(CozItRunsInMyBlood) owns the plot.
(RobzBeanie) is a lifesaver and she beta
this.
(GrandeDame) is my soul-mate and
per-reader.
Chapter 13
Isabella Marie
I didn't like the situation I was in. I didn't like her being that
way. I couldn't bear it.
Maybe I was mad at her, in a way. Maybe I blamed her for what was
happening to me. Maybe I said all I’d said for revenge. To make my brother
suffer with her knowledge, and to make her suffer with said knowledge, too. But
… I wasn't cold-hearted.
It was such torture.
To have her on her knees. In front of me. All tears. All begging.
All pain. It was such torture.
I hated it.
My own tears fell as I looked away from her kneeling-begging form. I
pressed on my lips hard and then harder to hold in the words I wanted to tell
her but my heart wasn't letting me do it.
"Please, Marie, please," Alice begged. "I can't take
anymore, I can't stand you too hating me. I have no one left," she cried.
It broke my heart.
"I'll do anything, please," she sobbed. "Just,
please, forgive me. I didn't know. I swear to God, I didn't know."
I couldn't take it anymore.
"I forgive you," I whispered with a shaking voice.
.
.
.
"It's just too much to take in," Alice said, wiping
tears. "I still can't believe it."
"Same here," I sighed, resting my back on the armchair
and my hands in my lap.
After I'd told her that I forgave her, she
asked if we could talk for a few minutes. Even if she didn't beg with words for that, she did beg with her eyes – so much, at that. And I just couldn't say
no to her; she looked miserable enough.
So, we ended up sitting in the same spot
where we’d met the Mother Queen a few hours ago. The prince also had closed the
walls once again, giving us more privacy or whatever, while he stayed on the
other side.
I wondered what he was doing.
My mind kept drifting back to the minutes I’d
spent in his arms and how his embrace had felt. I kept thinking of all of the
thoughts that roamed all over my head then, the feelings that filled my heart
and … the sensations caused by touching his body, that way.
I had no idea what had gotten me to do such
a thing, to need such a thing, to feel such a thing. It was really
strange, and I was so afraid of thinking about it, only because I already knew
what my mind would come up with eventually as an explanation for my actions. It
was scary. And, not right. Wrong.
"It makes me wonder if anything he
ever told me was true," Alice sniffed, pulling me away from my thoughts.
"I mean, did he really love me at all? Or was it all for who I was? But
then again – he didn't know about my family until after we found out about the
pregnancy." She touched her stomach. "It can't be true that he played
with me that much, could it?"
I didn't reply to her. I couldn't. I didn't
know the answer, for I was a lot like her, feeling the same. I didn't know him
anymore, didn't know what was real and what was a lie. I didn't know how to
find out if it was just a game of his, another way to deceive and betray, or
just to fix mistakes and right wrongs.
"I can't help but think that even his
converting was fake. God, Marie. That would end me!" she wailed.
I bit my bottom lip and fought tears,
shaking my head to shrug them away. Here she was, begging with all of her might
for his change of religion to be sincere, honest, while on the other hand, I
wished with everything in me for it to be just another lie of his.
I still hoped for anything. I still hoped
at least for him to remain Christian – if he was still Christian, that is.
"Why did he have to convert to Islam,
anyway?" I asked.
"We're not allowed to marry
non-Muslims," she replied.
"Yeah, I heard," I told her.
"I mean, why didn't I have to change my religion to be able to marry a
Muslim?" I was still Christian and would forever be one; the cross on my
chest told everyone here that, the queen knew that, so I didn't think
that my brother had lied about it. I wondered why it was different when a
Muslim woman married a Christian, than a Christian woman marrying a Muslim?
