BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 53

FRIDAY
13 JUNE, 1997
DORIAN

               My eyelashes are sealed with sleep. I peel them apart to welcome the sunlight that sieves through the fleece of pollen outside the window. The bindweed in the wallpaper blooms to greet the morning. My soul is at peace between my bones.

Isaiah's breath fans my shoulder. With me lying on my back, he clings to my right arm and leg with his like a sloth climbing a branch. The sun scattered across his face, every muscle at rest, he looks healthy. And so beautiful.

The alarm on my watch beeps.

Isaiah groans. Even when his face screws up, it remains just as handsome. 'What have you put an alarm on for? We ain't got nuttin to do today.'

'On the contrary,' I say brightly. 'It's Shabbat.'

He opens one eye to inspect me before he shuts it again. 'I thought the whole point of Sabbath was rest.'

'Which is why we have to clean and cook everything before it starts. And we have to go to the shop, I'm assuming.' The kitchen, too, is empty.

Isaiah only presses his face to my bicep to avoid the light. (I want to protect you even from the sun. I will pray for it to stop burning if it bothers you.) As reluctant as I am, I peel my arm from his hold and tuck my pillow in its place. It's warm and must smell like me and Isaiah buries his face into it, rolling onto his stomach to hug it tighter.

When I return from the bathroom, he's asleep again.

The summer is warm enough that even Isaiah is dressed only in a ribbed vest and thin cotton trousers, orange and blue. The ball of his right shoulder rises like a hill from the cloud of the duvet. I press a kiss to it. He smells like himself again, of the castor oil he let me massage into his hair yesterday and his mother's moringa perfume.

I stroke his temple and soon he stirs.

'Sorry–'

'No,' I interrupt. 'I like it when you sleep. You don't sleep enough.'

He makes a noise that might be "yeah". Angular phonemes glue to the slumber on his tongue and his speech muddles. 'Been sleeping better lately. Ganja helps with the pain so I don't wake up so much.'

'That's good.' Smiling, I continue to caress his face. 'How are you feeling now?'

Isaiah turns onto his back and squints at me, the sun still too bright for him. Dream lingers around him like dew over Halsett's orchards at dawn. The pillow has debossed creases on his cheek.

A slow grin grows on his lips until his tooth gap is unobstructed. 'I'm really happy.' He shifts my pillow so it covers his mouth. The dew is gone. 'I'm scared though... I can't believe it's real, that you're really here. Maybe I'm hallucinating the whole thing.'

'It's real.' My hand sweeps his jaw, nudging the pillow out of the way in the process, and I angle his face toward mine. I kiss his forehead, meaning: I promise, I promise, I promise. 'This is real.'

Isaiah traces a vein up and down my forearm in search of reassurance but tears pearl between his lashes.

'What's wrong?

'I love you so much. And I trust you, I do. I just... someone like me isn't allowed to be with you.' His voice is sodden with shame and it's he who breaks eye contact. 'According to scripture, I ain't good enough for you. I don't know how I'm supposed to ignore that.'

Shards pierce my heart.

'Yakiri... I love you.' Despite the cinch in my throat, my voice flows like the river. 'Of course, you're good enough for me. I love you so much. HaShem loves you.'