Page 37 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

How brutal, to be torn between such points, how painful the ripping away must have been. Feyi barely registered what she had done until Alim let out a breath and returned the hug, wrapping his arms around her, pressing her body to his. That was when the alarm bells finally went off, a deafening clanging, a siren screaming inside her head. The skin of his neck was millimeters from her mouth, an insignificant breath of distance, her breasts were pressed against his chest, the gold nipple bars sending insistent nerve impulses back to her brain. Her joints were turning into water.

“Feyi …”

When he said her name, she stopped breathing. She couldn’t tell what was in his voice, other than it was heavy, surprised, and clean with the shock of some revelation. He drew a ragged breath, and the moment seemed outrageously long, like someone had paused the whole mountain and Feyi could smell the sweat from his neck, feel his hair rough against her wrist, the muscle of his shoulder under her palm, his hands burning on her spine, his exhale brushing her ear.

“Alim,” she whispered, and it sounded like a sin, like she was admitting to blasphemy. She let too many secrets fall into the syllables, a foolish accident that threaded a vein of hunger into her voice, and so Feyi was not that surprised when he hissed out a breath and pulled away from her, standing up. She scrambled to her feet as well, and adjusted her waist beads, shame and desire tangling thickly inside her.

“I’m sorry,” she started. “I—”

“No.” Alim didn’t meet her eyes, looking down at the ground as he clenched and unclenched his hands. When he lifted his head to look at her, he relaxed his hands and his eyes were controlled murky ponds once again, a surface that might as well have never rippled. “I am sorry. This … this was inappropriate of me. I’ve disregarded boundaries that should have been common sense; I— I’ve been shockingly careless and a poor host. Please”—he waved one hand in an apologetic gesture and smiled at Feyi—“forgive me. I grow sentimental at my age.”

She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but the way Alim was holding himself apart reminded her that he wasn’t. This was Nasir’s father. Why were they talking about dead and lost loves in gardens and on mountain peaks, in the moonlight and the wash of a sunrise? Why had it felt like that to hold him, such a rush to have him hold her as well? What had he meant when he said her name?

It didn’t matter. Feyi composed the scattered parts of herself and smiled back at him. “I like to think that we’re becoming friends,” she said smoothly. “It’s been a while since I could talk to anyone about Jonah. I know I’ve only been your guest for a short while, but still. It means a lot to me.”

He inclined his head. “And to me, to have you listen as I rambled on about Marisol and Devon.”

Feyi started packing up their stuff, keeping her voice deliberately casual as Alim joined her. “I think I fell for someone, too, after Jonah died.”

He hefted his backpack over his shoulder. “You did?”

Feyi made a face. “Yeah, my best friend, Joy. She’s … amazing. We had a very brief thing about two years ago.”

They both took one more look at the view before starting on the trail back. “But?” Alim prodded.

“I told myself she was self-destructive and not ready for a real relationship.” Feyi shrugged. “It was easier to believe than the truth.”

Alim held a branch out of her way. “What was the truth?”

“Ah, that she just didn’t feel the same way about me.” She glanced up at him. “At least Devon loved you back.”

Alim scoffed. “That didn’t end well for either of us. This Joy, she’s still in your life?”

Feyi couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, we live together.”

“You don’t think she loves you?”

“I know she does. And that’s something I’ve learned in the years since, that there are so many different types of love, so many ways someone can stay committed to you, stay in your life even if y’all aren’t together, you know? And none of these ways are more important than the other.”

Alim shot her a grin over his shoulder. “You’re a wise friend. Joy is lucky to have you.”

Feyi blushed a little. “Oh, please,” she said.

“It’s true. I might have had a different life if I learned that when I was your age.”

She winced at the mention of their age gap, glad he couldn’t see her face as she followed him down the mountain. Maybe he was just saying it to push distance between them after that hug, to remind them of their respective places in all this. She shook out her braids, tying them back in a ponytail. Well, she had said they were friends, and she meant it.

“Can I just say,” she added, “that this is the most bisexual conversation I have had in a long time?”

Alim stopped in his tracks and burst out laughing, bending over with his hands on his knees. When he straightened up and looked at her, there were no storms in his creased eyes, no careful control, just laughter.

“You are a delight,” he said, and Feyi beamed because he said it like they were cool, like they were homies, and so the air was easier between them as they walked back down the mountain.

Chapter Eleven

Feyi avoided Alim for the next few days. The rest of their walk back to the house hadn’t been awkward, but once Feyi was alone in her room, under the beating pulse of her shower, she had burst into tears. It hurt, the way Alim had pulled away from her at the peak, closing himself off. She kept remembering how quickly he’d scrambled to his feet, like she was something he shouldn’t have been touching, and even though that was technically true, it still made Feyi feel like shit.

She threw herself into her work instead, prepping for the group exhibit as Nasir drove her up and down the mountain. The show was opening soon, so Feyi stepped into her artist persona like a waiting and safe skin. She met the staff at the National Museum, sourced the materials she needed, and ran through the best ways to install her piece. Her name was now printed on all the promotional material for the show, under its title—Haunted. That theme had felt perfect for Feyi’s work, the way it applied to so much of the personal as well as the wider emotions across Black Diaspora, as Rebecca had explained when they first spoke. The curator had been delighted to meet Feyi in person.