like she hadn't slept at all.
"I'm making breakfast," she said.
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." She walked past him, toward the kitchenette. "But I'm hungry, and you're not leaving, so sit down."
He didn't move.
"Omar." She turned, one hand on the fridge door. "Sit."
He sat.
The chair was small, too small for him, the same one he'd sat in last night. He watched her move around the kitchen, pulling flour from the cabinet, olive oil, a small jar of za'atar. She filled the kettle and set it on the stove. She didn't ask for help. Didn't look at him. Just worked, her movements steady and sure, like she'd done this a thousand times.
"What are you making?" he asked.
"Manakish."
"You know how to make manakish?"
"My grandmother taught me." She poured flour into a bowl, added water, started kneading. "When I was in Syria. We made it every morning. She said it was the only way to start the day right."
He watched her hands work the dough, pressing and folding, the muscles in her forearms flexing with each movement. There was something hypnotic about it. Something grounding.
"She sounds like a wise woman," he said.
"She was." Layla's voice softened. "She died two years ago. That's why we went back. To see her before—" She stopped, her hands stilling on the dough. "Well. To see her."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too."
The kettle started to whistle. She wiped her hands on a towel and moved to the stove, pouring the water into a teapot she'd already prepared with mint leaves and sugar. The scent filled the small apartment, sweet and sharp and green.
"You didn't have to stay," she said, her back to him. "Last night. You could have gone home."
"I know."
"Why didn't you?"
He thought about it. Really thought about it. The truth was complicated—tangled up in guilt and desire and fear and something else, something he couldn't name.
"Because I didn't want to wake up somewhere you weren't," he said.
She turned.
Their eyes met across the small kitchen. Neither of them spoke.
Then she turned back to the stove, and he heard her exhale—slow, shaky, like she'd been holding her breath.
"Tea's almost ready," she said. "You want sugar?"
"Two spoons."
"Okay."
She poured the tea into two glasses, set them on the table. Then she went back to the dough, shaping it into small rounds, pressing dimples into the surface with her fingertips. She drizzled olive oil over each one, sprinkled za'atar, and slid them onto a baking sheet.
The oven clicked on. The apartment started to warm.
"Did you sleep at all?" he asked.
"A little." She slid the baking sheet into the oven. "You?"
"Some."
"You were snoring."
"I don't snore."
"You do." She closed the oven door and turned to face him. "It's okay. It was—" She paused, searching for the word. "Reassuring."
He didn't know what to say to that. So he picked up his tea and took a sip. The mint was strong, the sugar sweet, and it burned his tongue in a way that felt good.
"The plan," he said.
"What about it?"
"You were going to tell me last night. Before we—" He gestured vaguely. "Before we got distracted."
She sat down across from him. Her hands wrapped around her glass, the steam curling up into her face.
"I've been thinking about it for weeks," she said. "Ever since I found out. I've been running scenarios in my head, trying to figure out the best way to do this. The way that hurts the least people."
"And?"
"And there's no way that doesn't hurt people." She took a breath. "But there's a way that hurts less."
He waited.
"We tell them we want to get married," she said. "We don't mention the pregnancy. We say we reconnected in Syria, that we realized we still had feelings for each other, that we want to do this the right way. With their blessing."
"They'll ask why the rush."
"We say we don't want to wait. We say we've wasted enough time already." She met his eyes. "We say we want a simple nikah. Just family. Just something small."
"And then?"
"We get married." She paused. "And a month later, we announce I'm pregnant."
He turned it over in his mind. The math. The timeline. The lie.
"A month," he said.
"Long enough that it looks like it happened after the wedding. Short enough that it's plausible."
"And when the baby comes early?"
"We say it was premature." She shrugged. "Babies come early all the time. It happens. People will believe it."
He thought about the baby. About the actual, physical reality of a child—small and squalling and alive. A child who would one day grow up, who would one day ask questions, who would one day want to know the truth.
"And when the baby's older?" he asked. "What do we tell them then?"
She looked at him. Her eyes were steady, but something flickered behind them—fear, maybe. Or hope.
"The truth," she said. "When they're old enough to understand. We tell them the truth."
"And our families?"
"They never have to know."
Omar leaned back in his chair. The oven hummed. The tea steamed. Outside, the city was waking up—he could hear it now, the distant sound of traffic, the call to prayer echoing from a mosque somewhere nearby.