Alice drew in a long breath and let it out
in a heavy sigh, then she spoke. "It's pretty complicated, I don't know
how to explain it," she started. "I think it's safe to say that the
main reason is that the children follow their father's religion. And another
reason is that in Islam we do believe in Christianity and Judaism. We believe
that we all worship the same God, that the three holy books were sent from him,
the one and only God, but just like Judaism doesn't believe in Christianity or
Islam while Islam believes in both, Christianity doesn't believe in Islam but
believes in Judaism. And there is a rule in Islam that forbids anyone to force
another into becoming Muslim, so no Muslim male would ever force his non-Muslim
wife into becoming a Muslim, too. But there is no such a rule in Christianity
or Judaism, so you can't guarantee that a non-Muslim husband wouldn't force his
wife into converting to his religion, you know? Also, there are lots of things
that we practice every day, like praying and so on, and a non-Muslim husband
could prevent his Muslim wife from doing this or that, which would affect her
relationship with God," she explained.
Wow! How did she even understand what she was
saying? It was really complicated. But I had to admit, it made sense and was
somewhat convincing.
I nodded my head slowly as I tried to take
everything she'd said in. Glad to know that they had such a rule, because
religion wasn't something you could shove down someone's throat. It's a belief.
Comes from the heart and to the heart. It was good to hear that no one
was going to think of forcing me into changing my religion while I stayed here,
because God knows I wouldn't do it even if it cost me my life.
"Why did he have to change his name?"
I asked after a moment of silence.
"He didn't have to," she replied,
shrugging her shoulders. "It's optional as long as your name isn't
offensive to Islam. His old name wasn't, but he wanted to change it,
anyway."
"How was it even possible to do all of
that in such a short time? I mean, you're still in your first trimester,
right?" I wondered.
"It's not a huge deal when you're
royal, Marie. All of the legal papers and so on were taken care of in one day,
no big deal," she said. "As for his converting, it only takes the
person saying, 'There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his servant and
prophet,' to become a Muslim – after that comes the practicing and stuff. God
is the only one who could judge what's in your heart, though. Not people." A tear escaped her eyes, and I knew why it
was there; she had begun to doubt everything about my brother after what I'd
told her earlier. I didn't blame her. And I could only imagine what she was
going through right now.
Yes, I was betrayed, as well. Big time. But
for her, the guilt of her mistake that had caused all of this was topping all
of it. She must've been really suffering.
It didn't escape me that she'd put all of
her pain aside and took the time to explain things to me, because I was
completely clueless about the whole thing. About Islam all together, to be
quite honest. I didn't know if it was because of what she felt for me. Because 'it
was killing her' – like the prince had put it – what her actions did to me,
causing me to witness things I would've never thought I would face in my life.
Or if it was the pure kindness of her and she was genuinely that nice and that
was a part of her nature – to put her feelings aside for others.
This or that, the weight of the world of
sadness and sorrow was filling her chocolate-brown eyes, and I felt the
undeniable urge to try to ease it somehow. Her pain, I wanted to ease.
"You do realize that he did all of
what he did for you, Alice, don't you?" I asked in a low voice.
A new round of tears attacked her cheeks as
she cried her pain.
"I didn't mean to. I'm sorry, I swear,
I'm so, so sorry."
"No, no. I didn't mean it that way.
Please, don't misunderstand me." Way to go, Marie. You upset her even
more! "I meant that he went through all of this just for you, because
he loves you, Alice. He really does," I assured her.
She looked at me with her tears-clouded
eyes. "Does he, really? Why don't you believe he only did it out of pity?
He knew they would've killed me if we couldn't get married. I wish he would’ve
let them do; I wouldn't have let you and my brother suffer because of my own
mistake."
"Hey, don't say that," I said.
"No one deserves to die – to get killed – because of a moment of
weakness," I found myself assuring her.
"Marie, you can't imagine what I've
been through since that day," she sobbed. "It had only been bad and
worse. I've been to Hell and back. Several times. I lost the little respect I
had from my own family. Mazen was my everything. IS my everything. And he can
barely look me in the eyes. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? He had
to give up everything for me, and now to discover that you didn't even want it,
and that he knows it? It's breaking my heart into pieces. I could've
never imagined that my actions would hurt the one I love the most that way."
I swallowed.
Give up everything as in … his cousin?
