“You shouldn’t have had him here at all.”
“But … why?” I truly do not understand the prejudice she and my mom have against Mati. I mean, initially, maybe—I felt it, too, the sting of the word “Afghanistan,” the way it intensified every terrible second that’s passed since Nick died. But I got to know him, and my apprehension disappeared. Mom and Audrey don’t want to see how fantastic he is. They’re too scared—too narrow-minded—to care.
“Why?” Audrey asks, flabbergasted. “Because it’s too damn hard!”
“It wouldn’t be, if you’d give him a chance.”
“I don’t want to give him a chance, and you shouldn’t, either. He’s leaving, thank God, and then none of us will ever have to think about him again. We’ll be better off.”
I blink away the threat of tears. “Not me.”
Audrey shakes her head. “I saw the way you were kissing him—I saw the way you looked at him, like a lovesick puppy. You don’t even know him. It’s awful.”
“I know him—I know everything I need to know. It’s you who’s awful, you and my mom.”
“Elise, Nick died because of those people!”
I shoot up off the sofa. Anger courses through me, making my mouth taste bitter. “Nick never would’ve treated one of my friends the way you just treated Mati. He’d be disgusted by the way you acted.”
She rears back, like I’ve slapped her, and guilt crashes into me.
“Aud—”
“No,” she says, glaring up at me. “Get out of my house.”
I stare at her for a moment that stretches so long and taut, it becomes unbearable. She stares right back, eyes flashing with fury. Who is she?
“Elise, go!”
*
I step out of Audrey’s cottage, into the night.
I dial Mati, stumbling down the sidewalk.
He answers immediately. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say, but my voice sounds unsteady. “Are you home?”
“No. I walked to town. I needed air.”
I need air, too. And I need him, because right now, he’s the only person capable of mending the gash torn through me. “Will you meet me?”
“Where?”
Not my house. I’m sure Audrey’s on the phone with my mom, and I’m sure she’s reporting exactly what she walked in on, which means Mom is mid-freak-out. As if on cue, my phone beeps with an incoming call.
“There’s a park on Raspberry Street,” I tell Mati, letting the call go to voice mail.
“The citadel made of wood?”
I smile despite myself. “If a citadel is the same as a castle, then yes. I can be there in ten.”
“I can be there in five.”
elise
I find him sitting on the ground in front of the deserted play structure, illuminated by the glow of the overhead streetlamps. He’s hunched over his notebook, pen in hand, scribbling furiously. His face is a valley of shadows.
I approach him cautiously, conscious of the barriers we demolished earlier, before Audrey interrupted the kiss to end all kisses. My lips tingle at the memory and, distracted, I step on a twig, splitting it with a crack.
Mati’s head jerks up. He spots me and springs up off the ground, simultaneously pushing the notebook and pen into his pocket. A moment of heedful indecision restrains us. I attempt a smile, but it’s fragmented, a half-baked effort because the sight of him, all wounded and unsure, fills my eyes with tears.
He rushes toward me, reaching out to grasp my hands. “Elise,” he says, “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. This is my fault—all of it.”
“No. I should have known better.”
“Known better than what? Audrey was terrible to you. I’m so mad I want to pummel her. She’s messed up because of what happened to my brother, and she talks without thinking, and we surprised her, and I—I hate that you had to hear that. I’m just … I’m so sorry.”
He quiets me with a hand on my cheek. “Don’t be.”
My body inclines toward him because now that I know what close-to-Mati feels like, his nearness is a craving. I place my palm flat on his chest, just over his beating heart; it’s impossible not to touch him. “Thanks for meeting me,” I whisper before I get carried away.
He nods toward a nearby bench. “Should we sit?”
I consider, and then I’m struck by a stroke of genius. “Not there.”
I lead him toward a set of low steps and up onto the play structure. I pick my way through the darkness, across a row of smooth planks, to the drawbridge. I stop just before, extending a foot to give the bridge a shake. “Think you can make it across?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen a park quite like this.”
“Oh, come on. If Janie can do it, you can, too.”
His mouth curves into a half grin. “I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.” He edges past me, out onto the bridge. His first steps are careful, but then he acclimates to the way the bridge swings and becomes uninhibited, candidly happy, so different from his usual vigilance.
“Come on,” he says, reaching for me.
I take his hand and stagger onto the swaying bridge, bumping his hip with mine as we’re jostled side to side. He’s laughing and I am, too, and the last hour seems distant, like nothing compared with the silliness that is this moment.
If Mom and Audrey could see us now.
The bridge rocks sideways, rattling on its chains, and I totter forward. Mati hooks an arm around my waist, saving me from a fall into the moat (or whatever) like a knight in shining armor. The bridge stills because we have, but his arm stays looped around me, and I surrender a breath to surprise.
“Is this okay?” he says.
This is more than okay. It’s new, therefore thrilling, but tender and reassuring, too. My hands land on his chest and rest there like it’s their rightful place. His heart strum-strum-strums through the soft cotton of his shirt, trapped beneath the corral of his rib cage. He’s looking at me like he can’t believe I’m here, he’s here, we’re here. He’s looking at me like he adores me.
Is this okay?
I nod.
“I was disappointed tonight,” he says, “because of the way your sister-in-law treated me. But do you know what was more disappointing?”
My whisper is raw and eager: “What?”
“Being interrupted. You stopped kissing me, and that kiss … that kiss was everything.”
“I wasn’t sure. I mean, it was for me, too, but…”
“But?”
“But you’re not supposed to be kissing girls.”
He leans forward, and I do, too. There’s that tug again, invisible filaments stretching from my heart to his, reaching out to meet him, capture him, claim him. He’s a breath away when he says, “I am only kissing you.”
He threads his fingers into my hair and dips to press his mouth to mine. I expect tentativeness, but there is none. There’s heat, and there’s hunger, and there’s me, yielding, reaching up to circle my arms around his neck, pressing closer, and closer, and closer, until the bridge is swinging and Mati’s pulling back, smiling.
“Where were we headed when we stepped onto this bridge?”
“That way,” I say, pointing to the playground’s tallest turret.
“Lead the way, shaahazadi.”
elise
“You have to tell me what it means,” I say, nudging him with my elbow.
“I will, when you pronounce it correctly.”
I try again, though I fear I’m a lost cause. “Shaahazadi.”
Butchered.
He grins, shaking his head. We’re leaning against the wall of the turret, shielded from the cool night air, in a cocoon of privacy. We’re side by side, aligned knee-hip-shoulder as we gaze through the turret’s glassless windows. The sky is blue-black and dotted with crystalline stars, not so different from the pair on my ceiling.
“You’ll get it,” Mati says. “Eventually.”
“What if I ask really nicely? Then will you tell me what it means?”
“What would ‘really nicely’ sound like?”
I stretch until my mouth is a millimeter from his ear. He’s gone rigid, but he makes no effort to move away. “Mati,” I breathe. “Please tell me what shaahazadi means.”
A shiver ripples through him. “You are very persuasive, princess.”