The Impossibility of Us Read online

  We look lovesick, just like Audrey said.

  “Kiss me,” he whispers.

  I do, gingerly pressing my mouth to his, mindful of his split lip and bruised cheek, gentle with his battered body. I have never kissed anyone so carefully, so attentively, yet I’m as hungry for him as I’ve ever been. It’s a good kiss, a restorative kiss, a long-overdue kiss. It lasts a fraction of a second, and a thousand lifetimes.

  And then I hear muffled voices, an opening door, Ryan’s amused, “Oh, oops,” followed by deep chuckles.

  I draw away from Mati as our friends crowd into the room, bellowing reassurances and sympathies, which Mati accepts amiably, if not wearily.

  Not a minute later, Hala and Rasoul arrive. It happens so fast: She gives Ryan and Xavier inquisitive glances, and then she turns toward where I sit beside her son, my heart drowning in the pit of my stomach. Her mouth falls open as she observes my body, inclined toward Mati’s, my palm, aligned with his, my face, cloaked in a passion-induced haze—like his.

  “Matihullah!” she cries.

  I snatch my hand away as she unleashes a string of Pashto as rapid and sharp as machine-gun blasts. Rasoul touches her shoulder, but she doesn’t quiet until she’s said her piece, punctuating her tirade with an arctic glare aimed right at me.

  Thank God she didn’t see us kissing.

  Mati looks like a snared animal—cornered, fearful, humiliated. “Elise, maybe you should…”

  He doesn’t have to finish; he needs me to go. The regret saturating his voice is the same as a thousand hailstones, pelting my skin.

  “Thank you for coming,” Rasoul says, gracious. His hand lingers on his wife’s shoulder, equal parts cautionary and reassuring, making it clear that he sees the world in loops and curves, while Hala only perceives hard lines. Because she’s still looking at me like I’m depraved—like it’s my fault her son was attacked.

  Her judgment seeps into my flesh, making me cold with shame.

  Mati watches as I back toward the door, toward where Ryan and Xavier wait, toward escape from Hala’s harsh gaze.

  “We’ll get her home safe,” Xavier says before stepping into the hallway with Ryan close behind.

  I keep my shoulders back and my head high as I pass Mati’s parents. They say nothing, but his curiosity and her animosity, their combined concern, overwhelming in its intensity, make me wonder if I shouldn’t have come here after all.

  MATI

  She leaves with my heart in her hands.

  Mama does not talk to me

  for what remains of the day.

  She listens to nurses and doctors,

  and is attentive when Baba

  translates words she does not know.

  She purses her lips

  and makes muted tsking sounds

  as she puzzles over diagnoses

  and prescribed treatments.

  But she does not talk to me.

  I wonder …

  Should we return to Afghanistan early?

  Should we flee America,

  and the monsters who lurk

  in its idyllic towns?

  Because what if it had been Mama,

  beaten because of her flowing hijab?

  What if it had been Baba’s frail body,

  dragged into a dark alley?

  I raise the topic aloud,

  and Baba reminds me:

  “Leaving America early

  is the same as succumbing to fear.

  Leaving America early

  means prejudice has won.”

  I am not surprised by his response;

  he is stubborn and he is righteous.

  I long to be more like him.

  He and Mama stay with me

  until the sun ducks behind the horizon.

  As they ready to leave for the cottage,

  Baba promises they will return tomorrow.

  Mama looks relieved to be on her way.

  She is disappointed because I have sinned,

  and because I have been attacked.

  I am disappointed, too,

  for the very same reasons.

  Finally, I am alone with my pain.

  While the whole of my body aches,

  my chest is hurt’s epicenter.

  Breaths and coughs

  bring lightning bolts of agony.

  I am caught in a vice,

  squeezed slowly,

  as my ribs begin to knit back together.

  To distract myself, I think of her.

  She balked earlier

  when I said I was fortunate,

  but there is nothing truer.

  It could have been worse,

  there in that alley.

  It could have been worse,

  this year in Cypress Beach.

  I met her, after all.

  She is fire: bright, hot, consuming.

  All the rest is smoke on a breeze.

  For three more weeks,

  she is mine, and I am hers.

  elise

  Mati makes a relatively swift recovery—I know, thanks to Ryan’s updates.

  He spends two more days in the hospital, where doctors monitor his injured kidney, where he’s deluged with fluids and curative medicines, where he practices getting around, carefully and slowly, so his ribs will continue to heal.

  He returns to his cottage three days after the assault, where he spends more time recuperating. We talk on the phone often, thanks to Ryan’s generosity and a little sneaking around, though I’m still going bananas, worrying about him, lamenting the loss of my own phone, wishing I could drop by and check in on him. But I haven’t forgotten the way his mother looked at me when she walked into his hospital room. I’m not sure I’ll ever feel comfortable sharing space with her again.

  I want Mati healthy; I want to see him, hug him, kiss him.

  I want to stop thinking about how at summer’s end, all I’ll have left to do is miss him.

