A Forbidden Love

Every district has rules. Unspoken ones.

Don't mix grief with desire.
Don't touch your aunty's brother.
Don't let the neighbors hear your name through the window when you're supposed to be mourning.
Don't fall in love in the rain and call it God's plan.

We broke every one of them.

This is not a story about secrets.
We don't do secret.
We don't do lies.
This is a story about what happens when a man decides a woman is his and says it loud enough for the whole district to hear - even if the district thinks he shouldn't.
It's about two pink lines, a mother's ring, and vows made barefoot on black sand.
It's about yellow for the sunrise you wake up to, and black for the night you come home to.
It's about the sound of an almond tree in the rain, a zinc fence that can't keep out gossip, and a headboard that gave the district something to talk about for a year.

They called it forbidden.
We called it ours.

My name is Allysa.
His name is Tristan Bennett.
And this is how Spring Bank learned to say Mrs. Bennett without choking on it.

Let them hear.