The Nakba Day Reunion
"At a Nakba Day commemoration in Chicago, Amira reconnects with her childhood friend Jamal—now a man whose passion for justice matches his passion for her."
The Nakba Day Reunion
The community center was draped in Palestinian flags, black and white keffiyehs moving through the crowd like a sea of memory. Amira adjusted the embroidered collar of her mother's old thobe, feeling the weight of generations on her shoulders.
"Amira? Amira Haddad?"
She turned at her name—and froze. The boy she'd known at summer camp was gone. In his place stood a man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a beard trimmed close and eyes that held fire.
"Jamal?"
"Ya Allah." His smile split his face. "Fifteen years. You look—"
"Old?"
"Incredible." He pulled her into a hug that lasted a beat too long. "I read your article in +972 Magazine. The piece on refugee camps. It was brilliant."
"You read that?"
"I read everything you write." He stepped back, but his hands remained on her arms. "I've been following your work for years."
They talked through the speeches and the poetry readings, catching up on lives lived apart. Jamal had become a human rights lawyer, working refugee cases. He'd never married—"too busy fighting," he said with a shrug that made Amira wonder.
"And you?" he asked. "Your Facebook says 'It's Complicated.'"
"I ended it last month. He didn't understand why I spent every weekend at protests."
"Hmar." Donkey. His disgust was gratifying. "You deserve someone who fights beside you, not against you."
"Those are rare."
"They're not." His gaze was intent. "I would have been that, once. If you'd let me."
The confession hung in the air, mixing with the smoke from memorial candles.
"We were kids," Amira said carefully.
"I'm not a kid anymore." Jamal's voice dropped. "And neither are you."
The after-party moved to someone's apartment in Pilsen, speakers blaring Fairuz and Palestinian hip-hop. Amira found herself pressed into a corner with Jamal, their bodies close in the cramped space.
"I've thought about you," he admitted, his breath warm on her cheek. "All these years. What might have happened if I'd had the courage to kiss you that last night at camp."
"We were fifteen."
"I know what I wanted at fifteen." His hand found her waist. "And I still want it."
"Jamal—"
"Tell me you don't feel it." His forehead touched hers. "Tell me this isn't everything we should have had."
Amira thought of all the boys—men—who'd come after. None had matched this. None had understood.
"I feel it," she whispered.
His kiss was fifteen years of longing condensed into a single moment. Amira moaned against his mouth as Jamal pulled her flush against him, hard where she was soft.
"Ta'ali," he breathed. Come. "El beit hone qareeb." My place is close.
They barely made it inside before clothes started coming off. Jamal pressed her against his apartment door, mouth hot on her neck, hands pulling up her thobe.
"Been ahlamak," he groaned. I've dreamed of you. "Min zaman been ahlam."
"Then stop dreaming." She unbuckled his belt. "Make it real."
He carried her to the bedroom, laying her on sheets covered with keffiyeh patterns. Only Jamal would decorate like this, Amira thought—and loved him for it.
"Helwa," he said, undressing her with trembling hands. "Inti helwa w qawiya." Beautiful and strong.
"Inta kaman." You too.
When they joined, it felt like coming home. Jamal moved inside her with passionate purpose, every thrust a statement, every kiss a promise. They cried out together in Arabic, in English, in sounds beyond language.
"Habibti," he gasped against her throat. "Ya hayati." My love. My life.
"Jamal—don't stop—please—"
He didn't stop until she shattered three times, until his own release roared through him, until they lay tangled and spent and complete.
"Stay," he said afterward, tracing the key on her necklace. "I'm serious, Amira. Don't go back to New York."
"I have a job—"
"Get a new one. Chicago has magazines. Law offices need writers for policy papers. I have a spare room—" He paused. "Or you could share mine."
"Are you asking me to move in with you after one night?"
"I'm asking you to give us fifteen years' worth of nights." His eyes were vulnerable now, the fire banked to embers. "I let you go once. I can't do it again."
Amira looked at this man—passionate, principled, fighting the same fight—and wondered why she'd ever looked anywhere else.
"Khalas," she said. Enough. "Na'am."
His smile was a sunrise over occupied land—fierce, defiant, impossibly beautiful.
Outside, Chicago slept. But in Jamal's apartment, two souls who'd been searching for fifteen years finally found what they were looking for: each other.