Page 80 of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them lightly in his hand. “You should tell my dad you’ve fallen in love with him.”
Feyi stared at him, and Nasir shrugged.
“He probably feels the same way, if it’s any consolation.” He walked past her and jogged down the gazebo steps. “Bye, Feyi.”
Feyi watched his back retreat until it disappeared around a bend in the garden, leaving only his scent in the air behind him, and the shock he’d dropped in her hands.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Feyi walked over the hill in a daze. She wanted very badly to insist that Nasir didn’t know what he was talking about, but what he said rang a small but extremely clear bell of truth inside her and Feyi couldn’t unring it. If realizing this was supposed to feel exhilarating, then something was wrong, because it didn’t. Feyi actually felt like crying—out of fear, and guilt, and just the sheer mass of feelings burgeoning inside her like an unruly collection of bewildering cells. The urge to return to Brooklyn was louder and stronger than ever, and now that Pooja’s painting was done, Feyi knew it was time to go. She was walking through the citrus orchard, small fragrant blooms dotting the branches, and called Joy, even though it was going to run up her data charges like mad.
Joy was on their couch when she answered, and Feyi could see the glimpses of the apartment through the video call, the indigo throw on the arm of the couch, the wing of a monstera leaf at the edge of the frame. It was as if a window to another world was in the palm of her hand; she could smell the palo santo they used to cleanse the apartment, hear the music from the bodega wafting up through the window, taste the doubles from the spot around the corner. Feyi was literally standing in paradise, but all of a sudden, she was done with it, done with the endless sky and the rolling dark green of the trees on the mountain, done with the birds and the air and the yawning space, done with the gorgeous house waiting for her at the end of this walk. She wanted the brownstones again, the jogging route that led to the ice cream shop, her own bed in her own room.
“Babe.” Joy’s voice was worried, her eyes sharp with concern. “Babe, what’s wrong?”
Feyi wiped her face roughly. She hadn’t noticed when she’d started crying. “I just want to come home,” she said, and her voice broke on the last word, swelling up into a sob.
“Aw, sweetheart.” Joy didn’t ask any questions. “Come home, then.”
She made it sound so simple and maybe it was.
“What if that ends things with Alim? Like, what if we can’t survive long distance?”
“I think you’re worried that it’s not real,” Joy offered. “But, babe, if it’s real, the distance won’t change it. You can’t stay there forever just ’cause you don’t wanna break the spell. If y’all have something, you gotta give it a chance outside the bubble.”
Feyi sniffled and tilted her head back, trying to catch her breath. “Fuck!”
Her voice echoed over the mountain and Joy cracked up laughing.
“Bitch, get your ass home. I miss you like mad, you know?”
“Shit, I miss you, too. How are things with Justina? She still ghosting you?”
A flush of rose fed into Joy’s gold cheeks and she ducked her head. “I’ma tell you about it when you get home.”
“Oh snap! Come on, you can’t leave me hanging like that. Did she leave her husband?”
Joy smirked. “The sooner you’re home, the sooner you get the tea. Send me your itinerary when you have it!”
“Fuck you very much.” Feyi laughed.
“I love you, too, baby. I’ll see you soon?”
“Yeah, I’ma go talk to Alim now, but I’ll get a ticket as soon as Pooja picks up the painting. In the next few days for sure.”
“Sweet. I can’t wait to see you.”
“Big same.” Feyi blew Joy a kiss, then hung up. She hadn’t said anything about her talk with Nasir or what he’d said to her; Feyi needed to admit it to herself first, and then if she was going to say it out loud to anyone, Alim should be the first one to hear it. Feyi didn’t even trust herself to go into the house and face him yet, so she found a patch of grass instead and lay down on it, letting her muscles and spine relax into the mountain.
“Thank you,” she whispered into the breeze. “For holding me this long. For giving me Alim.”
Feyi called back to the first time she saw him, standing in front of the airport, dressed in white, power rolling off him in waves. How was it possible that the same man now shared his bed with her? There was so much she had learned of him since the mountain and none of it felt like enough. They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other since that morning, coming together again and again in the sprawl of his bed, against the tiles of the shower wall, and in their midnight garden with moonlight streaking their naked skin. Feyi had called it fucking and Alim had pinned her down, kissing her lightly all over till she was soaked and begging.
“You say that like you’re not my whole heart,” he’d said, finally dipping his mouth between her thighs as she trembled with need. “But as you wish. I’ll fuck you after you’ve come a few times.” He was—as she was discovering—a man who kept his promises, who could be as rough as she wanted or as soft as she feared, but Feyi hadn’t let herself drown all the way yet. The aftershocks of their first time on the mountain had flooded her heart, and she was waiting for it to dry out, hoping it could be as simple as fucking, but knowing damn well that it wasn’t.
To be honest, that’s how she knew that Nasir was right, because up under the dawn, when Alim had moved inside her, swamping her with his eyes, when Feyi had cracked apart in his arms, looking up at his face, his blinding face with the sunspots on his cheekbones and the silver in his hair, she had felt something huge rear up in her heart, like a planet shifting her lungs aside, flattening them against her ribs. Alim had held her for a long time and checked in with her after they uncoupled their bodies, asking if she was okay, how she felt, soft worry in his hands and voice. Feyi had told him she was perfect because that was how her body felt —sated and languid, fed with pleasure. She hadn’t told him that her lungs were flat, that something alive was breathing in her chest. It had been so long since she’d felt like this, Feyi didn’t recognize what it was until Nasir said it like an ambush, and fuck, he was right.
She loved Alim. Somewhere in all of this, she’d fallen in love with him, with how gentle he was, with a thousand things about it ranging from the wrinkles in his eyes when he smiled to the way he looked when he was fast asleep. She’d fallen in love with him, and it was too much, too overwhelming, how dare she love someone else after Jonah? Feyi pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and sunspots danced in her dark vision. He would have wanted that for her, sure, but he wasn’t here and that was the whole fucking point. He wasn’t here and Feyi had promised to love him until death ripped them apart, and then death had ripped them apart and she hadn’t stopped loving him; she still loved him, her first best friend, her first love. When the accident had happened, Feyi could have sworn she would never love anyone ever again. It wasn’t even a possibility. It was like a fork in the road had closed, shut off by an avalanche of grief, choked with rocks and a broken heart. It wasn’t supposed to open, and honestly, it still hadn’t, but somehow, an entirely new path had formed, green and creeping.