Chapter 26- Zayd I have learnt

Medina's hands shook as she folded the newspaper, the creases sharp as knife edges. The steam from her abandoned tea curled between us like a ghost. "Qadira," she began, then stopped. A muscle twitched near her eye—the same tell she'd had since my childhood tantrums. Outside, a camera flash strobed through the curtains. "Did I... did I give you too much rope to hang us all?"

The glass jug exploded against the tiles. Shards skittered to rest near my bare feet. Roqsaar didn't jump—just closed her eyes for three slow breaths. "We'll find a new place," she murmured, but her fingers were braiding and unbraiding the tassels on her shawl.

I stepped forward, my sock soaking up spilled orange juice. "This is on me." My phone screen burned with the headline: *Golden Boy's Forbidden Kiss*. "If we'd just told them *I* was the one who—"

"Zain." My mother's voice cracked like thin ice. The vein on her forehead pulsed in time with the paparazzi's shutters outside.

Qadira's gasp warmed the back of my neck as I pushed her behind me. "No." My throat hurt. "Yell at me. Break my things. But we're not leaving."

Medina's laugh sounded like a dish breaking. "Congratulations. You're free." Her manicured nail pointed to the door. "Take nothing. Not the sponsorships, not the trust funds, not even your toothbrush."

Roqsaar caught my wrist as I passed. Her jasmine perfume couldn't mask the sweat on her palms. "Stay until sunrise," she whispered. "Please."

Qadira's fingers dug into my bicep. Outside, a reporter shouted my name like a curse. "Why?" she breathed. "Why light the match when we're drowning in gasoline?"

I slammed my phone onto the counter. The screen showed her crossing the finish line, helmet hair wild as Medusa's snakes. "This is what you wanted, isn't it?" My voice came out raw. "Watch me burn?"

She touched the screen—once, gently—then walked away. The back door clicked shut with terrible finality.

---

The security lights turned the lawn into a prison yard. Guards herded photographers back, but their flashes still painted the walls like lightning.

I should've said sorry when it mattered.

Mom's Louboutins tapped Morse code on the foyer tiles. Roqsaar's teacup left a damp ring on Qadira's baby pictures.

"After graduation," Mom said, each word a nail in my coffin, "you vanish. The studio contract starts Monday. No bikes. No letters. Certainly no..." Her gaze flicked upstairs where Qadira had fled.

I tasted blood—I'd bitten my cheek. "Deal. But while I'm still here, you look at me when you're furious. You blame me when the neighbors whisper." My shoes squeaked on the juice-stained floor. "I owe her that much."

Roqsaar caught me at the stairs. Her embrace smelled like lavender and salt. "You're both my children," she whispered into my collarbone.

I held her until her breathing steadied. "That's why I have to go."

---

The office smelled like Qadira's vanilla shampoo and the sharp tang of fear. She backed me against the desk, her palms flat on my chest like she could hold my heart inside.

"Tell me straight," she demanded. Her pinky finger trembled against my sternum. "Are they sending you away?"

I flicked the worry line between her eyebrows. "Not from you." My voice sounded strange. "Never from you."

She stared at our childhood home through the window—the willow tree where we'd carved our initials, now floodlit for the world to see. "All those memories..."

"Are right here." I tapped her temple, then mine. Her skin was fever-warm.

She swatted my hand away, but her fingers lingered. "Your career—"

"Was always hers." I nudged the window open wider. The shouts outside crescendoed. "She's been waiting for me to fail since that cereal commercial when I was six."

Qadira's breath hitched. "You're leaving the country?"

"Physics labs don't move, genius." I bumped her shoulder. "Though with you in the art department, they might evacuate."

The sob turned into a laugh halfway out. "dummy." She swiped at her eyes with my sleeve. "I thought... I was just another trophy to you."

I nodded to the medal on her shelf—the one she'd earned with grease under her nails and pure spite in her veins. "Trophies don't bleed when you drop them."

---

First light found me at the racetrack, the dew soaking through my Converse. Zayd's bike purred to a stop, his helmet dangling like a severed head from the handlebars.

"Never thought I'd miss losing to you," he said. A fresh scratch marred his cheekbone—probably from a reporter's mic.

I tossed him a Coke. The can was slippery with condensation. "I never stopped liking you."

The tab hissed open. "Funny how fury works." He powered off his phone with exaggerated care. "We can't glue the vase back together, but... you don't flinch when I walk in rooms anymore."

"Still friends?"

"Always were, dumbass." His boot scuffed the asphalt. "Last ride? Before they clip your wings."

My stomach dropped. "How did you—"

"My agent had the memo before you did." He revved the engine. "Let Qadira win because... Christ, Zain, you needed to hit the pavement."

"You torched your own career."

"Barely a spark compared to your inferno." His laugh sounded like gravel in a blender. A photo fluttered into my lap—two grubby kids hugging trophies too big for their arms. "First race." His finger, nail bitten to the quick, tapped the second image: yesterday's podium, my arm around his shoulders. "Last one."

The sunrise painted his face in bruises. "Where will you go?"

"Where she isn't." His visor snapped down, but not before I saw the redness around his eyes. "If Qadira chooses college, I'll be there. If not... I cleared the runway."

"She has me now."

The bike roared like a living thing. "You had sixteen years and broke her. I had sixteen weeks and put her back together." Tires screamed as he peeled away. "You don't get to keep her."

The photo crumpled in my fist. Some cracks never truly heal.