"It could work," he said.
"Could?"
"It could." He nodded slowly. "It's not—it's not perfect. There are holes. Things people could poke at if they wanted to."
"People don't want to poke," she said. "People want to believe the best version of the story. They want to be happy for us. They want to celebrate. So we give them something to celebrate."
He looked at her. At the fierce, tired, stubborn woman sitting across from him. At the mother of his child.
"You've really thought about this," he said.
"I've had three months to think about it." She picked up her tea, took a sip. "I've thought about it so much I can't think about it anymore. I just need to do something. I need to move forward. I can't just—" She stopped, her voice cracking. "I can't just sit here waiting for my life to fall apart."
He reached across the table and took her hand.
She went still.
His thumb traced a small circle on the back of her hand. He didn't pull away. Didn't let go. Just held on, steady, like he was anchoring her to something solid.
"We'll call them tonight," he said.
"Tonight?"
"Tonight." He squeezed her hand. "My parents first. Then yours. We'll tell them we want to get married."
Her fingers curled around his. Holding back.
"They're going to have questions."
"Then we'll answer them." He met her eyes. "Together."
She nodded. And something in her face shifted—the same thing he'd seen in the garden, in the dark, when she'd looked at him like he was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
The oven timer beeped.
She pulled her hand back, stood, walked to the oven. She pulled out the baking sheet, the manakish golden and fragrant, and set it on the stove. The apartment filled with the smell of bread and thyme and olive oil.
She plated two pieces and brought them to the table.
"Eat," she said.
He ate.
The bread was warm, soft, and the za'atar was tangy and sharp, and he hadn't realized how hungry he was until the first bite hit his tongue. He ate the whole piece in four bites, reached for another, and she laughed.
"Slow down," she said. "It's not going anywhere."
"Sorry." He swallowed. "I didn't eat dinner last night."
"Why not?"
"I was nervous."
"About what? You already had the apartment ready."
"Not about the apartment." He met her eyes. "About you. About seeing you again."
She looked down at her plate. Picked at the edge of her bread.
"I was nervous too," she said. "I almost didn't get on the plane."
"Why did you?"
"Because I didn't have a choice." She looked up. "Not really. I couldn't stay in Wisconsin. Not like this. My parents would have noticed eventually. My mother would have—" She stopped. "She's not stupid. She would have figured it out."
"Would she have been angry?"
"I don't know." Layla shook her head. "That's what scares me. I don't know what they'll do. I don't know if they'll forgive me. I don't know if they'll ever look at me the same way again."
He set down his bread. Reached across the table. Took her hand again.
"They will," he said.
"You don't know that."
"I know your parents. They're good people. They love you."
"Love doesn't mean forgiveness."
"No." He squeezed her hand. "But it's a start."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then she pulled her hand free and stood.
"I should shower," she said. "I look like I've been crying for three days."
"You have been crying for three days."
"Exactly." She walked toward the bathroom, then stopped at the door. Turned back. "Omar."
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For staying."
He didn't answer. Just watched her disappear into the bathroom, heard the door click shut, heard the shower turn on.
He sat at the table for a long time.
The manakish cooled on the plates. The tea went cold in the glasses. Through the window, the sun was fully up now, the city bathed in gold and white and the pale, bleached blue of the desert sky.
He picked up his phone.
No messages. No missed calls. His family thought he was at the university. His friends thought he was busy. No one knew where he actually was.
No one knew he'd spent the night on a couch in a rented apartment, watching a woman he'd loved since adolescence sleep.
He opened his contacts. Scroll to the top.
Mama.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then he locked the phone and set it face-down on the table.
Layla came out of the bathroom ten minutes later, her hair wet and wrapped in a towel, a loose t-shirt hanging over her damp skin. She looked better. More awake. More alert.
"Your turn," she said, gesturing at the bathroom.
He stood. Walked past her. Stopped in the doorway.
"Layla."
She turned.
"We're really doing this," he said. Not a question.
"We're really doing this." She met his eyes, steady. "Tonight. We call them tonight."
He nodded.
Then he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
The shower was hot and clean, and he stood under it for a long time, letting the water wash over him, trying to scrub away the guilt and the fear and the everything else that was sitting in his chest like a stone.
