BROKEN

Bad Decisions

I looked up at Hakeem, he had a blank look on his face.

"I've been waiting out here for two hours so I could take you out on your birthday and you're out here hugged up on another guy?" he asked angrily.

"Fuad, let's talk in private." I had no choice but to finally confront him. We got in his car and I took a good look at him. I had never seen him so distressed.

"Warsan are you cheating on me?" he asked.

"Don't ask me that." I said.

"That means yes."

"Fuad you're cheating on me with Tasneem."

He took a moment to process what I just said. "What are you talking about?" he asked furiously.

"I took her phone and saw a text from you that said 'I love you, Tasneem.'"

He thought about it for a moment and took his phone out. "Read it for yourself."

I scrolled up a few messages and read the very short conversation that they had.

"Since you're her best friend I really need your help with this." a text from him read.

"Warsan's favorite restaurant is The Cheesecake Factory. Surprise her and pick her up to take her there to eat. Then take her to a rooftop downtown and just be with her. She misses you a lot and just wants to spend time with you. That's more valuable than any gift you could buy her."

"I kind of want to get her a physical gift too."

"She doesn't really care for gifts. Write her something, she will die."

"I love you Tasneem."

That was the text I had seen.

"You're a lifesaver." the next message from him read.

I had never felt as dumb as I did in that moment. He took his phone back and reached in the backseat. He grabbed what looked like a little notebook. He flipped through it and showed me that each page had been filled.

"I might not be a poet like him, but I wrote you a book about how much I love you, my favorite memories of us, my dreams for you.." he reached under his chair and pulled out a little box. "I know you hate gifts but I went to every jewelry shop in New York to try and get this made." He opened the box and showed me a bracelet. I took a closer look, it had the letter W inscribed in the charm. It reminded me of the necklace he gave me on our one year anniversary.

"Fuad.." I began.

"I don't want to hear it."

"Fuad I'm sorry for doubting you."

"Your apology doesn't mean anything to me. For the past two years I haven't even thought of another female. Most guys my age out here have multiple girlfriends. All I had was you. I didn't do it because I had to, I did it because I love you. I took you to meet my family for God's sake. Do you know how long it took me to convince them how serious I actually was?"

"Fuad I've been going through a hard time."

"You can't use that as an excuse to hurt the people around you."

I didn't know what to say, Fuad had never been this upset with me.

"Do you even love me?" he asked.

"I did." He leaned back against his seat and looked out of the window. I was silently hoping that he wasn't crying.

"I told my family I wanted to marry you." he mumbled. He said it so quietly it seemed like he was talking to himself.

"You what?" I asked.

"I wanted to marry you when I graduated. Me being in New York was the perfect opportunity for us to remove the sin out of our relationship. I wanted to change our whole relationship, I wanted to change myself."

"Why did you want to change yourself?" I asked.

"I was depressed."

"What?" I asked.

"I was depressed, Warsan. I still am. I was under so much pressure and so much stress I couldn't handle it. I was so alone. I hadn't been happy since the day I left."

"I don't understand."

"I felt a constant weight on my chest. I isolated myself from everybody including you and my family. I tried surrounding myself with people to try and make myself happy but nothing worked. I felt broken. I called my mom before I came out and told her how I had been feeling and she told me to turn to God. She had been telling me that my whole life but it didn't hit me hard until I realized how much I had neglected my religion. I decided to make some changes, I would focus more on my relationship with God. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that God wouldn't be happy with our relationship Warsan. I wanted to change it all and start fresh. I wanted you to meet my mother so that I could be closer and more open with her. I wanted to talk to you about it all tonight but instead I'm here talking about you cheating."

I had never been more speechless in my life. Fuad was hurting just as much, if not more than, I was.

"What happened to forever?" he asked. "You met Hakeem and now it means nothing to you right?" He tossed the necklace in the backseat. "Go celebrate your birthday with your new boyfriend, I hope he makes you happier than I did."

He started his car, signaling for me to get out. I got out and watched his car drive away. I wondered to myself if that was the last time I would ever see him. I stood there and thought about everything he had said. This whole summer I thought Fuad was the bad guy. Little did I know, he was broken too.

"How did it go?" asked Hakeem when I walked back towards his car.

"I did it."

"You broke up with him?"

"Yes." His face broke out into a huge smile.

"So I can finally have you?"

"Yup." He pulled me into a hug and kissed me on the forehead. "Now I can finally take you on that proper date." We got in the car and he drove me to the location of our date. He talked but none of what he was saying was being processed, I couldn't forget my last conversation with Fuad. We pulled into the parking lot of The Cheesecake Factory, the place that Fuad was going to take me to eat.

"This is my favorite restaurant." he said.

"Me too."

The rest of the night consisted of Hakeem smiling and me zoning in and out of paying attention to our conversation.

"It's getting late." I said. "I should probably get home." We pulled up to the apartment complex. He pulled me in and kissed me but I felt too weird to enjoy it. We said our goodbyes and I went into my apartment. My family had a big cake waiting for me.

"We wanted to throw you a birthday celebration!" exclaimed Aunt Nadira. Similar to my date with Hakeem, my body was present at the celebration but my mind was not. After they were done celebrating I got to my room and laid down. Now that I knew the truth, I had to at least try to make things right with Tasneem. I called her and she answered on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"What's up?" she asked.

"I'm sorry for-"

"Save it Warsan. You're a terrible friend to me and I don't want you in my life anymore. I hope you had a great birthday, now leave me alone." Before I could beg for forgiveness, she hung up.

I laid back in my bed and thought about how much my life had changed since the beginning of summer. I lost Fuad and I lost Tasneem. If you asked me a few days ago if Hakeem was worth losing two of the most important people in my life I probably would have said yes. Right now, I wasn't so sure.