Chapter 9: Two Hours Later, He Finds Her
The kitchen door swung shut behind her, and Layla stood in the sudden quiet, her mother's back still turned, the teapot still steaming on the counter between them.
"I know," Mama said.
Layla blinked.
"What?"
"I know." Mama turned around. Her face wasn't angry. It wasn't even surprised. It was tired. Deeply, bone-tired. "I've known since last month. The crackers by your bed. The way you've been sleeping. The way you look at food like it might bite you."
Layla's throat closed.
"You knew?"
"I'm your mother." Mama set down the teapot. Her hands were steady, but her voice had gone soft. "I've been pregnant four times. I know the signs."
"And you didn't say anything?"
"What was I supposed to say? You weren't ready to tell me. I could see that." She crossed her arms. "I figured you'd come to me when you were."
Layla felt the tears coming again. She was so tired of crying. So tired of her body betraying her at every turn.
"I'm sorry."
"For what, habibti?"
"For not telling you. For hiding. For—" She gestured vaguely at everything, at nothing. "For all of it."
Mama walked over. She took Layla's face in her hands—the same way Tarek had done upstairs, the same gentle grip—and looked at her for a long moment.
"You're scared," she said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
"Of course you are." Mama smoothed Layla's hair back from her forehead. "You're eighteen years old. You're alone. Your husband lives a thousand miles away. Of course you're scared."
"I don't know what to do."
"Neither did I." Mama smiled. A small, sad smile. "When I was pregnant with you, I was terrified. Your father and I had just moved here. I didn't speak English. I didn't have any friends. I didn't know anything."
"But you had Baba."
"I had Baba." Mama nodded. "And Baba had to work. Long hours. He was gone before I woke up and home after I went to sleep. I spent whole days alone in that apartment, growing you inside me, wondering if I was doing it right."
Layla stared at her.
"You never told me that."
"There's a lot I never told you." Mama's hands dropped to Layla's shoulders. "But this isn't about me. This is about you. And Sami. And what you're going to do."
"I don't know."
"You don't have to know right now." Mama pulled her into a hug. Layla buried her face in her mother's shoulder, breathing in the familiar scent of cardamom and laundry soap. "You just have to breathe. One day at a time. One hour at a time if you have to."
"I can't do it alone."
"You're not alone."
"I am." Layla pulled back. "You just said it yourself. Baba worked all the time. You were by yourself. And Tarek—" Her voice cracked. "Tarek leaves Sunday."
Mama was quiet.
"Then you'll come with me," she said finally. "To your appointments. To everything. I'll be there."
Layla wanted to believe her. She wanted to believe that her mother's presence would be enough to fill the void that Tarek's absence would leave behind. But she knew better. She knew that no matter how many hands reached for her, she would still feel alone in the dark hours of the night, when the baby kicked and there was no one beside her to feel it.
"Habibti." Mama's voice pulled her back. "This is not the end of the world. This is a baby. A blessing. A gift from Allah."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes." Layla wiped her eyes. "I know. I just... I didn't expect it to happen so soon. I didn't expect to be so scared."
"All mothers are scared." Mama's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Even the ones who've done it before. Even the ones who wanted it more than anything. Fear is part of it. You carry it with you, and you carry the baby, and somehow you figure out how to hold both."
Layla laughed. A watery, broken laugh.
"That's terrible advice."
"It's not advice." Mama smiled. "It's the truth."
---
The Hadads left at four.
Layla stood at the window and watched them pile into their minivan, Auntie Salma still talking, Uncle Fadi still nodding, their kids still fighting over who got the last piece of baklava. She watched the van pull out of the driveway and disappear down the street.
And then she sagged against the wall.
Tarek found her there ten minutes later, still leaning, still staring at nothing.
"You okay?"
"No."
He didn't ask for more. He just wrapped his arms around her and held on.
They stayed like that for a long time. Long enough for the light to change, for the shadows to stretch across the floor, for the house to settle into that particular evening quiet that only came when everyone was home and safe.
Mama came to the doorway once, looked at them, and left without saying a word.
At five-thirty, Baba announced it was time for evening prayer. He and Mama would go to the mosque, he said. They'd be back in an hour. Layla should rest.
She nodded. Promised she would.
She didn't.
---
Tarek left with Baba.
Not to the mosque—he wasn't observant the way her family was, not the way Layla was—but to the pharmacy. Baba needed a prescription refilled, and Tarek offered to drive. Layla watched them go from her window, watched the car pull away, watched the street go quiet and empty.