  Ryan knocks on our cottage door a week after the alleyway attack. My mom answers, a rare reprieve from her library and her manuscript, and spends a few minutes chatting him up. She gives me a quick kiss on the cheek as she heads back into the cottage, which appears loving but feels manipulative. She’s been super nice lately, but only because she thinks I’ve omitted Mati from my life, thanks to her crackerjack parenting.

  I haven’t talked to her about what happened last week, the thugs who pummeled him because of where he’s from, how he looks, what he believes. I let her go on thinking what she wants to think, because she won’t hear me. She doesn’t want to.

  Ryan waves me into the yard, where we sit on the cool grass close to the box hedge. I ask him about Xavier, and he goes incandescent, talking about his air force boy. “He told me Lackland Air Force Base is on his list of possible duty stations when he’s done at the MLI. That’s in San Antonio, which means we wouldn’t be inconceivably far from each other.”

  I smile, happy for them, but rueful, too, because soon, Mati and I will be inconceivably far from each other. “You guys are going to live happily ever after,” I tell him.

  He gives my arm a sympathetic squeeze. “Mati’s gonna be home alone this afternoon. He wants you to come by. His parents are headed to San Jose for one of his father’s appointments, and if you go over after lunch, y’all should be good for a few hours.”

  My impulse is to resist a secret meeting. It’s shameful—not being with Mati, but the way we have to be together. Still, time with him outweighs my moral hesitancies. “You really think it’s okay? I don’t want to get him into trouble with his parents. His mother.”

  Ryan rolls his eyes. “His mother will never know. But I can call him and double-check.”

  “I’d rather call him myself, and I’d like to visit him without feeling like a sneak. I want him to come to my cottage and hang out, talk my mom’s ear off like you just did. I want the world to let us be.”

  “Sucks, Elise. Truly. But at least you guys will have this afternoon.” He pu
lls out his phone and taps out a text. “I’m gonna tell him you’ll see him later.”

  I should be excited—this reunion is a week in the making. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t rushing headlong toward inevitable separation. I can’t stop thinking about how hard it’s going to be when he leaves the United States, because thanks to days of unavoidable distance, I know how much it sucks—how much it hurts—to be away from him.

  I spent most of last night awake, watching for shooting stars through my open bedroom window, trying to decide if being with Mati is worth the worry and the stress and the feeling of pending doom that won’t let me be. His mother’s reaction to us at the hospital flung seeds of doubt through my conscience, and they’re taking root. As often as I try to weed them away, they’re invasive as thistle. I’m barely speaking to my mom, I haven’t seen Audrey or Janie in ages, I haven’t picked up my camera in days.

  I feel sad. All the time.

  I wonder if I should treat this last week’s time apart as the beginning of our end—if I should break things off now, today, before the task becomes unendurable.

  My heart might be better off if I don’t allow it to fall further into him.

  Ryan tweaks my hair. “Cheer up, okay? I’m only willing to be the bearer of good news. I’ll quit playing courier if you’re gonna be bummed.”

  I force a smile. “Consider me cheered.”

  He goes. I eat a quick lunch, then hustle through a shower and pack my camera bag. I interrupt my mom’s writing to tell her I’ll be shooting around town.

  “Hopefully, I’ll be able to return your phone soon,” she says as I stand in the doorway of her library. She’s staring at her computer’s giant monitor, her mind caught somewhere between Cypress Beach and the Wild West. “Oh!” she says, swiveling in her chair to face me. “I almost forgot: Audrey called earlier. The restaurant asked her to fill a shift tonight, and she was hoping you’d watch Janie.”

  My mouth pulls into a surprised smile. God, I’ve missed Janie. I’m practically jumping up and down at the chance to babysit. “Yeah, I can do that. No problem.”

  “No boys,” my mom says sternly.

  “You think I’m stupid enough to make the same mistake twice?”

  She turns back to her computer. “Sometimes I don’t know what to think, Lissy.”

  I leave her to her manuscript.

  I once had a thousand desires.

  But in my one desire to know you all else melted away.

  —Rumi

  elise

  Mati’s waiting in his front yard.

  I spot him from a ways down the block, before he sees me, and study him as I make a quiet approach. He’s sporting his slouchy hat, the one he wore the first time he held my hand, which makes it my favorite of all the hats in the world, and he’s got his notebook propped on a fence post. He’s bent over it, scribbling. As I get closer, I notice his mouth moving, silent words flowing to the page. Even from a distance, he appears buoyant, a thousand times healthier than he did at the hospital last week.

  I catch his effervescence as if it were contagious.

  I stop. Carefully, silently, I retrieve my Nikon. I locate him in its viewfinder, bringing him into sharp focus. I’ve got only one chance at this—the first photograph has to be perfect because the sound of my camera will interrupt the moment. Biting my lip, relaxing my muscles into stillness, I press the shutter release. My camera emits a soft click-click-click as it captures Mati in his element, all quiet contemplation and peaceful inspiration. I feel a similar rush of creation as I review the digital image—it’s flawless, and not because of anything I did. It’s him, caught spinning something from nothing. He’s stunning.

  When I look away from the Mati I’ve frozen in time to the Mati who stands twenty yards away, I find him gazing back at me. Returning my camera to its bag, I walk the rest of the way down the sidewalk. He opens the gate. I step into the yard.

