I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY | ✓

▬ 58: the disadvantages of being whole

               When I break out of the trees into Summer, my tongue gets away from me. 'Are you still...?' Which do I mean: smitten or trying to self-sabotage?

Miles, who has already eased off his trainers, turns to me from the edge of the platform. 'What do you reckon?'

"Obviously" laces his undertone.

'I dunno.' I squint as though he's the sun and I can't quite look in his direction. I'll have to settle for worshipping his warmth and halo, but never look and never touch. 'I still reckon you're gonna regret it.'

'That's what you don't get. Sure, if we give it a chance and it ends badly, I'll regret it. But if we don't, I'll spend the rest of my life thinking how it would've gone and regret not trying instead.'

He would get off the train. If he was in Before Sunrise and was offered a night with a stranger that promised heartbreak in the morning, he would get off the train.

I don't think I would. I'd go home and do my best to forget the most intimate connection I'll experience all my life. And he calls me brave?

'But... what about when we die, and I go to Heaven, and you go wherever you go?'

'Ziri...' Groaning, Miles crams his palms to his face, then rakes them through his hair to finally hook them behind his neck. 'Stop tryna change my mind so you ain't gotta make up yours.'

That's not what I'm doing. There's no point saying it aloud. He knows me better than I do.

Static trapped in my ribcage as if my lungs have fallen asleep, I edge down the patchy greenery to the platform, leaving my flip-flops at the divide. He waits until I'm right in front of him at the edge of the water to speak.

'I wanna be with you.' That almost knocks me out cold. 'What do you want?'

What do I want? I want to watch Before Sunrise with you at least once a month, and Before Sunset twice. I want to make tea for you in the mornings in return for your voice scratching the itch at the back of my mind. I want to share a wardrobe with you, for my clothes to be yours and your clothes to be mine because such listless boundaries will be unnecessary in our life.

I want you to get so frustrated with the way I kick off my shoes that I'll learn to untie my laces to please you. I want to be with you for so long that your hand brushes my waist whenever you pass me out of unconscious habit and I'll tuck your hair out of your eyes when you let it grow too long. I want to kiss the inside of your wrist whenever I have to let go of your hand.

Unable to untangle any of this from my head, I whine. And fall sideways into the water.

The embrace soothes my internal tempest at first touch. Give me courage. Oh Allah, expand me my chest, and ease my task for me, and remove the impediment from my speech so he might understand what I say.

Miles calls my name, the strum of panic strong enough to reach me through the water, and I hurry toward it. When I emerge, he's seconds from diving in. 'What're you doing? I thought you fainted.'

It slaps me in the face just when I thought I'd outrun it: I spend too much time alone.

'I'm calm. Sorry. I wasn't– I don't spend a lot of time around other people.'

'You don't say.'

Through my panting, I manage a sheepish smile. 'The water helps me think.'

He glares at me for a moment longer, but by the time he sits on the edge of the platform and slips his feet into the water, the frustration has washed away. Miles pours onto me such tenderness that my body doesn't know how to receive it and winds it into a lump to cram in my throat for lack of a better place to keep it.