Ehden Summer Nights | ليالي صيف إهدن
"She returns to her family's summer house in Ehden after decades away. He's the childhood friend who never left. In cool mountain air, old flames prove they never died. 'Inti el safha lli ma kharbastha' (أنتِ الصفحة اللي ما خربشتها)."
Ehden Summer Nights
ليالي صيف إهدن
Ehden remembers everything.
The summer house where I spent every July. The trails I ran. The boy I loved before life intervened.
I'm back. So is he.
I'm Colette.
Fifty-three, divorced, thicker than I was at seventeen. The house is crumbling; I'm here to decide its fate.
Nassib Karam never left the mountain.
"Ya Allah. Colette?"
He's at the garden wall where we used to meet. Silver-haired now, weather-worn, but those eyes—those eyes haven't changed.
"Kifak, Nassib?"
"Better now."
Thirty-five years collapse.
We're seventeen again—summer heat, stolen kisses, promises we couldn't keep. Then the war, then my family's flight to Montreal, then silence.
"Why didn't you write?"
"Why didn't you come back?"
He's fifty-five.
Stayed through everything—war, occupation, rebuilding. Married, widowed, raised children who've now scattered. This mountain is his entire life.
"Do you hate me?"
"For leaving?" He shakes his head. "I hated the circumstances. Never you."
We rebuild the summer house together.
Contractors and paint, yes, but also memories. He shows me what's changed; I tell him what I carried away.
"I dreamed of this house," I admit.
"I dreamed of you in it."
One evening, thunder rolls.
Mountain storm, power out, just candles and the scent of rain. We're on the porch where we once planned futures.
"Nassib—"
"I know." He moves closer. "Thirty-five years of knowing."
The kiss completes something.
A circuit broken by war, distance, wrong decisions. His mouth on mine like coming home.
"We're too old—"
"We're exactly the right age." His hands frame my face. "Inti el safha lli ma kharbastha."
"The page you never wrote on?"
"The story that was always waiting."
We make love in my childhood bedroom.
Where I once dreamed of him. He undresses me slowly, gasping at who I've become.
"You're..."
"Different. Old. Heavy—"
"Magnificent." He kisses my shoulder. "You grew into yourself. I always knew you would."
His hands remember.
Even thirty-five years later, they know my body—older, yes, but the same. He worships every change like a gift.
"Nassib—"
"I've waited so long. Let me take my time."
His mouth between my thighs.
I grip the headboard where I once gripped pillows, dreaming of exactly this. The pleasure is sharper for the waiting.
"Ya Allah—"
"I've dreamed of this sound."
When he enters me, I weep.
Not from sadness—from completion. Thirty-five years of the wrong life, finally right.
"Aktar—"
"Aiwa—"
We move like we never stopped.
Same rhythm, same connection. Just older bodies, wiser hearts.
"Ana jayyi—"
"Ma'aya—"
The climax is a homecoming.
We cry out together, the storm outside matching the storm within. Then silence, rain, breath.
"Stay," he whispers.
"In Ehden?"
"With me. Here. Forever."
Three years later
The summer house is restored.
I live there year-round now. Nassib across the garden, but mostly here. With me. Where he belongs.
"Worth the wait?" I ask.
"Every single summer."
Alhamdulillah.
For mountains that remember.
For friends who wait.
For pages finally written.
The End.