  “You made it,” he says.

  “I did.”

  We stand a few feet apart, on separate cobblestones that feel like rafts in a churning sea. He really does look good; he’s standing straight and tall, and the bruise that marred his cheek just a week ago has faded almost entirely. I want to launch myself into his arms, but I’m worried about his ribs, and thrown by the way he’s clutching his notebook, regarding me with apprehension, like we’ve never been alone before.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” I tell him. “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better. Glad to be away from the hospital.” His gaze falls to the ground, then, shyly, returns to mine. “Will you come inside?”

  “If it’s okay.”

  He shrugs. “It is for now.”

  He doesn’t mean anything by it—there’s not a barbed bone in his body—but his words pierce me. I’m not welcome here unaccompanied—in his mother’s eyes, I might not be welcome at all. I am a surreptitious social call, a cursory friend, a dirty little secret. I am temporary. That’s all I ever can be.

  You knew going in, I think. You’ve known all along.

  Nothing changes in the cottage. We’re quiet, circling each other, waiting to see who’ll make the first move. It hasn’t been like this in weeks, since we visited Nicky in Sacramento and found a semblance of comfort, and later, at Audrey’s, where we fell into an intimacy that felt special and sacred. Somewhere in the space separating all that from now, the closeness, the contentment, has funneled away.

  He sits on the sofa. I do, too.

  “Do you want something to drink?” he asks. “Chai? Water?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “Did you get your photo?”

  “Of you? Yep. Did you write your words?”

  “About you? Yep.”

  I smile, though his mood is serious.

  “Elise … I’m sorry I had to be away.” He reaches across the vastness between us, letting his hand rest on my knee. His skin is warm, as always. “I’ve wasted our time.”

  “You haven’t wasted anything. What happened wasn’t your fault and anyway, healing is more important than hanging out with some girl.”

  “You are not some girl.”

  “Well, I’m not the girl.”

  He flinches. “What does that mean?”

  My heart is slashed down the middle, torn between sticking whatever this is out as long as possible, and saving itself from the agony of telling him goodbye later. “It means this is never going to work,” I say with all the tenderness I can spare. I’m not out to hurt him, but I have to be honest. “Mati, you know we can’t last. So what if we’ve been talking around it? In a couple of weeks, you and me … we’re done.”

  He pitches forward to take my hands. His eyes, doleful, search mine, like if he looks long enough, the impossible will rearrange its pixels and become feasible. “Don’t say that.”

  “Tell me how we can possibly survive. You, moving back to Afghanistan with no plan to return, with this duty you’re always talking about. Me, in America, working toward a degree I need and want and won’t give up. Our families, who’ve made no secret of their disapproval. And don’t get me started on language barriers and religious complications and cultural chaos.”

  “But none of that—”

  “Don’t say it doesn’t matter. It does, all of it, and it always will. Did you know I haven’t seen Audrey and Janie since the day after Aud caught us in her cottage? She’s letting me babysit tonight, but only because she thinks I’ve stopped seeing you. My mom does, too, and today, for the first time in too long, she was almost pleasant.”

  His grasp on my hands tightens; despite everything I’ve said, I’m clinging to him, too. “I’m sorry I’ve caused trouble for you and your family.”

  “But you haven’t. That’s my point. It’s not you and it’s not me—it’s you and me in combination. It’s us.”

  “If there is no us, everything is easy,” he says, gravelly, as if the phrase scours his throat on its way out.

  “Easy for everyone else.” My vis
ion goes blurry. I squeeze my eyes shut because, God, this is the worst time to cry. I need to speak with confidence. I need to appear strong.

  He frees my hands so he can press his palms to the column of my neck. I suspect he can feel my pulse strumming beneath my skin, the rapid beat-beat-beat of desperation. “I don’t care about everyone else,” he says, and I believe him. “We should spend our time with people who make us happy. You make me happy. I want to see you as often as possible, every day.”

  “But—”

  “But what? Elise, I don’t want to be miserable before it’s necessary.”

  I blink up at him, covering his hands with mine. I inch forward, until I can see the variations of copper and bronze and gold swirling in his eyes. “When you go, it’ll be like you’ve disappeared. The chances of us seeing each other again … I just … I can’t.”

  He draws back, making a hopeless sound deep in his throat, a combined half sigh, half groan, as if he’s steeling himself to whatever course he’s decided to follow. And then his eyes harden, like the blunt points I’ve been trying to force into his head finally fit, pegs into holes.

  He gets it.

  Panic washes over me and, all at once, I don’t want him to get it. I want him to fight, for me, for us. I’m frantic to backpedal. “Mati—”

  “Wait,” he says, holding up his hand. “It’s selfish of me to ask for your time when I cannot promise you anything in return. My life isn’t my own, and I cannot run from my responsibilities. If you want me to keep my distance, I will. If you think walking away now is right, go, but know you’re taking a piece of me with you.”

  I’m grasping at fragments of what he’s said, turning them over, trying to understand. I cannot promise you anything … I cannot run from my responsibilities. I want his promises, all of them. I want to be his responsibility, and I want him to be mine. I want to be the reason he wakes up, the reason he smiles, the reason he is.