Then she closed her blinds.
The house was silent.
She stood in the middle of her room and listened to it. The tick of the clock on her nightstand. The hum of the refrigerator downstairs. The distant bark of a neighbor's dog.
She was alone.
The thought should have scared her. It didn't. It felt right, somehow. Deserved. Like she'd earned this solitude by being too weak to hold onto anything else.
She walked to the bathroom.
The medicine cabinet was where she'd left it—mirror door, old hinges, the squeak that never went away no matter how many times Baba oiled them. She opened it and looked at the bottles inside. Advil. Tylenol. A half-empty bottle of cough syrup that had been expired for two years. Her prescription from last winter, when she'd had that horrible ear infection and couldn't sleep for a week.
She picked it up.
Hydrocodone. The label said to take one every six hours as needed for pain. She'd taken three in total before switching to Advil because she didn't like the way it made her feel—fuzzy around the edges, disconnected from her own body. There were probably twenty pills left in the bottle.
She stood there for a long moment.
The bottle was cold in her hand. Heavier than it should have been. She could feel the pills shifting inside, clicking against each other, little pebbles of relief.
She thought about Tarek. About the baby. About the two lines on the test and the look on his face when she told him. She thought about Sundays and airports and empty beds. She thought about Mama's arms around her and Baba's snoring and the way the house always felt smaller when it was just her.
She thought about being alone.
Really, truly alone.
Not the kind of alone that came from people leaving. The kind that came from people never coming back.
She sat down on the bathroom floor.
The tiles were cold. The kind of cold that seeped through her leggings and made her bones ache. She pressed her back against the wall and stared at the bottle in her hand.
One pill wouldn't hurt.
That's what she told herself.
One pill would take the edge off. Just enough to sleep. Just enough to stop the spiral. She'd been up for three nights straight, and she couldn't do it anymore. She couldn't keep spinning, keep thinking, keep feeling like her chest was caving in.
One pill.
She opened the bottle.
One pill.
She shook it into her palm.
One pill.
She looked at it. Small. White. Innocent. It looked like nothing at all.
She put it in her mouth.
---
The second one was harder.
By the third she'd stopped counting.
She wasn't trying to kill herself. She wanted to be clear about that. She wasn't trying to leave Tarek, or the baby, or her family. She was trying to stop the noise. The endless, screaming noise in her head that told her she wasn't good enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't ready for any of this. She was trying to find a moment of quiet. A single breath where she didn't feel like she was drowning.
The pills promised that. They promised soft edges and warm blankness and the kind of sleep that didn't hurt.
She took four.
Then five.
Then she lost track.
The bathroom started to spin. Or maybe she was spinning. She couldn't tell anymore. Her limbs felt heavy, weighted down with water. She tried to stand up, and her knees buckled, and she caught herself on the edge of the sink, and then even that was too much.
She sank to the floor.
The tiles were softer now. Almost comfortable. She pressed her cheek against them and closed her eyes.
Somewhere downstairs, a door opened.
She heard it from very far away. Like someone had opened a door in another house, in another world, in another life. She tried to call out, but her mouth wouldn't work. Her tongue was thick. Her throat was tight.
Footsteps on the stairs.
"Layla?"
Tarek's voice. She knew his voice better than her own. Knew the way it got rough when he was tired, the way it softened when he said her name.
"Layla, I'm back."
More footsteps. Closer now. The hallway.
"Was I supposed to pick up the dry cleaning? Your mom left a note on the—"
The door opened.
He stopped.
She heard it—the exact moment he saw her. The way his breath caught. The way his feet froze on the threshold. The way the silence stretched and stretched and stretched until it was a living thing, a monster, a fist closing around her heart.
"Layla."
His voice was wrong. She'd never heard him sound like that. Like something inside him was breaking.
She tried to open her eyes.
It didn't work.
She tried to say his name.
It didn't work.
She was so tired. So impossibly, bone-deep tired. All she wanted was to sleep. Just for a little while. Just long enough to feel okay.
"Layla!"
He was beside her now. She felt his hands on her shoulders, felt him pulling her up, felt his fingers pressing into her skin. He was saying her name over and over, shaking her gently, his voice cracking on every syllable.
"Layla, wake up. Wake up, baby, please. Please wake up."
She wanted to tell him she was okay. She wanted to open her eyes and smile and say something reassuring, something that would make the fear go away.
But her body wouldn't listen.
Her body was a thousand miles away.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit."