"My father had a stroke when he found
out about my pregnancy. He's been lying in bed since then, God only knows if
he'll ever recover from it." She wiped more tears with the side of her
pointer finger.
The King was sick? How bad? What did that
mean for the prince? Would he be the next King if his father died? But … his
heir. He didn't have one. What did that mean?
"If it wasn't for Mazen, Emad would've
beaten me to death. I could only be thankful that Mazen was there when he
started hitting me and I ended up with few strikes on the face instead of
broken bones and a miscarriage – he was so mad."
Oh, my God! Her other brother hit her?
That's horrible!
What is wrong with some brothers?
"My stepmother couldn't hate me more,
and after what happened had caused Mazen, she could only wish they did kill me
instead of the trading," she wept. "Oh, my God! I'm sorry, Marie, I
didn't mean it that way – it's just she wanted him to marry another, it's her
sister's daughter an-"
"It's okay, Alice," I interrupted
her. "Don't worry about it."
It wasn't like I cared who the prince
would've married if he wouldn't have had to marry me.
I just couldn't understand the swell in my
heart at the mention of him marrying another.
It was stupid.
I shouldn't have felt anything.
It wasn't right.
Wrong.
"It's only Mazen I care about. I wish
he could forgive me someday," she sniffled. "But he said that it
wouldn't happen in this lifetime," she said with sorrow, looking down at
her hands in her lap.
"You're so important to your brother,
Alice. He told me so himself."
She smiled sadly. "I’ve never doubted
his love; I owe him my life. But for him to forgive me … I don't think he ever
will. And now with everything – I'm glad I still get to breathe the same air
he's breathing, for another one would wish me death instead of what I'd brought
on him."
Ouch!
"When Jaser told me that you were
excited about the idea of marrying my brother, I about died out of happiness. I
couldn't believe it myself. I really thought that death was what was to come
for me next, and in one day, with your approval of marrying Mazen, I found hope
again," she told me. "I had that niggling feeling that it wasn't
true, that it was unbelievable for an American, independent young woman as
beautiful as you to accept an arranged marriage, but I shrugged it away and
told myself to just be grateful.
"I was brought to life again; I
couldn't have been any happier. But I didn't know that it was all fake. I had
absolutely no idea.
"Jaser told me that I had to prepare
everything for you myself because we wouldn't have time to wait for you to come
to the kingdom then start preparing. I bought you everything I had bought for
myself and a bit more. When I liked a piece of clothing, I bought two of them,
one for me and one for you. And if I could find only one of it, I'd put it in
your closet instead of having it for myself. I arranged everything in our
wedding with only you in my head. I wanted you to have the best of
everything; it was the least I could offer you after what you were doing for
me.
"I was surprised that only you and
Jaser came in the plane, and only half a day before the wedding day, but again
Jaser told me that you two were each other's only family, and that your job and
your busy lives left no time for friends or anything like that. I was upset you
missed your Henna's night, but there was nothing I could do about it. I made
sure that my cousin would be with you the whole day. Kareen is my best friend,
and I was sure she could make you feel as welcome as possible better from
anyone else. I then made sure that at least half of the princesses in the
kingdom were there beside you instead of being with me because I didn't want
you to be alone at your own wedding.
"I tried, Marie. I really tried. I
wanted to do anything to make you happy. I had no idea that you were just about
to get that destroyed. And all because of me. God! I'm so sorry," she
cried. It seemed like her tears would never dry.
My heart ached for her. Her words, her
kindness and her actions … it all made it so easy to see why my brother was
head over heels about her. She was so easy to fall in love with.
An angel.
My hand reached out and touched the back of
hers. "Stop it with that, Alice." I told her gently. "No more
apologizing, I've already told you I forgive you."
Another sad smile that reminded me a lot of
her brother's. "Thank you," she whispered, and after a pause of
silence she spoke again,
"When he came back after handing the
sheet to my servant the morning after the wedding sporting a black eye, he told
me he fell." She chuckled humorlessly. "His lies didn't stop even
after the wedding; it hurts me even more."