It didn't work.
When he came out, towel around his waist, she was sitting on the bed with her phone in her lap. She looked up at him.
"I texted my mother," she said.
"What?"
"I couldn't wait." She held up the phone. "I just—I told her I wanted to talk tonight. That it was important."
"What did she say?"
"She said 'everything okay?'"
"And?"
"And I said yes." Layla set the phone down. "That we'd call tonight after maghrib."
Omar stood there, dripping, the towel the only thing between him and the cool morning air.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay?"
"Okay." He crossed to his bag, pulled out a clean shirt. "We call tonight. After maghrib. Both of them."
She watched him dress. He could feel her eyes on him, tracking the movement of his hands, the shape of his shoulders, the way he pulled the shirt over his head.
"We should probably talk about what we're going to say," she said.
"We should."
"But not now."
"No." He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her, tying his shoes. "Not now."
"Then when?"
"After breakfast." He turned. "After we finish eating. After we—"
"After we figure out how to lie to the people who love us?"
He didn't flinch. Just looked at her.
"After we figure out how to tell them the truth," he said. "Just not all of it."
She stared at him.
Then she nodded.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay."
The word hung between them, steady and sure and heavy.
Outside, the city hummed. Inside, the apartment sat quiet, the way things do before they change.l
The silence stretched between them like a held breath.
Omar stood by the bed, shoes tied, shirt buttoned, the damp towel still slung around his neck. Layla sat on the mattress with her legs crossed, her wet hair soaking dark patches into the collar of her shirt. Neither of them moved.
The manakish sat cold on the table. The tea had gone cloudy. Somewhere in the building, a neighbor's television murmured through the walls—the low drone of a morning news broadcast in Arabic.
"So," she said.
"So."
"We're really doing this."
"You keep saying that." He pulled the towel from his neck and dropped it on the back of the chair. "Like you're waiting for me to change my mind."
"Aren't you?"
He looked at her. Really looked at her. The way her hands fidgeted in her lap. The way she bit the inside of her cheek, a nervous habit he remembered from years ago, from the long video calls when they were teenagers and she'd ramble about homework and he'd just listen, the screen freezing every few minutes because the internet in Wisconsin was garbage.
"No," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I've spent three months changing my mind." He took a step toward her. "Back and forth. Tearing myself apart. Praying istighfar until my knees went numb."
"And?"
"And I'm tired." Another step. "I'm tired of pretending I don't want this. I'm tired of lying to myself about what I've already done."
She uncrossed her legs. Stood. The mattress springs creaked behind her.
"What have you done?" she asked.
"You know."
"I want to hear you say it."
He stopped. Two feet from her. Close enough to see the water still beading on her collarbone. Close enough to smell the soap on her skin, the faint lavender of her shampoo.
"I ruined us," he said. "In that garden. I ruined everything we were supposed to be."
"You didn't ruin anything."
"I did."
"You didn't." She reached up and pressed her palm flat against his chest. "I was there. I remember. I wanted it."
"You were—"
"I was eighteen." Her voice hardened. "I wasn't a child. I knew what I was doing."
He held perfectly still.
Her hand slid up, from his chest to his shoulder. Then higher. Her fingers brushed the edge of his jaw, the short-cropped hair of his beard, the skin beneath his ear that no one else had touched.
"I've had three months to think about this," she said. "Not just the plan. Not just the lies. This."
"This?"
"You and me." She lifted her chin. "What happens next. When we do this. When we actually do this."
"We already—"
"In the garden, yes." Her voice dropped. "But that was one night. That was heat and grief and everything coming apart. This is something else."
He knew what she meant. The garden had been a surrender—a breaking. A collision of two people who had spent their whole lives holding their breath, finally exhaling.
But this—standing in her apartment, in the daylight, with no desperation and no darkness to hide in—this was a choice.
"You're pregnant," he said.
"I noticed."
"I'm serious."
"So am I." She stepped back and sat on the edge of the bed. Looked up at him. "I'm pregnant, and we're getting married, and tonight we're going to call our parents and lie to them, and then what?"
"Then we get married."
"And then?"
"And then we figure out the rest."
She shook her head. "That's not good enough. I need to know what you want. Not what we have to do. What you want."
The room felt smaller. The walls pressed in.