He let go of her. She heard him moving, heard him rummaging, heard him make a sound like he'd been punched in the gut.
"The bottle. The fucking bottle."
She heard him pick it up. Heard the rattle of pills. Heard him count.
"Oh God. Oh God, Layla."
He was back. His hands cupped her face, tilting her head up. She felt his fingers on her neck, checking her pulse. She felt his breath on her cheek, warm and fast and terrified.
"Okay. Okay, you're breathing. That's good. That's good, baby, you're breathing."
He pulled her up. She felt her body come off the floor, felt herself lifted into his arms, felt the world tilt sideways as he carried her down the hall.
"Okay. Okay. We're gonna fix this. I'm gonna fix this."
His voice was shaking. She'd never heard his voice shake before. He was always so steady, so sure. The kind of man who never panicked, never doubted, never let anything crack the surface of his calm.
He was panicking now.
She heard the bathroom door bang open. The faucet running. The clatter of something being knocked off the counter.
"All right, Layla. I need you to work with me here. Can you hear me? Can you hear me, baby?"
She tried to nod. Her head lolled against his shoulder.
"Okay. Okay. I'm gonna need you to throw up, all right? Can you do that for me? Can you—"
His voice broke.
He was crying. Tarek was crying, and she couldn't open her eyes to see it, and she couldn't lift her arms to hold him, and she couldn't tell him it was okay because it wasn't okay, nothing was okay, she'd ruined everything.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Or maybe she didn't. Maybe it was just in her head.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Hey, hey, no. No apologies. Not now."
His hand was on the back of her neck. Gentle. Firm. He was bending her forward, and she felt the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl against her cheek.
"I need you to throw up, okay? I need you to get it out of your system. Can you do that for me?"
She tried.
She couldn't.
"I know it's hard. I know. But you gotta try. Please, Layla. Please."
Another wave of heaviness rolled over her. She was sinking, sinking, sinking, and she couldn't find the surface, and Tarek's voice was getting farther and farther away.
"Come on. Come on, baby, stay with me. Stay with me."
He stuck two fingers down her throat.
She gagged.
"That's it. That's it. Come on."
She threw up.
Vaguely, she was aware of him holding her hair back. Of his voice in her ear, steady and desperate, telling her she was doing great, telling her to keep going, telling her not to stop. She was aware of the acid burn in her throat and the tears streaming down her face, and the way her body shuddered and convulsed and emptied itself.
When it finally stopped, she collapsed against him.
He caught her.
"I've got you. I've got you. You're okay."
He reached up and turned on the faucet. Cold water. He soaked a washcloth and pressed it to her face, her neck, her wrists. The shock of it pulled her back—just a little, just enough.
"Can you open your eyes?"
She tried.
It took three attempts, but finally, finally, her eyelids fluttered and lifted, and she saw him. Blurry at first. His face swimming in and out of focus.
He looked wrecked.
His eyes were red. His cheeks were wet. His hair stuck up from the way he'd been running his fingers through it.
But he was there.
"You with me?" His voice was hoarse. Raw.
She nodded.
"Okay. Okay, good."
He sat back against the bathtub, pulling her with him. She ended up in his lap, her head against his chest, her body limp and heavy and so, so tired.
"Why?" he whispered.
She closed her eyes.
"I don't know."
"Layla."
"I don't know." She felt fresh tears come. Hot and fast. "I just wanted to sleep. I wanted the noise to stop. I couldn't—I can't—"
She broke off. Sobbing now. Ugly, broken sobs that shook her whole body.
"I can't do this. I can't do this alone. I can't be pregnant and alone and pretend I'm okay when I'm not okay. I'm so scared, Tarek. I'm so scared all the time."
He held her tighter.
"I know. I know, baby. I know."
"You're leaving tomorrow. You're leaving and I'll be here and I'll be alone and I can't—"
"I'm not going anywhere."
She stopped.
"What?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
She pulled back to look at him. Her vision was still blurry, still unfocused, but she could see his face. Could see the set of his jaw. Could see that he meant it.
"Tarek—"
"I'll quit my job. I'll drop out of school. I'll find work here, or I'll work remotely, or I'll figure something else out. But I'm not leaving you. Not like this. Not ever again."
"You can't—"
"I can."
"You have a life in Arizona—"
"I have a life here. With you. That's the only life that matters."
She stared at him.
He was serious. She could see it in his eyes. The same determination she'd seen when he'd stood up in her father's living room in Aleppo and asked for her hand. The same certainty that had made her fall in love with him.