I shook my head slightly. No wonder the
prince was calmer when he came back yesterday – he had taken his rage out on my
brother.
Served him right. I wasn't even slightly
upset about it.
"Why did you need to give them a
sheet, anyway? Your family already knew that you weren't a virgin!"
"Um, yeah. Only my brothers, father
and stepmother, but not the rest of the family. God forbid, they know!"
"So, you had fake evidence of a
virginity loss on your sheet, as well," I sighed.
Alice looked at me with a questioning look
in her eyes. I knew she wanted to ask something; it was very clear in her eyes.
But instead, she only bit her bottom lip and looked down again.
"Yeah. Thank God 'Common Deflowering'
is no longer practiced nowadays, as it was before. Or I would've been dead by
now when they practiced it on me," she said, her face paling as she spoke
the words.
What the heck is 'Common Deflowering'?
"Common Deflowering?" I
questioned.
"Trust me, you don't want to know,"
she said, shuddering slightly.
"No, really, tell me," I
insisted.
Alice sighed. "It's a very old
habit that some had practiced forever. On the wedding night of whomever, they
would bring some women from the families of both the bride and the groom, and
they would, uh …" She bit her lip, her already-flushed cheeked reddening
even more.
"What?"
"They would pin the bride down roughly
while one of them took her virginity with her – uh, her white-cloth-covered
finger while the groom watched, and the rest of the women obviously."
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped to the
floor. "That's freaking disgusting!"
"I know! It's horrible." Alice
shook her head. "If the bride turned out not to be a virgin, they'd kill
her on the spot and consider her as if she was never born."
My God!
"But, thank God it's fading away with
time; you hardly hear about it anymore other than with the Bedouins who still
practice it to this day. It hasn't happened in the royal family in decades,
though."
"It should never happen at all,"
I told her, disgust filling my voice.
"True," Alice said. "Islam
promises whoever does something as horrible as that towards a woman with hellfire,
but I guess religion is not their priority when it comes to honor, just like
the killing itself if it’s proven the bride wasn't a virgin. It's a grave sin."
"That's really sad," I said. If
their religion wasn't supportive of it, why couldn't they obey it? Nothing in
the whole world justified killing another soul. Let alone for a mistake or a
moment of weakness.
"It is."
"They should make a law against those
who do that, it's not right!" I said.
"Oh, Marie. I wish," Alice said
sincerely.
It was like I had forgotten everything the two
of us were going through at the mention of this subject matter. It was such a
terrible thing to do and I couldn't believe that some people still practiced
it.
"If it has nothing to do with the
religion, how did it start, then?"
"I don't know. Some people say that in
the very old days the enemies used to deflower young girls and teenagers in
front of their fathers and brothers to humiliate them, to let them see how they
could do whatever to their girls right in front of their eyes without them
being able to do anything about it." she explained. "They say that
they even used to do it using a sword or a knife."
"Oh, my God!" I gushed.
"Yeah. So, the families after that
used to deflower their girls themselves to prevent them from facing that fate
or make them less appealing to the soldiers, you know? It's like that saying,
I'm not sure what exactly it was but it’s something along the lines of 'I'll
kill my children myself instead of handing them to some evil hands' – something
like that."
"Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean."
"So basically after that people kept
doing the same thing, thinking it was a sign of honor or whatever."
"That's really, really nauseating,"
I told her, still not able to process everything she was saying.
"Some people say that ancient people
used to do it to satisfy the Gods of Evil, giving them something of the bride,
and what is more precious for a girl than her virginity, right?" A wave of
sadness washed over her never-seeming-happy-again face as she said that.
"Yeah."
"Some others say that the ancients did
it to control the girl's lust, by circumcising her once she was barely aware of
things around her, then once again on her first night of her adult life,
because they believed that the soul's discipline comes only from pain and
humiliation."
"Okay, seriously, we need to stop
talking about that because I'm really going to throw up." I wasn't lying.
Those people were nutcases!
"I told you so."
"Remind me not to doubt you again."
Alice offered me a small smile – of course
it didn't reach her eyes, but it was there anyway.
