Eshgham

iii

It took me twenty-two minutes to reach Astor&Johnson, but it takes me over an hour to make it back to the flat; most of which is spent trying to wind down my excitable heart to a rate at which I can think. Formulate a plan.

Secret: I don't think I know Yashar well enough to know what makes him boil over.

Doubt: maybe this is it. Maybe my well-intentioned but just short-of-the-mark present, if it is a present and not an interrogation tool, is the thing that makes him look at me with that vacant look. As if he's already left without leaving.

Nobody ever tells you the man of your dreams, as happy as he makes you, will also be the biggest source of your anxiety. Nobody, I suppose, wants to burst the comfortable bubble-wrap of romanticism that some days is the only thing keeping us here—or that love will feel like a tide coming in while you're shackled to the bottom of the ocean. They don't tell you the moment he says he loves you will feel like gasping for air between submersions. Like you'll keep on drowning until the day he says he doesn't anymore.

My fears aren't unfounded. I've unearthed enough of Yashar's past to know he has loved generously. That he stops and they never do. I've seen the prints that are still proclaimed the best his ex has ever produced. That are still bought and hung in tacky, Russian multi-millionaire mansions. I see all the copy-cat models he's tried to replace Yashar with. Forever trying to recreate a moment with a man who's never so much as spoken his name since they broke up five years ago. I'm afraid I'll become like him, another piece in the puzzle that Yashar's next one will try to put together.

I've worked too hard at digging for clues for my efforts to be rendered useless now. I know too much, and yet not enough. Never enough because I love and hoard every single nugget of information. How he stays silent in the car, not because of motion sickness or boredom, but because the sound of the engine calms him. He's been all over the world, probably seen everything there is to see, but put him on the road and he'll never miss a moment to gaze out the window as if he's seeing everything for the first time again. How he dresses and speaks and wears the bustling city like a medal around his neck, but really is a country boy at heart.

I wish someone would've told me to relax, that my fear of scaring him off by bringing him to the barren Isle of Grain on our first date is unfounded. That his intimidatingly beautiful exterior is just a facade for the man he is on the inside. The one who's outdoorsy and has a rapturous appreciation for the wilderness. He who will tell me quietly as we look out over the North Sea: I've always lived near the water. Everywhere I go, it's followed me. It only feels natural that I should find myself in a place like this again, that feels like home. His eyes will be two magnets when he asks: Do you believe in fate? And you will fall harder than you've ever fallen in love before.

I've worked too hard for a stupid perfume to ruin everything. Thankfully, it doesn't have to. At least not right away because I come home to him sleeping soundlessly on the sofa. Somewhere inside the flat, the whirling white noise machine is doing its thing. One look at the state of the place reveals he skipped his lunch with Tara to pack and didn't get very far before he decked out on the couch. His clothes are all over the place. The dishes still in the sink. The floor unswept.

I place a hand on his neck, regretful that I have to wake him up. He squirms away, not surprised. "You're cold," he mumbles.

"That's what you get for not sleeping properly and then passing out out here." I look at the adjacent sofa. "Sleep. I'll get you the throw-over."

He pulls back my hand as I'm about to rise. "No, I'm up. I'm up. Don't go." Squinting, he groans, "You're early."

"Easy." I run my hand over his stubble. "Rest. I get it. You've been performing six days a week for two weeks. Sleep. We don't have to hurry anywhere. We can stay."