Chapter 11

t was just after 11 pm when the knock on the door woke me up. At first,
I thought someone down the hallway had banged their door shut, which
occurred regularly at the residence. I started drifting back into my slumber
when I heard the unmistakable knock again.
I yawned and turned on the bedside lamp, got up and walked towards
the door. Did I sleep through a fire alarm? Is a Resident Advisor knocking
to check up on me? I thought as I looked through the peephole, sleep
immediately disappearing from my eyes. It was him.
He was in a black sweater, his Goyard hand luggage by his side, leaning
on the wall opposite my door with both hands in his pockets. Did he come
here straight from the airport? He knocked softly again, and I slowly
opened the door. As soon as I did, I suddenly became conscious of my silk
maroon pyjamas. I should have thrown on a robe before opening the door, I
thought to myself, but it was too late then.
He looked at me with a smile on his face. I had gone to bed angry that
he hadn’t replied to my messages, but now looking at him standing in front
of me with the slight stubble on his jaw, the tired look in his eyes and that
good-looking face, I couldn’t stay mad at him.
“Hi,” he whispered, biting down on his lip like he was trying to stop
smiling.

“Hi,” I whispered back, still holding the door. My hair was uncovered;
the scrunchie that held it must have fallen off while I slept, and my hair was
now falling over my shoulders.
“Can I come in?” he asked quietly as his gaze held mine.
My heart fluttered. I stepped aside to let him in, and he dragged his
black hand luggage into the dark kitchenette. The soft yellow glow from the
bedside lamp in my room was the only source of light. I closed the door and
turned to face him.
He looked at me and slowly pulled me into his arms, burying his face in
my hair. His arms wrapped themselves around me, and I felt so tiny in
them. As he held me, I felt his heartbeat against mine, and in that moment,
it didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel haram. It just felt like the purest
expression of our emotions.
“I missed you,” he said softly as he pulled away, planting a kiss on my
forehead.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed that hug. It felt so right. It felt like
home, and I wanted to hold on for so much longer. I wanted to pull him
back in, feel his heartbeat against mine and have his arms wrapped around
me, but instead, I linked my hands awkwardly together in front of my chest
as I smiled up at him. “I tried sending you a message,” I said, going to the
fridge to get a bottle of water for him.
“Yeah, so many calls drained the battery and I didn’t have my charger
on the plane,” he explained, taking the bottle from me and placing it on the
table.
“Oh,” I said. That made sense. “Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you,” he nodded, putting his hands back in his pocket, his eyes
locked on mine.

“Let me get your keys,” I said as I walked into my room to get the set of
keys he had given me – keys to his car and apartment.
“I have my keys with me,” he called after me. “I made you an extra set.
You can keep those.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Were you studying?” he asked, looking at my laptop through the
opened bedroom door. I shook my head in response. “Did I wake you up?”
His eyes lingered at my pyjamas for a few seconds; then, he quickly looked
back into my eyes. I nodded. “Sorry, I would have called, but my phone
was dead,” he ran his hand through his hair as he explained, “and I had to
see you.”
The words hung between us like energy. Had to see you. Crackling
static. He looked at me as though he was waiting for something, even
though no question was asked. We looked at each other in silence, our quiet
breathing filling the room. It felt surreal. “I missed you,” I finally said.
A few hours later, at 1 am, Ahmad was laying in bed next to me. He was
using my laptop to reply to emails while his phone charged on my desk. I
was propped up on pillows listening to his story about his dad forwarding
the Business Insider article to all his friends in Nigeria.
“You would think he was thrilled when I told him I wasn’t going to
study law anymore,” Ahmad said.
“And now he’s the proudest person,” I added.
“No, mom will definitely beat him to that position,” he laughed as he
closed my laptop and put it on the bedside table. “She has always been my
number one supporter - doesn’t matter what it is, she’s always had my
back.” His head sank into the pillows, and he turned on his side to face me.

