The tension with Khamees had settled into a cold, awkward layer over everything. They still worked on the channel, but their conversations were clipped, limited to schedules and edits. Zaid felt a lonely kind of stubbornness; he was doing this his way, even if his way felt slower and harder. He was sitting in his room, mindlessly scrolling through analytics that refused to climb, when his phone rang.It was an unknown number.His stomach clenched. He was terrified it would be his father again. He took a deep, rational breath. It can’t be him. He said everything there was to say. It’s over. He swiped to answer.“Hello?”“Is this Zaid?” The voice was a woman’s, it was professional, and unfamiliar.“Yes.”“Zaid, good afternoon. My name is Leen, and I’m calling from the production team for Evening Dialogue on Channel Seven. We produce the program for the host, Amina Al-Fiqhi.”Zaid sat up straight, his heart doing a sudden, hard thump against his ribs. Amina Al-Fiqhi? The most famous talk

The night was a flat, endless desert of dread. Zaid didn’t sleep. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, the producer’s ultimatum and Khamees’s final, cold words echoing on a loop. Liability. Lawsuit. Alone. The words morphed into his mother’s anxious face, into the shame of explaining he’d brought legal trouble upon them. By 4 AM, the fight had bled out of him completely, leaving only a cold, numb obedience. He had no cards left to play. He sent a terse email to the producer’s assistant: “I will be there tomorrow. I apologize for my unprofessional behavior.”The return to the studio the next afternoon was a walk to the gallows. Everything was the same, the coiled cables, the buzzing lights, the hurried crew, but the atmosphere was different. A frosty, contemptuous silence hung in the air. Where there had been polite, if hurried, professionalism before, now there were only curt instructions and averted eyes. He was a problem to be managed, a piece of difficult cargo to be shippe

The peace that followed the reconciliation was not the fiery, ambitious drive of before, but something slower and more deliberate. Zaid’s world, which had been spinning wildly around the axis of the channel, finally stabilized, allowing him to see the other pillars of his life that had been neglected.He immersed himself in his studies with a monastic focus. The numbers and theories in his textbooks were a refuge—their problems had clear solutions, unlike the messy equations of his personal life. He spent long hours in the library, his phone buried in his bag, and slowly, his grades began the arduous climb back from the brink. He knew good marks were a currency, a different kind of capital he needed for a future he couldn’t yet define.Beyond the classroom, he became a whirlwind of pragmatic activity. He joined the school’s tennis club, not out of any great love for the sport, but because he’d heard it looked good on university applications for leadership and teamwork. He swung the ra

The email from Saeed sat in their inboxes like a gleaming, unopened gift box. The standard contract was attached, a PDF of dense legal language that felt both intimidating and legitimizing. They printed two copies, the ink still smelling of possibility and fine print.Their first stop was Zaid’s home. His mother was in the kitchen, the familiar, comforting scent of onions sautéing in ghee filling the air. She wiped her hands on her apron as they approached, her eyes immediately catching the serious, expectant looks on their faces.“Mama, we need to ask you something important,” Zaid began, his voice tighter than he intended. He placed the printed contract on the small kitchen table, smoothing out a curl in the paper.His mother sat down, pulling her reading glasses from the pocket of her apron. She read in silence for a long time, her finger tracing the lines. Zaid and Khamees stood like nervous petitioners, watching her face for a flicker of disapproval or worry. She asked a few clar

The creeping, itchy feeling of being a public curiosity was still clinging to Zaid when a more formal summons came. A message from the headmaster’s office, delivered by a passing prefect, requested his presence at the end of the school day. A cold spike of anxiety pierced his gut. Had someone complained about the whispers in the cafeteria? Had his modeling been deemed “unbecoming” of a student?He knocked on the heavy wooden door with a sense of dread.“Come in.”It wasn’t the headmaster, but his assistant, A young man known for his dry tone and encyclopedic knowledge of school regulations. He sat behind a neat desk, a file open before him.“Zaid. Please, sit.”Zaid sat on the edge of the hard chair, back straight, bracing for a reprimand.The assistant adjusted his glasses and peered at him. “There have been… rumblings. Around the school. And beyond it, it seems.” He didn’t sound disapproving, merely factual. “It has come to our attention that you have embarked on a rather successfu