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And more importantly: was she okay?
Chloe lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Weak morning sunshine pushed into the room, creating a kaleidoscope of pink and yellows across her ceiling. She watched the patterns made by the shuffling of clouds, and wondered when she would start to think of American sun light as normal? When she would remember that these were the skies under which she’d been raised, this was the sun she’d grown up warming herself beneath. When would she stop thinking of Ras el Kida with a sense of longing that defied explanation?
When would she be herself again?
She tossed onto her side, squeezing her eyes shut, the now-familiar warmth behind them ebbing out of the corners.
She’d cried often since leaving Raffa.
She was mourning so much. Not just their marriage, but the hopes she’d cherished that they would become so much more. That one day he might feel for her as she did for him. That even if he didn’t, their child would be loved by both of them, that their child would be loved. And in making that wish, she knew how vitally important it had been to right the wrongs of her own past: to somehow magically reach through time and correct the neglect of her childhood by ensuring her children were always adored.
There were to be no children.
A sob escaped her, a sound that months ago she wouldn’t have been able to imagine she could make – crying wasn’t for Chloe. Now, Chloe cried often. Something inside her had snapped; she was broken. Nothing had done that to her before. Not losing her mother, not the neglect nor coldness of her father, not the distance from her half-brother, not her father’s death. Nothing.
But now, it was as if everything had tumbled together and Chloe carried an ache low in her gut all the time.
Three months. It had been three months since she’d left Ras el Kida and the days were passing as if weighted down by stone. Seconds seemed to take hours, and all the while, Chloe was on the periphery of existence. Cognizant of little, caring for even less.
She’d sublet an apartment in Chicago, paying cash to her landlord to keep her name off a lease. It was childish to have hidden from Raffa instead of telling him the truth – but if she’d told him the truth, she knew he would have insisted on staying with her. On honouring their marriage, on doing the right thing. Because he was an honourable man, and she was his wife, as he’d said over and over again.
But Chloe didn’t want to be his burden, she wanted to be his everything – and now she was nothing to him.
She groaned, rolling onto her back once more. The divorce papers had been sent a month ago. He should have signed them by now – any day and she’d receive notice from the lawyers she’d engaged. Any day now and she’d know it was officially done. And then, he would no doubt marry quickly.
Vile, disgusting anger tore through her, a primal, possessive revulsion at the idea of Raffa making love to another woman. A surge of visceral disgust that he might ever possess someone else.
Is this what his mother felt like, when she learned of his affair? Did she love Malik in the same way Chloe loved Raffa? She must have done, for Malik’s affair to have driven her away – even from her own son.
And as a testament to how mixed up Chloe was about her decisions, guilt flashed low in her abdomen. Guilt at having abandoned Raffa without explaining why. His mother had abandoned him, Elena had run away from him, and now Chloe had done the exact same thing.
She didn’t want to hurt him. Did he understand that? Did he understand that she’d made the only decision she could that would protect him and his kingdom?
Did he know she’d left him even when it made her feel as though she’d been cleaved in two?
She sobbed and dashed at her tears, pushing up to a sitting position with a hoarse cry.
This was useless.
She couldn’t just spend her life in bed feeling sorry for herself. Or could she?
She slid her feet out of bed and padded, barefoot, towards the kitchen. The fridge was bare – a predictable occurrence given that she rarely remembered to go to the grocery store. She had a few apples, dropped off by a neighbor with a tree in her garden. Chloe lifted one and bit into it, tasting its sweetness without feeling any gratitude. It was simply muscle memory that led her to eat. Coffee, though, was essential. She slid a pod into the machine and stared out of the window, waiting for her drink to percolate through. Once it was done, she carried the apple and her coffee to the lounge area and flicked on the television out of habit.
She liked the noise.
Sometimes, not often, but occasionally, it drowned out the thoughts that tormented her.
She sat back in the sofa, staring at the screen without seeing, sipping her coffee from time to time. And then, she almost choked on the black liquid when the very man she’d been trying her hardest not to think about flashed up on screen.
Sheikh Rafiq Al-Khalil is expected to announce at a press conference later today that his father, Sultan Malik Sharim Al-Khalil, has died after a long illness.
Chloe’s heart stammered inside of her and she jerked to her feet, her pulse throbbing, her knees weak, adrenaline causing a bitter metallic taste to flood her mouth.
“Oh, God.” She gripped the back of the sofa, weakened to the point where she truly thought she might pass out. She couldn’t though. This wasn’t a time for her to indulge emotional weakness – she had to be strong.
Malik had died, and she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t even said goodbye to him.
What a selfish, awful thing to have done! To have left without saying goodbye to him.
