He smiled at the sky. “Yeah.”
“But we see each other every day.”
Finally, he looked me in the eye. Took a deep breath. “Shadi.”
“Yeah?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets, nodded toward the sidewalk. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Walk with me.”
That was the first time.
The second time—I had no good excuse for seeing him the second time. The second time was probably a mistake, the kind of decision born of simple, reflexive desire. I liked to tell myself that nothing happened, because nothing happened. I’d been doing homework while shaking a box of Nerds into my mouth when he texted me, so I closed my binder and tucked the box under my arm.
We went on another walk that day, passing the candy between us as we went. We didn’t mean to go anywhere in particular, but ended up at the library near my house, which was where I always told my mom I was going anyway.
I quickly lost track of time. We were sitting on a bench outside the building, talking about all manner of nothing. At one point I laughed so hard at something he said I nearly choked to death on Nerds, after which I tried harder to be serious, an effort that only made me nervous—and that forced into stark relief the unnamed body of truth that sat between us.
Ali didn’t mind the quiet.
He stared at me, unspeaking, and I felt it, felt everything he did not say. It was there in the way he breathed, in the way he shifted beside me, in the way his gaze dropped, briefly, to my lips. My hands trembled. I dropped the box of candy and its contents went flying across the street. My heart raced as I stared at the mess, at the pink and purple pebbles settling into cracks in the concrete. My every instinct was screaming at me, screaming that something was about to happen.
I’d just looked up at him when my phone rang.
It was my mom. My mom, who, after angrily pointing out that the sun was nearly gone from the sky, demanded I return home. I hung up and felt not unlike a dying light, flaring bright before burning out. I couldn’t bring myself to meet Ali’s eyes.
I didn’t know what to say.
I’d never have said what I was really thinking, which was that I wanted to stay there, with him, forever. It was a shocking thought. Terrifying in scope, in the demands it placed upon our bodies. Somehow, he seemed to understand.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “Me too.”
I took a deep breath now, looked out the window again. My chest felt tight, like my heart was pushing, pulling, trying to escape. The mere sight of his name in my phone inspired in me a paroxysm of emotion I could not ignore. But one way or another, something always forced me to walk away from him, and I knew—knew, and didn’t know how—that this, the third time, would be the last.
Yes,I typed back.
Same spot.
I stepped out into the light of a falling sun.
The weather had changed its mind again, the skies clearing, heating up in the second half of the day. It was an early evening in late September, the air warm and fragrant, the glowonly just beginning to gild the streets. It was one of those rare golden hours, full of promise.
I’d been so certain of my commitment to see Ali for only a few minutes that I hadn’t even told my parents I was leaving. We lived in a safe, sleepy neighborhood—the kind of place you didn’t drive through if you didn’t live there—which meant that, for the most part, the streets were empty. Quiet.
I’d disappeared into the yard, slipped through the back gate; I figured I’d be back before anyone even noticed I was gone. I glanced at the sun as I walked, felt the wind shape itself around me. On days like this I imagined myself moving with grace, my body inspired into elegance by the breeze, the flattering light. Most of the time, this sort of quiet made me calm.
Today, I could hardly breathe.
I felt nothing but nerves as I neared the end of the street. I was trying, desperately, to steady my pounding heart, to kill the butterflies trapped between my ribs.
Ali was sitting on the curb.
He stood up when he saw me, stared at me until he was blinded by a shaft of golden light. He shielded his face with his forearm, turned his body away from the sun. For a moment, he looked like he’d been caught in a flame.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
Ali said nothing at first, then took a sharp breath. “Hi,” he said, and exhaled.
We found a patch of shade under a tree, stood in it. I looked at leaves, branches. Wondered how fast a heart could beat before it broke.
