The Devil Has A Bad Habit

DASH

*SEVERAL MONTHS LATER (i.e it's set before chapter 1)*

I never did think much of opera. Too bougie, too loud, too puffed-up for people like me, or so I have always told myself. But sitting beside her now, our elbows brushing, her perfume threading through the air, I hated how easily I felt myself warming to it.

Too easy.

The music had teeth tonight. It rose and dipped in colours I didn’t know instruments could make, layers folding over each other like storm clouds. Even the first act—a plump woman in a heavy archaic gown with a tall wig like another head above her— somehow glued me to the moment.

“You fancy it now?” Laila teased, dragging out the words in her exaggerated version of my accent. She was half-laughing with every syllable, her joy floating in the air. “I told you, it’s about giving things time. How do you know you like something? There you go… you give it a chance.”

“Yeah, yeah. The night’s not over yet.”

I was happy. Shamefully happy. And that was the problem; happiness was a spotlight and I didn’t want to see what it was illuminating. I could feel something shifting beneath my ribs, loosening pieces of me I had once nailed down with certainty. I have spent years mocking men who softened into the name of love, men who bent, men who fell. So why was my chest tightening like this?

This couldn’t be love. Surely not.

Love didn’t exist. I have held to this belief for years now. It couldn't be wrong. I needed it to be true.

“She’s about to sing a classic, Dash!” Laila wiggled in her seat, her whole body vibrating.

I tried to anchor myself in the music but my thoughts kept dragging me back. A voice in my head said I was losing ground, inch by inch, to this girl who laughed too easily and looked at life like it was all bubbles and smiles, like it owed her magic. Falling felt good, and 'too good' meant it wasn't real, right? I tried to steady my breathing as I pocketed my trembling hands—yes, the tremor in my hands wasn’t from the cold.

***** *****

We sat cross-legged on my living room floor afterward, our voices dropping into soft whispers for no real reason except that our faces were close enough to feel each other’s breath. The quiet felt sacred somehow.

“I know you did, Dash,” she murmured, nudging my knee with hers, “but I’ll ask anyway. Did you enjoy your first opera show?”

I tilted my head in a mock-dramatic way. “I’ll tell you this… it was different from what I expected.”

“What did you expect?” She leaned forward, eyes bright. “People yodelling at robot pitches, bulging their eyes for dramatic effect?”

“Spot on. Word for word. Plus an audience ready to stone you for clapping off-beat.”

She laughed, that soft, breathy laugh that scrunches her eyes until all you see is joy; with Laila you could almost see emotions like there were tangible before your very eyes. It always gets me. Her laugh pulled one out of me too, like some invisible thread tying our chests together.

“I don’t want to get excited about this,” she whispered suddenly, leaning into my shoulder. Her breath warmed my neck. “I don’t want her health to dip again and… I don’t want to go through that twice.”

Her mother.

“I get it, Laila.” My voice gentled without me meaning it to. “It makes sense not to raise your hopes, especially when doctors say she has little time left.”

Pain has a colour, I swear it does. It hung around her eyes, a muted shade, quiet but deep.

“Let’s not talk about me,” she said quickly, straightening and forcing a smile back onto her face. “Let’s move to something less gloomy.”

“Mmm. Why do I feel you something in mind?”

She scooted closer, tracing the veins on my hand with her slender fingers, her touch light as ink strokes. “Let’s talk about your Dad. Dinner went well, didn’t it?”

I nodded too fast, like some schoolboy answering to a teacher.

“But I don’t want to think too much of it,” I muttered, pushing myself to my feet. “I don't… I don't hate him now but maybe I’ll hate him tomorrow, or the day after. Who knows?”

My breath hitched, it always did when Dad came up. It was like the wounds he left had memories.

“Come here.” She rose and wrapped her arms around me, laying her temple on my right shoulder. Her weight pressed onto me in the gentlest way, grounding. “I know it’s a lot. But you’ve made real progress. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

I wanted to say something. Anything. But comfort had settled over me like a warm blanket and words felt unnecessary. She felt like the best kind of burden, one you never wanted to set down.

“Can I ask you….”

“I want to tell you something… no, you go first,” I stated, our faces were so close I spotted two flecks in her eyes.

“It’s nothing serious, maybe” she whispered, lowering her gaze. “But do you remember when you told me love wasn’t possible for you?”

Of course I remembered. I remembered because she had unknowingly been destroying that belief with every hour we spent together, rearranging my inner compass, redefining my truths.

“So?” she asked softly.

I didn’t even know where the courage came from.

“I don’t feel that way anymore, Laila.” My throat tightened. My heart slammed against my ribs like it was trying to escape. “Not after getting to know you. Not after falling….”

Silence folded around us as our hands found each other without our eyes meeting. It felt awkward, yes, but beautifully so, like we were both standing at the edge of something too big to name.

Love. Was this it? This thing I had mocked like it was beneath me? The absurdity of it, the surrender, something that used to make me laugh. We were just collections of atoms, weren’t we? Biology with delusions. And yet here I sat, unraveling.

“Dash,” she whispered, tugging me gently back to her. “Can I tell you something silly?”

“Sure. What is it?”

She lifted her head and locked eyes with me. Her voice trembled just slightly. “I think I love you.”

My breath left me for a bit. I hugged her without thinking, eyes closing as the world softened around us.

“Laila, can I tell you something silly?”

“Mmm?”

“I think I love you too.”

We said nothing else before sleep found us, wrapped in each other’s warmth. There was nothing left to say. This felt like the beginning of a journey I had sworn I would never embark on, and yet, for once, logic didn’t matter.

Turns out when love walks into the room, reason doesn't flee—it bows.

LAILA

“That's because you keep going for the crazy ones,” I blurted out, suppressing a grin as I stared at Wendy in the mirror. “Normal guys come your way all the time. But no, you want the tough ones.”

Turning around on the stylist chair, Wendy retorted, “And what about it, Laila? I like them a little roughened up, you know, a little macho…”

Cutting in, I said, “And then they break your heart in three weeks. Yay. You're killing this ‘adulting' thing.”

Wendy, my closest friend for years now, was great at many things—sadly, choosing romantic partners has never been one. She has been in seven different relationships—two of which she called 'situationships'—in just under three years, and none of them ended on a good note. What put salt to injury was that it always something profound; either they cheated on her, explicitly disregarded her boundaries and values, or—sorry, that's about it.

“Baby, I've told you,” Wendy