Page 32 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Alim chuckled but didn’t look up from his paper.

Nasir grumbled and went to pour a cup of coffee. “Whatchu wanna do today, Feyi?”

She looked out into the courtyard and thought of the land, of the river he’d pointed out on their drive up, the waterfall it ended in. Her body felt not just alive but strong and awake. It wanted sky and water, soil and air. Maybe she’d kiss Nasir with nothing around them but rain forest. Maybe she wouldn’t even let him touch her. She was hers; she was alive; there was so much to do.

Nasir thought she was undecided. “We can do anything you want,” he said.

Feyi looked at him and smiled. “I want to do everything.”

Chapter Nine

Jonah.

Jonah at prom, kissing her in front of her horrified parents. Jonah on their college road trips, singing along to Beyoncé, his eyes sparkling. Jonah at City Hall, trying not to cry through his vows. Jonah making corn bread like his grandma taught them, breaking off a piece and slipping it into her mouth. Jonah’s fingers. Jonah’s hands. Jonah’s bleeding hands, limp against the broken glass.

Her voice, screaming his name, over and over and over.

Feyi woke up with a start, sweat sticking her T-shirt to her body and tears sticking to her face, Jonah’s name still tangled in her mouth. Her heart was pounding as she dashed her hands against her eyes and swung her legs off the bed, the soles of her feet smacking against the wood floors.

“Fuck,” she said out loud. It had been months since the last nightmare. She checked the time on her phone and cursed again when she saw she’d been asleep for only a few hours. It was still the thick dead of night. Feyi blew out a breath and stood up, pulling on pajama pants. There was no point in trying to go back to bed; she would either lie awake for another few hours or fall right back into the nightmare if she did sleep, straight to the part where they were zipping his body into the black bag and she was raking her nails against the arms of the first responders holding her back.

She put her phone in her pocket and wandered out into the sleeping house. It was her third night there, and through the glass walls she could see the night sky outside, rippling with stars between the trees. It had been ages since Feyi had seen full constellations. She walked along the wall, looking for a garden Nasir had shown her earlier, where the wall curved and the glass just dissolved into air and suddenly you were outside, no roof above you, large white stones under your feet. She ran her fingers against the glass as she walked, wondering if she was smudging it, wondering if she cared. Jonah would have loved this place.

The garden came upon her the same way it had before, like a gasp of surprise. It was flooded with moonlight, clear of tree canopy, just ink-blue sky crowded with those stars. Feyi stayed on the white stone path that wound through the garden, walking with her head thrown back, looking at the sky. There was gold bougainvillea crawling up trellises along the side, and a scattering of small fountains almost buried by greenery. Half the garden was a patio with rugs and poufs and curved daybeds arranged on it. Feyi glanced over and stopped walking when she saw Alim sitting on one of the daybeds, cross-legged and gazing up at the sky.

“Mr. Blake!” she blurted out, blushing when he turned to look at her. She hadn’t seen much of him in the last day or two. Nasir had been showing her around town, they’d eaten jerk chicken and green juice down the mountain, cooked a few meals of their own in the play kitchen, driven to the beach. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Come sit,” he said, gesturing to the cushion beside him and ignoring her apology. “It’s beautiful out here at night, isn’t it?”

Feyi hesitated, then walked over and gingerly sat next to him. Alim was wearing a white shirt and a white sarong that draped to his ankles. He looked like a holy man, or a ghost.

“It’s gorgeous,” she agreed, looking up at the moon. A wisp of a cloud passed over it.

“And call me Alim,” he added, still with his eyes to the sky. “Please.”

Feyi was grateful that he couldn’t see her face, the mild fluster that came with the intimacy of his first name in her mouth. “Sure,” she said. “Alim.”

He glanced at her then. “I like how you say it. It’s a little different.”

Feyi made sure she was looking at the rug under her feet because there was no way she was going to look him directly in the eyes while sitting in a garden full of moonlight at such close proximity. She didn’t need that kind of trouble—she’d probably already found more trouble than she’d bargained for.

“You couldn’t sleep?” he asked.

She nodded, still looking down, her gold braids a curtain against the side of her face, relieved when he looked back out into the garden.

“Neither could I. It’s a terrible thing, insomnia. I’m never more grateful for this garden than on nights like this.”

“What kept you up?” she asked, risking a glance at Alim’s profile. His curls were so like Nasir’s, thick and full, except for the moonlight glinting off his silver. His nose was steep, a sharp angle jutting from the bridge. Nasir must’ve gotten his from his mother.

Alim made a clicking sound in the back of his throat. “I wish I knew,” he said. “You?”

“Bad dreams.”

“Ah.” He gave her a commiserating look. “Those are hard.”

Feyi shrugged. Bad dreams had always sounded better than the terrors they actually were.

“What are they about?” Alim asked.