He looked at her. This woman he'd rejected in a message typed and deleted eleven times before he sent it—a careful, respectful message that had taken him two hours to write, because he wanted to be kind, because he wanted to be good. This woman he'd run into in Damascus, in their grandmother's orbit, in a garden with jasmine climbing the walls. This woman carrying his child.
"I want you," he said.
The words landed like a stone in still water.
"Say it again."
"I want you." His voice didn't shake. "I've wanted you since I was fifteen years old and you sent me that message and I was too afraid to want anything back."
Layla's breath caught.
"I wrote that message," she said, "thinking you'd never want me. I wrote it so I could move on."
"I know."
"I spent years building walls. Years training my heart to stop."
"I know."
"And now—" She pressed a hand to her stomach.
"And now we're here." He knelt in front of her. Not dramatically—he wasn't performing. He just couldn't stand anymore. His knees hit the floor and he looked up at her. "I want you. I want the baby. I want the life we're lying to build. I want all of it. Do you hear me?"
She heard him.
She stood—slowly, wobbling slightly—and pulled her tank top over her head. The movement was plain. Not performed. Not seductive. Just a woman in an apartment, taking off a shirt.
Then she untied the sash of the thin cotton robe she'd pulled on after her shower. It fell open. Then off. Then to the floor.
She stood there in her underwear. Her belly was small but round—a soft curve pushing against the waistband of her briefs. Her breasts were fuller than he remembered, heavier, the nipples darker against the pale brown of her skin. Her hips had widened. Her body was changing.
Most people wouldn't notice. To most people, she would look like what she was: a young woman in early pregnancy. Only hours ago, he hadn't let himself look.
Now he looked.
He stood.
His hand moved to the towel around his waist and untucked it. The terry cloth fell away. He wasn't trying to be modest anymore. He wasn't trying to be anything but honest.
She looked down. Then up.
"Okay?" he said.
"Okay," she breathed.
Then he stepped forward and pulled her against him. His hands slid around her waist, his palms flattening against the small of her back, and then dropped lower, gripping the curve of her ass, pulling her hard against his hips.
She gasped—a small, sharp sound—and then her mouth found his.
No hesitation. No halal. No rules.
His tongue pushed past her lips, and she opened for him, and he tasted mint tea and sleep and something underneath, something sharp and salty and awake. Her hands were in his hair, nails against his scalp, then at his shoulders, then pressing flat against his chest like she was trying to keep him from disappearing.
He lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist—instinct, muscle memory from the garden—and he turned and laid her down on the mattress. The springs groaned. The sheets were still tangled from the previous night.
He stood over her. Looked down. Logged every detail.
The flush rising from her collarbone to her jaw. The way her hair spread in wet tangles across the pillow. The way she was breathing, fast and shallow, like she was running from something or toward something.
Below all of that, the bump.
He knelt on the bed, straddling her thighs. His hands found her knees, moved outward, slid up the inside of her thighs. Her skin was soft and warm. She shivered under his touch.
"You're cold?" he asked.
"No."
"Then what?"
"I'm—" She swallowed. "I'm scared."
"You want to stop?"
"No." She shook her head fast, emphatic. "No. Don't stop. Just—" She looked at him. "Be here. Be with me."
He lowered himself over her, bracing his weight on his forearms so he wasn't crushing her. He kissed her forehead. Then her cheek. Then the corner of her mouth.
"I'm here," he said.
"Prove it."
He answered by moving down her body. His lips traced her jawbone, then the side of her neck—stubble against tender skin, a scrape she would feel the next day. She tilted her head back, offering the sea of her throat to him.
He accepted the offering. Kissed the hollow where her pulse beat hard and fast. Nipped the skin. Sucked gently until a small red mark bloomed.
Then he moved lower.
His mouth crossed her collarbone. Down the sternum. Between her breasts—he didn't stop for them, not yet—and then he was at the rise of her stomach.
He paused.
His hand hovered over her belly. Not touching. Just there. Waiting.
"Omar," she whispered.
"I'm looking at it," he said.
She went very still.
His palm settled against her. The skin was tight and warm, stretched over the life beneath it. He could feel the curve, the slight resistance, the small heartbeat of a body doing impossible work.
For a long moment, no one spoke. He closed his eyes. Then he pressed his lips to the top of her belly and held them there.