I stared at him. Being this close to him, I could see his eyelashes. I hadn’t
noticed how long they were before.
“I should call a cab,” he murmured. I remained quiet. There was a cab
dispatch station just around the university. A call would have one outside
the residence before he even got off the elevators. “Or… I could stay and
bore you to sleep with details of the numerous meetings I chaired this past
week…?”
I closed my eyes and pretended to snore, and he burst out laughing. His
laughter made me feel good. I liked this – being with him, having regular
conversations in the middle of the night. In my room. On my bed. When he
was just inches away from me. I can touch him if I extend my arm, I thought
as we looked at each other quietly, my hands tucked under my head.
His hand reached over to me and gently touched the bracelet on my
wrist. “You wear it to sleep?”
“I never take it off, " I said, trying to steady my breathing, which
quickened when his fingers lightly grazed my wrist. It was the first gift I’d
ever accepted from a guy who liked me. And I loved it.
His eyes darkened as he nodded, “that’s perfect.” He slowly pulled his
hand from me and swallowed. The room was filled with silence once again
and then he said: “I am gonna have to go.”
He stood up and looked at my phone that was by my pillow. “Wait, why
is my number on your call list?”
“What do you mean?” I asked as I threw the duvet off of me and
climbed out of bed. I sank my feet into my fuzzy wool slippers.
“You never saved my number?” his eyebrows were raised in disbelief.
He passed my unlocked phone to me and his number was the last on my call
list. I didn’t see what the problem was.

“Oh, that. It’s a bad habit I have,” I said. His number ended with 717. I
always knew when it was him, so I never bothered to save it.
“We’ve been together for months and you haven’t saved my number?”
he laughed, “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“Well, I almost saved it ‘Ahmad-with-the-attitude’, but I didn’t,” his
laughter drowned out the rest of my sentence, “you’re welcome.”
“Well then?”
“Well then, what?”
“Save my number,” he said, waiting to see what I would save his
number as. I created a new contact and I typed a new name over his number
and saved it.
“Happy?” I asked as I showed him my phone.
“It works for me,” he said, a smile slowly forming on his face as he read
what I’d saved his number as. “Together, we make sense, Insom.”
“I knew it! So, I’m still “Insom”?” I grumbled.
“Forever,” he kissed my forehead again. “Goodnight, babe.”
I felt giddy as I watched him grab his hand luggage and leave my room.
He turned at the door, and our eyes met. He winked and quietly closed the
door behind him. I walked to the door and locked it. Leaning with my back
to it, I sighed. I couldn’t believe that this was my life – giddy over a boy
planting a kiss on my forehead, feeling at home when my head is buried in
his embrace, missing the feel of his body laying in bed next to me. And
nothing about this felt wrong.
My phone buzzed. It was message from NIAC: Insom + Niac. Together,
we make sense. Then another buzz: We complete each other, Fa’iza.

* * *

That weekend, Ahmad and I had our first fight. I had just finished getting
ready for an art exhibition we were going to that evening and was scrolling
through the opened tabs on safari to pass time when I realized that he hadn’t
logged out when he used my laptop to reply to emails that night he came
over. I was going to log him out, but curiosity got the best of me when I saw
an unread mail from an Ezgi.
Ezgi. He’d never mentioned that name to me. I knew the first names of
all his friends and staff, and Ezgi was not one of them. My cursor hovered
over the mail with the subject “WOW”, as I contemplated whether or not to
open it. I knew it was wrong and that I had no right to invade his privacy
like this. So, I removed my finger from the trackpad, closed my laptop and
left it on the bed. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. Ezgi. It was a Turkish
name. I’d watched enough Turkish shows to know a few phrases, and I can
pick out unique Turk names from a bunch. I remembered the conversation
between Kaltume and Afreen about his Turkish ex-girlfriend. Maybe this
was her. I flipped my laptop open and opened the email.
Askim,
I read the news today, and you were in it. No surprise there, I always
knew you could do it. From here on, the sky is the limit. It has been forever.
I hope you’re doing good? Thinking of you, always. Xx
I was flooded with guilt after reading the email. I shouldn’t have
invaded his privacy like that. I hurriedly marked it as unread and closed the
laptop. That must be her, I thought to myself. There was a certain intimacy

in the email; it couldn’t have been any random friend. It was definitely his
ex. Ezgi. She called him Askim. Isn’t that ‘lover’ in Turkish?
By the time Ahmad came to get me, I’d gone over the email in my mind
at least seven times.
“Hey babe,” he said as I walked out of the residence. He was wearing a
blazer over a brown shirt with black jeans, leaning on the railing of the few
steps that led towards the visitor’s parking in front of the building. He was
putting on sunglasses, and put his phone into his pocket when I joined him.
I wondered if he’d read the email.
“Hey,” I wondered if he could see the guilt on my face.
“You look great,” he said.
I was wearing a green wrap-around dress with a yellow scarf. As I got
into his car, I saw that he had gotten us iced cappuccinos from Timmies, our
daily dose of caffeine.
The drive to the art gallery was long, but it didn’t feel long. We were
chatting about the most recent book we read: A Man Called Ove. “I know
you cried,” he said as he made a right turn.
“I actually didn’t,” I started to deny, but there was no point. The book
did make me cry a little.
“Hey, there’s no shame in it,” he started laughing. His eyes crinkled a
bit when he laughed and it made him even more handsome, if that was
possible. I finished my drink and peered up at him. He was in such a good
mood. Is he happy because he heard from Ezgi? Did he take her to art
galleries too? Did she love Timmies as much as he did? What else did they
do together?
“Street parking is always hard to find around here,” he said as we went
around the building. Eventually, we were able to park in a spot where

