“Well, what else do you have up your sleeve?” I ask, feeling emboldened in the privacy of this room. This tiny place exists outside reality. As do all our times together.
A secretive smile plays on his lips, and he lowers his head. I instinctively close my eyes, waiting for his lips to touch mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he lays his forehead against the door right beside my ear and his body is flush against mine.
Somehow this feels more intimate.
It’s too hot under my sweater and I press myself firmly against the door until I’m sure I’m about to fuse with it.
“I’ve thought so much about the time stolen from us,” he whispers, and I nearly sigh. His voice is so close. “If things weren’t like they are, we’d be long married. I would take you all over Syria on a road trip. We’d visit every city and village. See the history that lives in our country. I’d kiss you on the beaches of Latakia, pick flowers for you in Deir ez-Zour, take you to my family home in Hama, have a picnic under the ruins of Palmyra. People would look at us and they’d think how they’ve never seen two people more in love.”
I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I hope he never stops talking.
“I wanted so many things,” he says and rests his forehead on my shoulder. Melancholy drips from his tone. “But meeting you, loving you… you made me realize how life can be salvaged. That we deserve to have happiness in this long night.”
Finally, he leans back and gazes at me so tenderly I might actually start weeping.
“Thank you for being my light,” he whispers.
And this time, I don’t wait for him to kiss me.
I link my arms around his neck, pulling him in. The kiss is sweet, and it fills me with hope for a future where I’ll wake up in his arms, no nightmares dragging us down. Just us in a house we made into a home with a flowering garden and half-filled sketchbooks.
He tilts my chin up, staring deeply into my eyes, and says, “We’ll be okay.”
“Insh’Allah,” I whisper.
We pass by Dr. Ziad when we go into the atrium holding hands. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles at us and rushes to check on a patient. I guess seeing me leaning on someone for support is putting him at ease.
That night, Kenan becomes an assistant, helping me around the hospital. He’s a quick learner, and after showing him how to change bandages without wasting gauze, he’s able to do it on his own.
We sneak glances at each other, smiling foolishly before looking back at our work, and it’s the strangest feeling.
When the rhythm at the hospital slows, Kenan and I sit on the floor against one of the walls, exhaustion finally overcoming us. All the beds are taken, so he gestures for me to lay my head on his lap, and I do, too bone-tired to feel flustered. I fall into a state of dissociation from reality, not quite asleep and not awake. Somewhere in between. It’s as if my mind and body aren’t able to fully rest.
Around the early hours of the morning a loud crash not far away jolts us all. Like shrapnel falling. Like a tank’s rifle puncturing a building. I clamber to my feet, heart in my throat, and Kenan wakes with a gasp.
“What’s happening?” he asks wildly.
“I don’t know.”
Another crash. This time closer, and the patients who can move scramble, fleeing to the walls and deeper into the hospital’s hallways. Children cry and panicked voices echo against the ceiling.
“Kenan, get up,” I say in a hollow voice. Urgency swells in my heart. “Now! We have to get Lama and Yusuf.”
Whatever is happening outside, it’s coming here, and when it does it’ll leave the hospital in ruins.
KENAN GRABS MY HAND,BUT BEFORE WE’RE ABLEto take a step, the hospital doors burst open and five soldiers walk in. Their green military uniforms reek of murder, their rifles hanging across chests that are bare of the Free Syrian Army’s flag. One takes out a handgun and shoots a patient execution style. A little girl with an eyepatch and two mismatched hair ties.
I stop dead in my tracks and grab Kenan’s arm. We stare as the little girl slumps over, a pool of blood swallowing her small body, staining her short black hair.
A woman screams, and the sound of it tears into my gut. She falls to her knees beside the girl and hugs her close, all the while begging her to be alive.
“Te’eburenee!” she wails.
Another shot and the girl’s body slumps back with a low thud to the floor as her mother joins her.
“Anyone else want to say something?” the soldier shouts.
The terrified wailing is instantly muted, and muffled whimpers fill the space. I can barely focus over the thundering of my heart and force myself to think. Where’s the rest of his group? The military would never send only five soldiers into FSA territory. Are they right behind them?
