Enemies in Embrace: Episode 2 - I Left as a Daughter, I Returned as His

 

“He whispered my name like it was a secret he was discovering for the first time, and I kissed him like I was starving. That night, love didn’t feel holy—it felt dangerous, forbidden, and worth every sin.”

By Julia M Cross

 

I didn’t cry when I left him that morning. I didn’t beg for one more hour or even steal one last kiss. I just dressed in silence, folded my towel, slipped my sandals on, and walked out of the little inn without turning back. But as soon as the car rolled out of the gravel driveway and I caught my reflection in the passenger mirror, I saw it—my eyes. They looked different. Not just tired or swollen. They looked like they had just told a lie too big to fit in a suitcase.

By the time I returned to Fontainebleau, the lobby was buzzing with tourists and music. My parents were in the pool, laughing with a Jewish couple from Tel Aviv they’d met the day before. My mother raised her arms and waved, her bracelets clinking like tiny bells. I waved back and forced a smile so wide it hurt.

“How was your morning, motek?” she asked when I got to the poolside.

“I just walked around the shops. Bought a beach scarf.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

She looked at me carefully, as only mothers can. “Your cheeks are red.”

“Too much sun,” I said.

She nodded, but something in her eyes flickered. She didn’t press. She never did. She believed I was still her obedient daughter, the one who wore modest one-pieces and cried when Eliav went to military camp for three months. She didn’t know that her daughter had given herself to a man she wasn’t supposed to love. A man whose name she would spit out like sand if she ever heard it.

Yousef didn’t message me that day. I didn’t message him either. I told myself it was safer that way. That a little space would clear the fire in my head. But as I lay in bed that night, every muscle in my body remembered him. The weight of him. The way he whispered Leah in the dark, like he was discovering a secret each time.

The next morning, I went to the café near the beach alone. I brought a book, something thick and meaningless, but I didn’t open it. I kept glancing at the people walking by—tourists with cameras, boys selling sunglasses, old men dragging umbrellas through the sand. I watched each one, hoping he would appear.

And then he did.

He wore a white linen shirt, half-unbuttoned, and khaki pants. His sandals were dusty. His eyes looked like he hadn’t slept.

He didn’t sit down.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said.

I stood. “Then why didn’t you call?”

“Because I didn’t know if I should.”

I stared at him for a moment, then took his hand and pulled him into the alley behind the café. It smelled of garlic and seawater and rotting fruit. But I didn’t care.

I kissed him like I was starving.

When we pulled away, breathless, I pressed my forehead against his chest. “This is going to destroy everything.”

“I know.”

“But I don’t want to stop.”

He kissed my hair. “Neither do I.”

That evening, we met again by the poolside bar. The place was dark and half-empty. We sat in a corner, drinking iced tea like strangers. When the bartender looked away, Yousef slid his hand onto my thigh under the table. I closed my eyes.

“We could run away,” I said, half-joking.

“To where?”

“New York. Paris. Somewhere nobody cares who we are.”

He looked at me. “You’re serious?”

I shrugged. “What if I am?”

“You’d leave everything?”

I looked into my glass. “I already have.”

He didn’t laugh. He didn’t say I was crazy. He just nodded like he understood.

“I love you,” he said quietly.

I dropped my glass. It hit the table and rolled, spilling over my lap. But I didn’t care.

“Say it again,” I whispered.

“I love you, Leah.”

I had never heard those words sound like a rebellion before. I had never wanted to cry and scream and kiss someone at the same time. But I did all three that night, on the sand behind the resort, as waves crashed and the stars watched like voyeurs.

He took me back to the inn. This time, I didn’t hesitate. I undressed in front of him slowly, like a confession. He ran his hands over my skin, whispering Arabic words I didn’t understand but felt deep in my bones. We made love again—harder, needier, like two people trying to memorize each other in case they never got the chance again.

Afterward, I lay curled against him. He held me tightly, one hand on my hip, the other tracing circles on my shoulder.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“Something dangerous.”

“Are we insane?”

“Completely.”

I looked at the ceiling fan spinning above us. “I can’t go back to Eliav. I won’t.”

“Then come with me.”

I turned to face him. “To where?”

“My home. Ramallah.”

I sat up. “Are you serious?”

“My family owns a house there. My father is old-school, but he’s not cruel. My mother… she’s complicated. But we’ll find a way.”

I stared at him. “Yousef… I’m Israeli. I’m Jewish. You know what that means there.”

“I also know what it means to live without you.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to say yes and never look back. But I was scared.

Not of the bombs or the soldiers or the walls.

I was scared of what I would become in his world. A stranger. A ghost. A target.

But when he looked at me like that, none of it mattered.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But I’m sure about you.”

He kissed me again. This time, it was slow and full of sorrow. Like he knew what was coming. Like he knew that love like ours was never built to last.

But we were ready to fight anyway.

The next morning, I told my parents I was flying back early. That I needed to prepare for university.

My mother fussed over my suitcase. My father handed me cash.

“Tell Eliav we said hi,” he smiled.

I nodded and kissed his cheek.

Then I disappeared.

 

From the romance series by Julia M Cross. Next episode releases Thursday at 8 PM.