someone had just pulled out of.
“Are we late?”
“No, we’re not,” he reached for my hand. “This art has a particular
niche.”
“Oh, okay,” I put my fingers through his as we walked into the building.
It was beginning to get dark. He reached for tickets in his pocket and
handed them to a redhead at a desk. I walked in and looked around. This
rustic-boho gallery was quite different from the other white-walled ones I
had been to – the brush strokes on the grey walls were still evident, like
they were left there on purpose, the visible pipes that ran through the ceiling
and a bar located in one corner of the L-shaped room. It worked quite well
in invoking a suave urban feel.
There were a few people in the room, looking at the various art that
adorned the walls, most of which were abstract, and others were oil
paintings of famous people I really didn’t care about the interpretation of
abstract art. I was moved, instead, by a big, green and brown painting of
Bob Marley that occupied a focal point in point in the gallery. I gravitated
towards it and stared up at it, lost in my thoughts.
“Are you okay, babe?” Ahmad was by my side.
“Yes,” I lied. “Why?”
“Your eyes. Are you sure you’re okay?” He looked at me, concerned.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Come, show me this piece you can’t stop talking
about.”
“There’s plenty of time for that,” then he looked up at the painting in
front of us. “What do you think about this one?”
I looked at the deliberate strokes that creased the corners of the Reggae
king’s eyes, the circles around them. The artist was intentional about

drawing you in with the eyes, which were almost lifelike.”It looks like he
actually painted him from the flesh, not from a picture.”
“How do you mean?” he said, moving behind me and looking at the
painting like he was trying to understand it from my point of view.
“His eyes look… sad.”
Ahmad’s chest was leaning into my back, “The artist’s actually
Nigerian.”
“Really?”
“Yup, Komi Olaf. He grew up in Kaduna, and lives here in the 6ix.”
Ahmad pointed to another painting a few feet away. “Come. I think you’ll
like his other pieces.” Twenty minutes later, we had moved on to other
artists, and we were standing in front of a pile of junk. A chair and a table
turned upside down, some clocks, a shoe, a curtain draped over a pile of a
broken air conditioner. I looked at the collection, trying to understand what
I was looking at, wondering why it was left in the middle of the gallery.
Compared to all the meaningful portraits and landscapes I had seen so far,
this looked very out of place. Were these the artist’s furniture? Was this
supposed to give us a glimpse into his life?
“So, what do you think?” Ahmad asked.
“About the pile?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“What am I looking at exactly?”
“Exactly.” He held my shoulders and steered me to the right of the
painting.”Now look at it from this angle.” There was a bulb hanging above
that cast a shadow on the wall behind the pile of items, and it displayed a
woman wearing a wide-brimmed hat, looking into the far horizon. It was
spectacular. The element of surprise made it even more beautiful. “Shadow

art,” Ahmad said, as he took in the awe on my face, “not everything is at it
seems.”
We looked around the room, looking at pieces and trying to understand
the artist’s message. We were looking at a landscape of the Canadian
Rockies, leaning shoulder to shoulder, when a couple started moving
towards us. One was an olive-skinned brunette wearing a silk shirt tucked in
grey pants, and the man next to her couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her
even as she and Ahmad exchanged a brief hug.
“Zehra?” Ahmad asked, and she replied to him in French. From the
little I remembered from IGCSE, he was surprised to see her. And as I stood
there, I realized that there was still a lot I didn’t know about him. They
chatted, then noticing me for the first time, she turned back to him a
question: “Ezgi?” You’ve got to be kidding me. Ezgi. The girl from the
email. Or is it a French phrase?
“Zehra, meet Fa’iza,” he looked at me, and I felt his hand reach for my
waist as he moved closer to me. “Babe, Zehra and I interned in Montreal
together.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said in a heavy French accent, a saccharine
smile on her face. Her eyes went from my face and then to Ahmad, “Sorry, I
thought it was your sister. How’s she?”
“She’s good. She’s –” he was cut short by the guy next to her, who
cleared his throat.
“Oh, where are my manners?” she gestured towards him. “This is
Nikolai.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said in a Russian accent, nodding politely
toward me and Ahmad.

