Yes, I typed back.

Same spot.

I stepped out into the light of a falling sun.

The weather had changed its mind again, the skies clearing, heating up in the second half of the day. It was an early evening in late September, the air warm and fragrant, the glow only just beginning to gild the streets. It was one of those rare golden hours, full of promise.

I’d been so certain of my commitment to see Ali for only a few minutes that I hadn’t even told my parents I was leaving. We lived in a safe, sleepy neighborhood—the kind of place you didn’t drive through if you didn’t live there—which meant that, for the most part, the streets were empty. Quiet.

I’d disappeared into the yard, slipped through the back gate; I figured I’d be back before anyone even noticed I was gone. I glanced at the sun as I walked, felt the wind shape itself around me. On days like this I imagined myself moving with grace, my body inspired into elegance by the breeze, the flattering light. Most of the time, this sort of quiet made me calm.

Today, I could hardly breathe.

I felt nothing but nerves as I neared the end of the street. I was trying, desperately, to steady my pounding heart, to kill the butterflies trapped between my ribs.

Ali was sitting on the curb.

He stood up when he saw me, stared at me until he was blinded by a shaft of golden light. He shielded his face with his forearm, turned his body away from the sun. For a moment, he looked like he’d been caught in a flame.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

Ali said nothing at first, then took a sharp breath. “Hi,” he said, and exhaled.

We found a patch of shade under a tree, stood in it. I looked at leaves, branches. Wondered how fast a heart could beat before it broke.

Ali was staring at a stop sign when he said, “Shadi, I can’t do this anymore.”

Impossibly, my heart found a way to beat faster.

“But we’re not doing anything,” I said.

He met my eyes. “I know.”

I wanted to sit down. Lie down. My mind wasn’t entirely certain what was happening, but my body—my faint, feverish body—had no doubt. Even my skin seemed to know. Every inch of me was taut with fear, with feeling. I had the strangest desire to find a shovel, to bury myself under the weight of it all.

Ali looked away then, made a sound, something like a laugh. Three times he opened his mouth to speak, and each time he came up short. Finally, he said—

“Please. Say something.”

I was staring at him. I couldn’t stop staring at him. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

I was horrified to hear my voice shake when I said, “Because I’m scared.”

He took a step closer. “Why are you scared?”

I whispered his name and it was practically a plea, a bid for mercy.

He said: “I keep waiting, Shadi. I keep waiting for this feeling to go away, but it’s just getting worse. Sometimes I feel like it’s actually killing me.”

He laughed. I couldn’t breathe.

“Isn’t that strange?” he said. I saw the tremble in his hands before he pushed them through his hair. “I thought this sort of thing was supposed to make people happy.”

Something unlocked my tongue then. Unlocked my bones.

“What sort of thing?”

He turned to face me, his arms dropping to his sides. “You know, I don’t even think I know exactly when I fell in love with you. It was years ago.”

I thought, for a moment, that my feet might be sinking into the earth. I looked down, looked back up, heard my heart beating. I took an unconscious step backward and nearly stumbled over the base of a nearby tree, its overgrown roots.

“Shadi, I love you,” he said, stepping closer. “I’ve always loved you—”

“Ali, please.” My eyes were filling with tears. I couldn’t stop shaking my head. “Please. Please. I can’t do this.”

He was silent for so long it almost scared me. I watched him swallow. I saw him struggle to collect himself, his thoughts—and then, quietly—

“You can’t do what?”

“I can’t do this to her. To Zahra.”

Something flickered in his eyes then. Surprise. Confusion. “You can’t do what to Zahra?”

“This, this—”

“What’s this, Shadi?” He closed the remaining distance between us and suddenly he was right in front of me, suddenly I couldn’t think straight.

My heart seemed to be screaming, pounding fists against my chest. I wanted desperately to touch him, to tell him the truth, to admit that I fell asleep most nights thinking about him, that I found his face in nearly all my favorite memories.

But I didn’t.

Couldn’t.

The sun was streaking across the sky, painting his face in ethereal ribbons of color, blurring the edges of everything. I felt like we were disappearing.

I couldn’t help it when I whispered, “You look like a Renoir painting right now.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I—”

“Shadi—”

“Please,” I said, cutting him off. My voice was breaking. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“I’m not making you do anything.”

“You are. You’re making me choose between you and Zahra, and I can’t. You know I can’t. It’s not a fair fight.”

Ali shook his head. “Why would you have to choose? This has nothing to do with my sister.”

“It has everything to do with your sister,” I said desperately. “She’s my best friend. This—us—it would ruin my relationship with her. It would ruin your relationship with her.”

“What? How? What would we be doing wrong?”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “It’s complicated—she—”

“God,” he cried, turning away. “I fucking hate my sister.”

I felt the fight leave me then. Felt the emotion drain from my body. “Ali. This is the problem. This is the whole problem.”

He spun back around. “For the love of God, Shadi, just tell me what you want. Do you want me? Do you want to be with me? Because if you do, that’s all that matters. We can figure out everything else.”

“We can’t,” I said. “It’s not that simple.”

He was shaking his head. “It is that simple. I need it to be that simple. Because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t see you every day and just pretend this isn’t killing me.”

“You have to.”

He went suddenly still. I watched it happen, watched him stiffen, then straighten, in real time. And then, two words, so raw they might’ve been ripped out of his chest:

“I can’t.”

I thought I might actually lose my head then, thought I might start crying, or worse, kiss him, and instead I racked my mind for an answer, for a solution to this madness, and seized upon the first stupid thought that entered my head. I spoke recklessly, hastily, before I’d even had a chance to think it through.

“Then maybe—maybe it would be better if we didn’t see each other. Maybe we just shouldn’t be in each other’s lives anymore.”