But she knew better than to believe in easy solutions.
She knew what would happen if he stayed.
The questions. The shame. The whispers from Auntie Salma, from Uncle Fadi, from everyone who'd ever known them. A man who abandoned his job for his wife? A woman who couldn't handle three months on her own?
What would people say?
"I can't let you do that," she whispered.
"You don't get to decide that."
"Tarek—"
"You're my wife. You're carrying my child. And you just—" His voice cracked again. He pressed his forehead to hers, closed his eyes. "You just tried to take a bottle of pills because I left you alone. So no. You don't get to decide what I do next. I do."
"That's not—"
"I love you." He opened his eyes. "I love you more than anything. And I will not let you go through this by yourself. Not for three months. Not for three weeks. Not for three days."
She wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him that he was being dramatic, that she was fine, that it wasn't as bad as it looked. But the words wouldn't come. Because she knew he could see right through her.
She'd been lying to herself for months.
He could see the truth.
"Okay," she whispered.
"Okay?"
"Okay."
He kissed her forehead. Her cheek. Her jaw.
And then he picked her up—carefully, gently—and carried her to her bedroom.
The quilt was still rumpled from earlier. He pulled it down, tucked her in, pressed his palm against her cheek like he needed to feel that she was still there.
"Sleep," he said. "I'll be right here."
"You need to—"
"I need to stay with you. That's what I need to do."
She opened her mouth to argue, but her body was already giving in. Her eyes were closing. Her limbs were sinking into the mattress. The noise was finally quiet.
"Tarek?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
He was quiet for a minute. She heard him settle onto the floor beside her. Heard his back hit the wall.
"Just sleep," he said. "I'll be here when you wake up."
She wanted to say more. Wanted to tell him all the things she'd been holding in for months—the fear, the sadness, the loneliness, the desperate hope that had been eating her alive.
But the darkness was already taking her.
She slept.
And he stayed.
He sat on the floor beside her bed and listened to her breathe. He stayed until the sun went down, until the streetlights came on, until the car pulled into the driveway and Mama's footsteps marked her way across the front hall. He stayed when she opened the door and saw him there, when her hand flew to her mouth, when she whispered her daughter's name in a voice sharp with fear.
He stayed when she knelt beside him and saw the empty bottle on the floor. When she understood.
He stayed when she put her arms around him. When she didn't say anything. When she just pressed her face into his shoulder and held on.
Baba stood in the doorway. Pale. Silent. He didn't say a word. He didn't need to.
They all sat there.
And they watched Layla sleep.
The floor was hardwood, unforgiving, and Tarek's legs had gone numb hours ago.
He didn't move.
Mama had brought him a pillow at some point, tucked it behind his back without a word, and returned to the doorway where she and Baba stood like sentinels. They didn't speak. They didn't sit. They just watched their daughter's chest rise and fall beneath the quilt, counting breaths like prayers.
The clock on the nightstand ticked past midnight.
At two in the morning, Baba finally moved. His footsteps creaked down the hallway, then the stairs. Tarek heard the kitchen faucet run, heard the clink of a glass against the counter. When Baba came back, he carried a cup of tea and set it on the floor beside Tarek without meeting his eyes.
"Drink."
Tarek picked it up. He didn't want it. His stomach was a knot of adrenaline and guilt, twisted so tight he couldn't imagine swallowing anything. But Baba was standing there, waiting, and Tarek understood that this was the closest thing to forgiveness either of them could offer right now.
He drank.
The tea was bitter. No sugar. Baba always took it that way—said sweet things made men soft. Tarek had never agreed, but he'd never argued either. Some battles weren't worth fighting.
"Did you know?" Baba's voice was quiet. Low. The kind of quiet that preceded thunderstorms.
"About the pills? No."
"About her being pregnant."
Tarek set the cup down. "She told me tonight. Right before you left for the mosque."
Baba nodded slowly. His jaw tightened, then released. He looked at Layla—still asleep, still pale, still small beneath the weight of the quilt—and something in his face cracked.
"I should have seen it."
"She's good at hiding things."
"She's my daughter." Baba's voice broke on the last word. He cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders, pulled himself back together like a man reassembling armor. "I should have seen it."
Mama crossed the room. She put her hand on her husband's arm, gentle, steadying.
"Enough," she said. "We're all here now. That's what matters."
Baba didn't answer.
He just stood there, looking at Layla, and Tarek could see the weight of every year he'd spent working late, every dinner he'd missed, every moment he'd assumed his daughter was fine because she never said otherwise.