Zehra immediately switched back to French but Ahmad, in respect to
me, responded to her in English. I could sense that he was trying to end the
conversation as graciously as he could, and when he eventually did, we said
our goodbyes and left the couple.
“Do you wanna go to the basement and see the art supplies they have?”
he asked me as we walked away from them.
“I think I’m ready to leave.”
“Sure,” he said as he reached for my hand. We walked out of the
blinking neon lights bordering the exit door and quietly moved toward the
car. When we got in, I brought out my phone and started replying to the
messages I had on WhatsApp. Claire had sent a picture of her Burmese cat.
I replied with an array of emojis, and she replied almost immediately,
asking me how I was doing. We kept exchanging messages, and with fall
just around the corner, I was glad I would get to see my roommate soon.
“Are you okay, babe?”
It was unlike me to be distracted by my phone when I was with him.
The only time I multitasked was when I was doing schoolwork. “Yup,” I
answered.
The car came to a halt. I looked around and noticed that we were parked
on the side of the road with few stores around us. The place looked strange
and unfamiliar, and if I wasn’t with Ahmad, I would have been scared.
“Where are we?” I asked as he turned off the ignition and leaned back in
his seat. He looked at me, his face serious, and he said: “We can’t keep
doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“If we have a problem, we have to talk about it,” he turned down the
music and looked at me. I had never seen him this serious. “We’re not going

to sweep things under the rug.”
“We’re going to talk about it here?”
“So, there’s something to talk about then?”
I sighed and looked away from him. Out of the tinted windows,
someone in their sixties, judging from the grey hair, was walking their dog,
a big shaggy brown-haired Collie.
“Talk to me, babe.”
I said nothing. How do you admit that you breached your partner’s
privacy, that you read an email they got from their ex? How do you admit
that you spent more time than you cared to admit googling the name Ezgi,
pouring through pages and pages of accounts on Instagram and Twitter that
had the name Ezgi in their handle? How do you explain the guilt that kept
eating at your heart as you kept going – because you knew that you
shouldn’t? How do you admit that you didn’t stop until you found one
account with a mutual friend? Edet. How do I tell him that I found her
Instagram profile? That I zoomed in on her clear skin, her perfect smile and
looked at all the 127 pictures she posted? That I had read her quotes on love
and passion, saw pictures from her visits to East Africa and Asia? Pictures
taken here in Toronto with friends and family, pictures of her with
celebrities? How do I tell him I saw a candid picture of them at the beach,
posted two years ago and was never deleted? What do I make of the caption
“I will love you forever, Askim” and the one thousand and eighty-nine likes
she got on the post? How do I explain the pain I felt in my heart when I saw
how happy he looked with her – the smile on his face as she kissed his
cheek in a lime green two-piece bikini, their feet buried in the white sands
somewhere warm and tropical.
His fingers reach for mine and gently squeezed.

I turned to look at him and blurted, “Back there, the girl we met – did
she ask about your ex?”
“Yes, she asked about Ezgi.” He paused. “You knew her name?”
Oh shit. The silence in the car felt so loud I could hear the rush of blood
in my ears. I had been caught. “At…at the wedding,” I started to stutter.
“Uhm… someone must have mentioned her name when they talked about
her.” It wasn’t true, but it wasn’t exactly a lie.
“This is the second time you’re bringing her up,” he said, his eyebrows
raised like he was asking if I was aware that I’d spoken about her a few
months prior.
“I need to know more.”
“She’s in the past.”
I didn’t respond.
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
“How long were you two together?” I sighed, ignoring the notification
sounds on my phone.
“Two years.”
“Why did you break up?”
“Does it matter?”
Maybe it shouldn’t, I thought. But it did.
He looked at me quietly for a few seconds. “I moved out of the country
and we wanted different things.”
“Two years?” I tried to control the quiver in my voice as I asked. I
thought about the picture, which seemed to have been taken on vacation
together. “Were you guys… intimate?”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at me with a questioning look, and I
stared back. It was already dark outside, and there were fewer cars on this