“Salama?” he asks again when I haven’t said anything in a minute.
“Y-yes,” I whisper.
He studies my features, and my synapses fire neurotransmitter after neurotransmitter. He analyzes my expression, and some emotion sears through his eyes.
I catch it before it disappears and fold it into my heart to replay later when I’m alone.
He sets me down on the cracked steps of the hospital’s gates overlooking the main road. There are a few scattered twigs on the cracked pavement. We’re far away from the front doors so we can’t hear the voices of those inside. He sits beside me, leaving a few inches between us, and rubs his hands together as if trying to get rid of the cold. His fingers are long, delicate. Like an artist’s fingers. I stare at them and imagine thatmightlife: We’d be sitting right here, huddled in thick scarves and coats. He’d lace his fingers through mine and I’d marvel at how much bigger his hand is. He’d kiss my knuckles and I’d feel like I was floating on a cloud.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, biting his lower lip. “I know I shouldn’t have touched you. I—we’re not promised to each other, and—I—” He messes his hair, looking guilty, and drags a hand down his face. “I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage or anything. Salama, I’m not—”
“Stop talking,” I say, and he falls silent, cheeks still red with remorse. “I’m not upset.”
My teeth chatter and I pull the edges of my sweater’s sleeves over my frozen hands and hug my lab coat firmly to me.
“May I give you my jacket?” he asks, and I stare at him.
He seems shocked by his question, but he’s determined.
I nod.
He shakes it off and looks slimmer without it.
No.Starved.
He drapes it over my shoulders, and I sink into the body heat still clinging to its insides. Lemons. It puts a damper on the regret, quieting the screams of those I couldn’t save, and blurs the image of Samar bleeding on the hospital bed.
I pull the lapels of his jacket even closer, focusing on my breathing until the nausea subsides.
“Salama,” he says, and my gaze settles on him. His camera is in his hands and he’s fiddling with the buttons and flaps before catching my eye, looking as if he can read my mind. But I know my emotions are displayed on my face for all to see. “Tell me something good.”
“Why?”
He gives me a half smile. “Why not?”
He wants to busy my mind with something other than the hospital. This won’t end well for my heart, but at this moment, I don’t care. He’s here beside me and for a while I want to pretend.
I want to believe in Layla’s words.
I throw the end of my hijab over my shoulder and look up at the sky, watching the way last night’s thick clouds refused to scatter. They look like a healing scab. There are dark gray ridges between the clusters, and slivers of the late-afternoon sun’s rays lighten the mass in between.
“I—” I clear my throat. The wind blows against us, and a stray piece of wrinkled paper dances along the road. No one’s walking on the pavement. There’s an abandoned car at the end of the street that’s been burned down to the frame, the flames having scorched the path beside it black.
Kenan is staring at me, but I can’t bring myself to look at his gravitational gaze, so I reach down and pick up a twig. It’s slightly wet from the touch of winter. I run my fingers over the protrusions and rough edges.
“I used to dream about the color blue,” I say, and I feel his surprise. He leans in a bit closer, and I don’t think he realizes it. The twig’s scars mirror the ones on my hands. No longer able to sustain new life. “Layla had painted a shade so unique, I thought it would bleed into my hands. It was a painting of a quiet sea and gray clouds. I’ve never seen a color like that before in my life. And the more I looked at it, the more I wanted to see the real thing.”
I chew my tongue, focusing on the twig. “Back then, Syria felt too small for me. Homs felt too small. And I wanted to see the world and write about the blue in each country because I’m sure they’re special and different in their own way. That not one shade looks like another. I wanted to see Layla’s painting in real life.”
I shudder in a breath, reopening coffins of dreams I long sealed shut. I give a small laugh, realizing. “The ‘something good’ doesn’t come for free, Kenan. Now it’s tainted with sadness. There’s no blue here, not one that inspires anyway. Just the one that decays the victims’ skin from frostbite and hypothermia. All the colors are muted and dull and there’s no life in them.”
I grip the twig tightly and turn to him. He’s smiling. It’s gentle and it makes my heart ache.
“That’s still a beautiful dream, Salama,” he says. “One that can happen.”
I don’t mean to, but I snort. “Where? In Germany? I’m not sure I’ll see colors there like I used to.” And even then, people like me don’t deserve to see them. No matter how much I want to.
Kenan stretches each finger, flexes his wrists. “It might be difficult at first. The world might be too loud or too silent. It might be neon bright or pitch black, but slowly, it’ll put itself back together. It will resemble something normal. Then you’ll see the colors, Salama.”
