Page 65 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

Alim stopped and looked at her. Feyi could tell he was upset, but leashing it, controlling his feelings like he always did, like he’d done with Nasir just earlier. She leaned forward in the bed and took him in slowly, saying nothing at first. Alim stood easily, his weight on one leg, his arms relaxed, watching her as she watched him.

“Take those off,” she said, nodding at his running shorts.

Alim hooked his thumb into the elastic of the waistband, then paused. Feyi stared at him, her face blank, the air between them both uncertain and sure. He pulled them off, his spine curving forward as he bent to tug them away from his feet, tossing them to one side, then standing naked in front of her. Feyi examined him from across the room, the cut of his hips, the soft skin at the tip of his uncircumcised penis, the trimmed hair above it, the small whorl of his navel. Alim studied her curiously, saying nothing.

Feyi climbed out of the bed and walked over to him, the T-shirt he’d given her hanging halfway down her thighs. Alim looked at her and tugged on one of the curled braids falling over her shoulders. Feyi kept her face neutral as she raked a finger down his sternum, along one rib, tracing it under his arm to his back and into his spine as she walked around his body. He let out a jagged breath as she stood behind him and slid her arms around him, splaying her hands over his chest and pressing herself to his back, her cheek flattened between his shoulder blades.

“What will you do when you get tired of me?” she asked, her voice spilling on his skin. Alim put his hands over hers.

“You’re a whole world to me, Feyi. I could spend the rest of my life learning you and I’d never get tired.” He let out a brief chuckle. “I should be asking you why you feel this way about some old man.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know exactly how exceptional you are.”

“Ah, sweetness.” He shook his head and squeezed her hands. “Sometimes I count the decades I might have with you, if I’m lucky?”

“Don’t say that.” She pressed a kiss against his spine, sweat and salt dry on his skin. They weren’t supposed to be talking about plans or the rest of their lives. It was supposed to wait until later, but perhaps now was later, now that Nasir knew, now that their secret was flayed open and exposed.

“No, but it’s true,” Alim was saying. “I think about how many years you’ll have left when I’m gone, how it feels inevitable that I will abandon you.” He turned around so he could look at her. “And I’m selfish, so selfish that even with that, I can’t bring myself to not try to give you the best of every year I have left.”

Feyi looked up at him. “No plans,” she reminded him, if only to stop the flood of words he was giving her, to stop the way it made her feel. “This is already almost impossible.”

“Do you truly believe that?” he asked, frowning a little.

“Not really,” she admitted. “But literally everyone else will.”

Alim shrugged. He was even more relaxed naked than he was with clothes on. “I only care what you think.”

“I think—” Feyi broke off and took a deep breath, her arms still wrapped around him. None of this mattered, except the parts that did. “I want to be with you. I feel clear about that, even when I’m terrified that you’ll change your mind about wanting to be with me. This feels … right. It feels like living in another world, one that’s just off to the side from the one everyone else is in, but it feels right.”

Alim nodded. “It’s ours. And just because it’s just us in it right now doesn’t mean it’s not real. You’re real, so am I, so are our feelings. I’m not running away, Feyi, but you’re so afraid I will that you’re the one running, or trying to.”

She grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry.”

He kissed her cheek and stepped out of her arms. “I’m going to jump in the shower, feel free to join me. Or watch.”

“I think I’ll take you up on that,” Feyi replied. “But just the watching part.”

Alim shook his head. “Little voyeur.” He grabbed a towel and flicked it at her, and Feyi followed him into the bathroom, laughing.

• • •

Jonah.

They’re pulling her to safety, and someone’s shouting that the car’s about to blow. She’s trying to find her voice, to pull it out of her bruised throat, but it’s taking too long. She’s struggling against the people trying to help her, she’s not the one who needs help— he is. He’s still in there, and they’ve turned to go and get him, but she knows why they helped her first, she saw when they took his pulse and shook their heads, except they need to pull him out, they need to try. They take a step, and the air goes whoomp as the car blooms into an orange flower. She’s screaming, her voice is back, she’s screaming his name.

Jonah. Jonah. Jonah.

Feyi jerked up in the bed, his name mangled in her mouth, the car still aflame before her.

Alim snapped awake beside her, sitting up. “Feyi?”

She swung her head toward his voice, her eyes wide and unseeing.

“You’re dreaming, Feyi. Wake up.”

Feyi looked up at him, her eyes focusing, then she gasped in a massive breath and doubled over, pain knifing through her. “Oh God.” She wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Oh God.”

It hurt like it had just happened, like the years between then and now had collapsed into nothing and this was normal, Feyi’s old therapist had reassured her of that, but it still came unexpected and hard and fast and the boy she’d loved for so long was gone, with his terrible puns and almond eyes, with his burnt-sugar hair and thick eyebrows.