London Falling. Chanel Cleeton

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      CHAPTER FIVE

      Samir

      I LEANED BACK in my chair while the professor droned on. I hated the first day of school. In theory, I didn’t hate the material. I actually didn’t mind my major. I just hated the inevitability of it all.

      This—me being here—was all a big joke. My grades didn’t matter. The material didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I was here for one reason—so my parents would have something to brag about to their friends. I was here because Khouris went to university. It didn’t matter how we did there, because we all joined one of the family businesses eventually. In my case, politics.

      When I was a kid in Beirut, I’d told my mother I wanted to be a policeman. It wasn’t a well-thought-out career plan, but I was six and there was a TV show I really liked with a cool cop. She’d laughed and looked vaguely horrified.

      That was when I’d learned I was meant to be a clone of my father.

      Today, the first day of classes, felt like the start of a ticking time bomb.

      “Enjoy your last summer of freedom,” my father had announced when I’d come home in May. “After graduation next summer, you’ll be married.”

      I’d just turned twenty-three. I wasn’t ready to be much of a boyfriend to anyone, let alone a husband. But with Layla it wouldn’t matter. We both knew what we were getting into, understood the rules. We’d have a marriage just like our parents had—cold, indifferent, all flash and no substance.

      It wasn’t Layla’s fault. She was pretty enough, nice enough. She was elegant and lovely, really. But I couldn’t talk to her like I talked to Maggie. She didn’t challenge me, didn’t fight with me. She didn’t make me laugh. She didn’t drive me crazy. She didn’t haunt my dreams or my every waking thought.

      It wasn’t Layla’s fault; it was mine. I didn’t have the balls to stop this, even though I knew how wrong it was. Layla didn’t deserve to be saddled with someone like me; she just didn’t know to expect any better. She’d been raised the same way I had—we were both fulfilling the roles we’d been given despite the small, temporary reprieve.

      It was a tradition of sorts. They gave you a limited amount of time. Time to go to some fancy Western university to get a piece of paper that was basically worthless for all we needed it. In my case, I got a little extra time—time to make sure my English was where my father wanted it to be. A year of studying in Boston before I went to the International School.

      Every guy I knew from my world had a job waiting for him when he got back home. We had a few years to blow off steam, to party, to see the world, but when time was up, we were expected to go back to being the person they wanted us to be, to thinking the way they wanted us to think, to playing by their rules. On graduation day, we were supposed to flip a switch and forget everything, leaving the lives we’d built behind us like they were nothing.

      Maybe I should have been grateful for the time I’d had. Maybe I was lucky I’d gotten that at all. But now, selfishly, impossibly, I wanted more. I had nine months of freedom left, and there was only one person I wanted to spend them with.

      Maggie

      “HOW WAS YOUR first day?” Michael asked. He sat down across from me at the dinner table, tray in hand. He was one of my closest friends—and my only American friend in London.

      “It was good. Classes were interesting. No major disasters. You?”

      “Boring as hell.” He grimaced, poking at his food. “What is this? Is it just me, or has the food gotten even worse this year?”

      I stared at the lumpy mess on my plate. It was supposed to be some kind of Indian food. Not so much. The cafeteria food was a huge disappointment for a school as fancy as the International School.

      “It’s definitely worse,” Fleur announced, sinking down into the seat next to mine.

      “Did you manage to make it to any of your classes today?” I teased. When I’d left for mine this morning, she’d been curled up in bed, fast asleep.

      Fleur СКАЧАТЬ