Chapter 5: Chapter 5
The apartment had a name now.
Not that anyone said it out loud—not yet, not with words—but it lived in the space between them like a shared secret. The Nest. Manal had called it that on the third morning, half-asleep, her face pressed into the pillow, and the name had stuck. It fit. The way the walls curved inward. The way the light pooled in the corners. The way four bodies folded into each other at night, limbs overlapping, breath syncing, until it was impossible to tell where one person ended and another began.
The Nest.
Zainab woke to the sound of water running.
Not the drip of a leaky faucet—that was there too, a steady percussion against the metal sink—but the rush of the shower. She blinked at the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster had become familiar, a map of a country she'd never visited. She traced them with her eyes while she listened.
Someone was singing. Low. Off-key. A song she didn't recognize.
Muhammad's side of the mattress was empty. Still warm, but cooling. Mahra was curled into a ball on the far edge, her knees drawn up, her jalabiya twisted around her waist. Manal was gone too—her spot marked by a hollow in the mattress and the faint smell of cheap soap.
Zainab sat up.
Her body protested. Not from pain—from fullness. The kind of fullness that came after hours of touch, hours of being wanted. She pressed her palm against her sternum and felt her heartbeat there, steady and real.
The bathroom door opened.
Muhammad emerged in a cloud of steam, a towel slung low on his hips. His hair was wet, dripping onto his shoulders. He saw her watching and smiled—that crooked, unguarded smile that made him look younger than twenty-three.
"You're up," he said.
"Astute observation."
"I'm full of them." He crossed to the mattress. Lowered himself down. His knee brushed hers. "Manal's making breakfast."
"Manal can barely walk."
"She's determined. Says she's tired of burnt tea."
"That's fair."
Muhammad stretched out beside her. His arm found its way around her waist—casual, unthinking—like they'd been doing this for years instead of days. She let him. She was learning to let things happen.
"She was up early," he said. "Before the sun. Just sitting by the window. Watching the street."
"Anything happen?"
"A man. Across the way. He stood outside for twenty minutes. Just... standing."
Zainab's stomach tightene