"Why did you stop?" she asked, voice cracking.
"I didn't stop," he said against her skin. "I'm putting me on it."
She let out a sound—half laugh, half sob—and her fingers slid into his hair again.
"Okay," she said. "Okay."
He kissed her belly once more. Twice. Then he moved down.
His hands caught the waistband of her briefs and pulled them down her legs. She lifted her hips to help. He tossed them aside. Then he shifted back up, leaned over her, and took one nipple into his mouth.
She arched off the mattress.
"Sensitive?" he asked against her skin.
"Very," she breathed.
"Good."
He sucked. Hard. She cried out—not words, just sound—and her hand flew to the back of his head, holding him there. He used his tongue, his teeth, learning what made her breath catch and what made her hips twitch.
Then he moved to the other. Same attention. Same care.
By the time he finished, she was shaking. Her thighs pressed together. Her hands were fisted in the sheets.
"Please," she said.
"Please what?"
"Don't make me say it."
"I want to hear it."
She groaned in frustration. Then: "I want you inside me. Right now. Please."
He didn't need to be told twice.
He positioned himself between her legs. Ran the head of his cock along her slit—slow, deliberate, feeling how wet she was, how ready. She whimpered.
"You're sure?" he asked.
"If you ask me one more time—"
He pushed in.
Not hard. Not all at once. He entered her inch by inch, watching her face, feeling her stretch around him. Her mouth fell open. Her eyes closed. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
He stopped when he was fully seated. Buried. Home.
"Fuck," he exhaled. The word came out of him unguarded, raw.
She laughed—breathless, shocked. "You swear?"
"Shut up."
"Make me."
He pulled out and thrust back in.
All the way. Fast. Her laughter died in her throat.
He set a rhythm—not gentle, but not brutal. He watched her face, her breasts, the small mound of her belly between them. Every time he bottomed out, he felt it press against his abs. Proof. Evidence. His child inside her.
"You feel—" He couldn't finish the sentence.
"I know," she said. "Fuck, I know."
His hands found hers, laced their fingers together, pinned them above her head. He leaned down and kissed her. She bit his lower lip. He groaned.
Her hips lifted to meet his. She matched him thrust for thrust, her ankles crossing behind his back, pulling him deeper. The bed squeaked in protest.
He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. Their breath mingled. Sweat slicked their skin.
"Look at me," he said.
She opened her eyes.
"I want you to see who's doing this."
She shuddered.
"I see you," she whispered.
"Say my name."
"Omar."
"Again."
"Omar." Her voice broke. "Omar, please—I'm going to—"
"Then go."
He drove into her harder. Faster. He watched her face the whole time—the way her eyes went blind, the way her mouth fell open, the way her whole body seized and then shattered. She came with a cry that was half his name and half nothing at all.
He followed right after.
His hips stuttered. His vision whited out. He emptied himself into her with a shudder that rolled from his spine to his fingertips, groaning low and long against her neck.
Neither of them moved for a long time.
When he finally pulled out, he collapsed beside her on the mattress. The sheets were soaked. The room smelled of sex and sweat and the cold manakish on the table.
She turned her head to look at him.
"Well," she said.
He laughed. A real laugh. "Yeah."
"Was that—"
"If you ask me if that was okay, I swear—"
She hit him in the chest. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.
"I love you," he said.
The words fell out of him before he could catch them. No planning. No careful phrasing. Just the truth.
She went still.
"You don't have to say that," she whispered.
"I know I don't."
"Then why—"
"Because I've lied to you enough." He kissed her knuckles. "Because I've lied to myself enough. Because the first time I wrote back to you, I told you I didn't feel the same, and I knew, even as I typed the words, that it was the worst bullshit I'd ever put into the world."
Her eyes glistened.
"You were fifteen," he said. "I was eighteen. I was afraid of what it would mean. And I've spent six years thinking about it."
"And now?"
"Now I'm making up for lost time."
She kissed him. Soft. Slow. Not desperate—settled.
"I love you too," she said against his mouth. "I always have."
He pulled her closer. Her head rested in the hollow of his shoulder. Her belly pressed against his side. Their legs tangled under the sheets.
The city carried on outside—traffic, prayer, the ordinary noise of a world that didn't know or care what had just happened in this small apartment. But inside, the two of them lay still, and the quiet felt like the start of something.