---
Layla woke at dawn.
The light was gray and soft, filtering through the blinds in thin strips across the floor. She blinked once. Twice. Her mouth tasted like copper and shame.
She turned her head.
Tarek was asleep on the floor beside her bed, his back against the wall, his head tilted at an angle that would wreck his neck for days. Mama was in the armchair by the window, wrapped in a blanket, her face slack with exhaustion. Baba was gone—probably downstairs, probably making coffee, probably trying to pretend this was a normal morning.
Layla's throat tightened.
She remembered everything. The bathroom. The bottle. The cold tiles against her cheek. Tarek's voice, cracking, desperate, pulling her back from somewhere dark.
She pressed her hand to her stomach.
The baby was still there. She knew it, somehow. Could feel it in the quiet weight of her body, the persistent hum beneath her ribs that had been there for months, growing louder every day.
She sat up slowly.
Her head throbbed. Her joints ached. Every movement felt like wading through water, heavy and wrong.
Tarek stirred.
His eyes opened. Found hers immediately.
"Hey."
His voice was rough. Sleep-deprived and raw.
"Hey."
He sat up straighter, grimacing as his back cracked. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a truck."
"Yeah." He rubbed his face. "That sounds about right."
Mama shifted in the armchair. Layla looked at her, then back at Tarek, then at her own hands.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't." Tarek leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "We're not doing that. Not today."
"I scared you."
"You terrified me." He said it plainly. No softening. No comfort. Just the truth. "I walked in and saw you on the floor and I thought—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I thought I lost you."
Layla's eyes burned.
"You didn't."
"I know." He reached for her hand. His fingers were warm. Steady. "But I almost did. And I'm not going to pretend that's okay."
She looked at their hands. His palm against hers. The familiar weight of him, grounding her.
"I don't know why I did it."
"I do."
She looked up.
"You were alone," he said. "You were scared. And you didn't think you had anyone to turn to."
"That's not—"
"It is." He squeezed her hand. "And that's on me. I should have been here. I should have called more. I should have—"
"You had to work."
"I had to be your husband." His voice cracked. "That's what I had to do. Everything else was just—noise."
Mama stood up.
They both turned. She walked over slowly, her blanket trailing behind her like a cape, and stopped at the foot of the bed.
"Enough," she said. "You're both awake. You're both alive. That's more than I had hoped for when I saw you on that floor."
Layla flinched.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Stop apologizing." Mama's voice was firm. "You're not the first woman to break under the weight of being alone. You won't be the last. What matters is what happens next."
"And what happens next?"
Mama looked at Tarek.
He stood up. Slow. Deliberate. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
"I'm calling the airline," he said. "I'm canceling my flight."
Layla's heart lurched.
"Tarek—"
"No arguments."
"Your job—"
"I'll figure it out."
"Your apartment, your classes, your whole life is in Arizona—"
"You're my whole life." He said it like a fact. Like gravity. Like something so obvious it didn't need explaining. "Arizona is just a place. You're my wife."
Layla stared at him.
She wanted to argue. She wanted to tell him that he was being reckless, that he couldn't just abandon everything, that she wasn't worth the sacrifice. But the words died in her throat.
Because she knew what he meant.
Because she felt the same way.
---
Baba came upstairs at seven.
He didn't knock. He just opened the door and stood in the threshold, a cup of coffee in each hand, his face unreadable.
"Breakfast," he said.
No one moved.
Layla looked at her father. At the gray in his beard, the lines around his eyes, the way he held himself so carefully, like a man trying not to fall apart.
"Baba."
"Eat first." He set the cups on the nightstand. "Then we talk."
"I'm not hungry."
"You need to eat."
"I can't—"
"Layla."
She stopped.
Baba walked over. He sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that she could smell the coffee on his breath, the aftershave he'd worn since she was a child.
"You scared the hell out of me last night."
His voice was quiet. Controlled. But she could hear the tremble underneath.
"I know."
"Do you?" He looked at her. Really looked. "Because I keep thinking about what would have happened if Tarek hadn't come back. If he'd stayed at the pharmacy five more minutes. If he'd taken a different route home."
Layla's throat closed.
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want sorry." He reached for her hand. His fingers were rough, calloused from years of work. "I want you to tell me the truth. All of it. Why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you say something?"
She couldn't answer.
She didn't know how to explain that it wasn't about him. That it was about her. About the weight she'd been carrying for months, the fear she couldn't name, the shame that had swallowed her whole.
