I nodded, literally biting my tongue from the need to beg him to assure me that we would be all right, that this would not be the last time I saw him. I needed to not add to the already overwhelming weight on his shoulders, to not be one more person in his life burdening him with their own needs and wants. I sat there, barely able to take a breath, knowing the hope I’d been harboring in the past few weeks had to be snuffed out, for both our sakes.
I felt someone shaking me, and I looked up. “Desta. I’m going to go inside to tell my mother I’m taking you home.”
“Okay.” I watched Elias get out of his car and walk up to his house, his shoulders straight and his head high, face determined. Looking at him being so brave, I swore to myself that if I ever got the chance to be with this man, I would do everything in my power to live up to that kind of courage and dignity.
He was only in the house a few minutes before he got back in the car and drove us out of the compound. His face was completely expressionless. I was too scared to ask how it went, so I sat in silence until we arrived at my guesthouse.
I assumed Elias would leave me by the entrance and head home, but he parked the car inside and got out with me. All the way up the stairs, the heavy silence was suffocating. I opened the door to the room and Elias walked inside as I followed him in.
As soon as the door was locked, we moved toward each other and embraced, Elias gripping me with such force that I almost whimpered. I was afraid to ask if this was goodbye. I was so scared I would never see him again.
“Konjo, I’m going to go soon, and I can’t promise you that I will see you before you return home. I have things to take care of so I can go to New York.”
I nodded as I held on to him my eyes shut tightly. “Okay. I know.”
He shook his head. “Desta, look at me.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to hide, knowing in my heart this was the end. That once again I had done this to myself. Put my heart out to be destroyed and in the process, brought along someone else who could face terrible consequences.
A sob escaped my throat, and Elias pulled back. “Don’t cry, konjo, please. Don’t cry for me.”
“I’m afraid I’ll never see you again,” I said, feeling so fucking miserable.
“Shhh.” He made soothing noises, looking at me with concern, but still he didn’t tell me I was wrong in thinking we were over. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing my tears to dry, to stop this.
When I looked at him his face was serious, but he wasn’t shying away from what he needed to say. “I can’t make you a promise I do not know I can keep, but it’s not because I don’t love you.”
I couldn’t speak, but Elias went on. “It may not be soon, but we will see each other again.”
I glanced up at him and barely saw him with my eyes full of tears. “What if it’s not the same?” I asked, unable to hold all my doubts from spilling out.
“It won’t be the same. Our time together like this is over. We may have a chance at something different.” He lifted a shoulder, clearly as unsure as I was about any future for us. “But you must believe in what we made together.”
How was he this strong?
I shuddered out a breath. “Okay.”
We embraced again, and our kisses tasted so much like sorrow. Like an ending.
I watched out the window of my room as Elias got in his car and drove away, going home to face his parents and tell his truth. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and grabbed my laptop, which was sitting on my desk, and decided to Skype my mother.
Like Elias, before I could start the next part of my life, I needed to come clean to the person who mattered the most to me. Even if it meant breaking her heart.
Chapter 25
As I readied to call my mom, my mind raced, thinking about Elias and the agony he was clearly going through. Yet he was determined to tell his parents everything before he left Ethiopia. No matter how things turned out, he was willing to face the consequences in order to live his truth. And here I was just days from having to go back to the States, still as lost as I’d been when I got here.
That wasn’t true though. I knew. I’d known before I got on the plane in DC. And what was more, I was ready. I just needed to show up to my own life and stop using the people I loved as excuses to not live for myself.
Determined, I opened the Skype app and clicked the icon to video call my mother. After only a few seconds, I saw her smiling face.
“Mijo.”
I smiled back at her and took a deep breath. “Hey, Mamí. I wanted to tell you about how my plans have changed.”
She widened her eyes and brought her face closer, worry lines etched around her mouth. “Are you all right? You’re worrying me, Desta.”
I shook my head, resisting the urge to reassure her, to say whatever I needed to in order to make her relax. I thought about Elias driving back to his family and how scary it had to be to do it alone. But it was how it had to be, no one could do