Such a young, beautiful girl with a heavy
heart and troubled features.
May
God forgive you, Jasper. I never would.
"There is something I don't
understand, Alice," I said after yet another minute of silence, and she
waited for me to continue. "Was it convincing to you and the family that I
would just give up everything including my parents' company and come live here
just like that? Wasn't it a bit strange to any of you that I would easily do
something like that?" I asked.
"No, of course not. Like I told you, I
had some doubts, but Jaser never said you'd give up your share of the company
or anything. He told us that you would take care of the company's branch here
until it was finished, then you'll be the manager of it from then on while he
takes over the management of the main company in New York, which made sense and
made it even more believable."
I nodded. At least he wasn't going to try
and take the company away from me. Because when it came to that, he could only
try. It was my parents' company. I would've killed for it.
"I can't stay here, Alice," I
told her honestly, finding her to be the only person I could tell this
to because no one else would understand, just like I knew she found me to be
the only one she could open her heart to because no one else would listen.
"This is not my home. You have no idea how it's hurting me that I'm away
from my country and my people."
Alice's troubled features turned into
wretched ones. She looked like someone who was in great pain, like someone was
pulling her heart out. Slowly. And I was really upset that I had once again
reminded her of what her actions did to me. The prince's words found their way into
my head yet again, 'It's killing her', but before I could
apologize once again or remind her that I’d forgiven her, she asked,
"Do you want to get a divorce?"
"Obviously," I replied, rolling
my eyes.
"What did Mazen say? Or haven't you spoken
to him about it yet?"
"I did. He said we had to wait for six
months. But, Alice," I looked her in the eyes. "I can't stay here for
six months. I'd die."
Our eyes stayed locked together in a strong
stare, only to be broken with another tear from her eyes falling onto her
cheek, matching the same motions that my own tears made.
"I'll fix my mistake, Marie,"
Alice whispered.
I looked at her with questioning eyes,
frowning.
"I'll get you out of here."
~BK~
Thank you so much for everyone who
reviewed, it makes writing more fun for me. I adore each one of them. Thanks a
lot.
See you next week.
OMG
ReplyDeleteI really hope that Bella find a friend in Alice
Together one can help the other
Dun dun dun!
ReplyDeleteOk that chapter was awesome! Oh god what's going to happen now?
Can't wait for the next one!
I love the progression of this story. I can't wait to get more Mazen! I'm so glad that Marie forgave Alice; she really is innocent in this. I feel so bad for all three of them. Jasper is so, so selfish! The killings and deflowerings mentioned make me sick. I can't believe that really happens in today's world. Another great chapter Rosalinda! I'm excited for the next one!
ReplyDeleteHearing that makes me want to give Jasper or a Jaser another black eye. Yes, I agree he does truly love Alice, but wow, the lengths that he went to our unimaginable. Looks like her closest allies are Mazen & Alice.
ReplyDelete*are not "our" ... I need to proofread my comments. LOL
DeleteOMG OMG OMG OMG !!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is my second try to post a review here... :( I think it would be more prudent for Marie, Alica and Mazen to talk this over together to come up with a solution that benefits the three of them. Jasper/Jaser should have NO input on this! He betrayed his sister and lied to his wife and brother in law to get what he wanted. He had no regard for the feelings or honor of the other three people in this situation. They need not to care about him in the solution. He made his bed and now he should have to lie in it.
ReplyDeleteJeri Solberg/Motherthing
Oh I am SO loving this story. I am glad that Marie and Alica have found a way to form a friendship. Can't wait to get more Mazen time.... :)
ReplyDeleteI love this story!
ReplyDeleteA big thank you from Bremen/Germany
I am worried that Alica is willing sacrifice her own life to help Marie now. I really hope that doesn't happen.
ReplyDeleteYes, I hope that she won't sacrifice her own life just for Bella to leave. I know this is a shock to Bella, but she really seems cold and callous, maybe a little bratty about what's happened. Everyone involved( Alice, Mazen, & even Jasper) have had to make sacrifices.
ReplyDelete