"I didn't want to disappoint you."
Baba's face crumpled.
"Disappoint me?" He shook his head. "How could you possibly disappoint me?"
"I'm pregnant, Baba. I'm eighteen. I'm—"
"You're married." His voice was firm. "You're a wife. A mother now. That's not disappointment, habibti. That's life."
She looked at him.
"You're not angry?"
"I'm terrified." He squeezed her hand. "I'm terrified and I'm tired and I'm so, so grateful that you're still here. But I'm not angry. I couldn't be angry at you. Not ever."
Layla broke.
She fell into her father's arms and sobbed—big, ugly, gasping sobs that shook her whole body. Baba held her. He didn't speak. He just held her and let her cry and pressed his hand to the back of her head like he'd done when she was small.
Mama came and sat beside them.
Tarek stood by the window.
And for a moment—just a moment—the room felt whole.
---
Later, when the coffee had gone cold and the tears had dried, they talked.
Mama made a plan. She would take Layla to see an obstetrician. Dr. Haddad—the one who'd delivered half the Arab community's babies. She would be there for every appointment, every ultrasound, every milestone. She would make sure Layla ate, slept, took her vitamins.
Baba would handle the financials. He'd call the insurance company, make sure everything was covered. He'd look into maternity leave, flexible hours, whatever Layla needed.
Tarek would stay.
He made calls from the kitchen, his voice low and tense, negotiating with his boss, his landlord, his professors. He didn't tell Layla what they said. He just came back upstairs with a determined look and said, "It's handled."
Layla didn't ask for details.
She was too tired.
By noon, she'd eaten a full meal—rice, chicken, a piece of bread she tore into twenty tiny pieces. Mama sat with her. Watched her chew. Didn't say anything when she only finished half.
By one, Tarek had moved his suitcase into the corner. Pulled out his laptop. Started looking for jobs in Wisconsin.
By two, Layla was asleep again.
She drifted in and out, half-conscious, aware of voices in the hallway. Mama and Tarek. Then Mama and Baba. Then just Tarek, back on the floor beside her bed, his presence a steady hum in the quiet.
She slept.
And then she felt something.
It started small. A flutter. Like butterfly wings, or bubbles rising through water. She'd felt it before—little movements, tiny shifts. But this was different.
This was a kick.
Hard and sudden and unmistakable, a sharp jab against her ribcage that made her gasp.
Her eyes flew open.
"Tarek."
He was there instantly. On his knees beside the bed.
"What? What's wrong?"
She grabbed his hand. Pressed it to her stomach.
"Shh. Wait."
He stared at her. "Layla, what—"
The kick came again. Right under his palm.
His face went blank. Then bright. Then blank again, like his brain couldn't decide which emotion to land on.
"Is that—"
"The baby." Her voice was barely a whisper. "That's the baby."
Tarek's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
He looked like a man who'd just been handed the world.
"Holy shit."
Layla laughed. A wet, exhausted, ridiculous laugh that turned into a sob halfway through.
"I can't believe—" She pressed her own hand to her belly, felt the movement again, stronger this time. "I can feel it. I can feel her."
"Him," Tarek corrected, still staring at her stomach like it held the secrets of the universe.
"Her."
"Him."
"We're not naming it until we know."
"Fine." He didn't look up. He just kept his hand there, pressing gently, waiting for another kick. "But I'm telling you. It's a boy."
The baby kicked again.
Layla laughed. And then she stopped. Her vision swam sideways, and her body turned to lead.
"We'll see," she murmured.
The room tilted. The edges of everything softened, smeared like wet paint.
"Layla?"
She tried to answer. Couldn't.
"Layla, hey. Look at me."
She couldn't keep her eyes open. Her body was sinking, heavy and quiet, and the warmth of Tarek's hand on her belly was the only thing tethering her to the world.
"Stay with me. Hey. Hey—Ma! Baba! Get in here!"
Footsteps. Voices. The door slamming open.
"She's okay, she's just—she's fading. We need to go. We need to take her to the hospital."
"What happened?" Mama's voice, sharp with panic.
"I don't know. She was fine, and then—she just—" Tarek's voice cracked. "Something's wrong. We need to go. Now."
Layla felt herself lifted. Felt arms around her, strong and steady. Heard the jingle of keys, the rush of movement, the slam of doors.
"I'm taking her to the hospital," Tarek said. "Don't argue. Just—stay with her. Both of you. Stay with her."
The car started.
The world blurred.
And Layla let the darkness take her.