“But they’re your community. They know you.” I thought of the waitress and the way everyone shouted out their encouragement. “And they love you.”
Ysrael sighed. “Yeah, that’s where I’m most comfortable, I guess. But that doesn’t mean that’s where I’ll always be. It’s like your family. You know that they’ll always be there for you, but you can’t base your whole life on them.”
I stepped back from Ysrael. “It’s easy for you to talk like that, you have someplace to go. You have something that’s yours. You have your music.” I raised up my hand as Ysrael tried to talk and step toward me. “And you have your girlfriend.”
He looked away from me. I knew it. I had made him pause. She was a part of his life. I closed my eyes. And who was I? To him.
He spoke softly, without looking at me. “Helena was my girlfriend. But she isn’t anymore. She’s someone I care about, but she’s not with me.”
“It looked like she was with you,” I said.
Ysrael nodded. “I understand.”
“Is that all you have to say?” I said angrily. Who was he to lead me on? What did he think he was doing?
Ysrael shoved his hands into his pockets, his eyes cast down. “Look, Mina. Helena and I have been broken up for a long time. It has nothing to do with you and me.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Mina.” Ysrael reached out and touched my elbow, trying to get me to look at him.
I refused to meet his eyes and started to walk back down the street to the restaurant.
Ysrael caught up to me and walked beside me.
“Mina, please just listen. Helena was my first love. We have this history together. I can’t explain it, but I will always be there for her, but that doesn’t mean we’re together. We’re just friends.”
I remembered her gaze, her confidence. “Yeah, well, maybe she doesn’t see it that way.”
Ysrael sighed. “I can’t answer that for her. All I know is that I don’t want to be with her. I don’t look at her and want to memorize every little thing she does. I don’t think about ways to write songs for her. Or how I can get her to smile. Or worry that she’s not looking out for herself enough.” He took a deep breath. “I do that with you.”
I stopped walking and lifted my eyes up to the stars as though I could find an answer. As if I could chart a path, navigate my way out of all this confusion.
“Sometimes I feel so lost,” I told Ysrael. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve been living with all these lies for so long. I can’t tell what’s real anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t have the grades for Harvard,” I said. “All lies to keep my mother happy.” I paused. “And I stole money so I could disappear next fall. Just go somewhere and pretend that I was at Harvard.”
I kept my eyes on a star. “Only . . . now there’s you. And I don’t want you to be a lie. I don’t want you to be something I just made up. I want us to be real.”
I could feel his gaze holding my face.
I took a deep breath and met his eyes. “Remember how you asked me once what I did for me?”
Ysrael nodded.
“I listen to music. And sing. Sometimes in a chorus, but most of the time at home.”
Ysrael smiled.
“It’s the only thing that keeps me from going crazy. It’s the only thing that feels like mine. When I watch you playing, that look you get, I know that feeling. Even though I can’t play guitar or make music.” I stared down at my empty hands and whispered, “When I listen to you play, I know how the whole world just falls back when you close your eyes. That longing to be inside the music. To feel yourself soar.”
Ysrael reached out for me. I didn’t step back. He took another step. The streetlight was closer now. A swatch of his thick black hair fell against his forehead, across his eyebrow. The soft brown crest of his nose. The shadowed moon of his scar. The shy brown of his eyes. So clear. Like stars.
His face tipped toward mine. His lips, the delicate bow of his lips, reached for mine. His hands slipped through my hair, behind my neck, cradling me against him. I closed my eyes and let myself fall forward. This was my world. I stood up on my tiptoes and ran my hands through his hair. Touched my cheek to his cheek. Glanced my lips across his forehead. This was my world. I pressed my lips to his and tasted the sweet gentleness of his tongue. A weakness stilled my heart. He was my world.
suna
A GIRL. A GHOST. Lost. In her own home. She walks in her sleep, a worn stuffed dog hanging from one hand, weaving, bumping between the couch, the chair, the coffee table. Her thin frame slants left as though a stick figure leaning into the wind. And her face. Her face. A landscape of moods. Emotions dancing across still waters. A smile, a grimace, a grin, eyes twitching beneath closed lids, forehead bunching, then smooth, placid. Peaceful.
Outside, thunderclouds gather, pushing a stormy wind through the open windows, rustling the large white T-shirt she wears for pajamas, but her sweat-dampened hair clings to her skin like ivy. She stands still for a moment, even in her sleep, to relish the breeze cooling the sweat on her face. She walks past the bookcase, stumbles against the low television stand, but catches herself before falling. Though she has lived in this apartment her whole life, she walks with the hesitant, slow gait of an intruding stranger.
Her shin bumps against the couch and without reason, without a sigh, her nighttime ambling comes to an end. And like all the other
