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Chapter Text

Cruz Manuelos’ life is divided into two parts: before she knew someone wanted to kill her wife, and after.

The day of the division was a Tuesday in March. She took the subway home from work. The Brooklyn Nets were playing a home game. Cruz weaved her way through the crowds of people.

Feet move quicker when they have someone to go home to at the end of the day. Hers were rapid fire over the pavement.

She rounded the corner and saw Kim’s restaurant. The upstairs light was on. She was home before her, and Cruz peered up at the window smiling.

She pushed through the door to the restaurant and the sounds of diners filled the room. She brushed past a waiter at a table. She headed up the stairs, and when she stepped inside there was steam pouring out of the open door to the bathroom.

Aaliyah was singing. Cruz wonders, after it all falls to pieces, if it was really a siren song, an ominous sign of what was to come.

But in the before, her voice was only harmony.

Cruz stepped into the bathroom. The moisture hit her face like a wall. She saw her through the fogged-up glass of the shower. Aaliyah was moving her hips to the beat of her own song, shampoo in her black hair, suds down her back, her neck craned backward. Rays of sunshine came through the skylight over the shower, and her back was lit up and golden.

Aaliyah opened the shower door. Her smile was serene, beckoning.

“Join me, my love.”

Cruz unbuckled her belt and folded her clothes on the toilet. She got in behind her and rested her hands on her hips. Aaliyah turned in the sunshine and sang into her neck.

“My wife,” Aaliyah hummed against her skin.

Cruz closed her eyes.

This is it, she thought. Bliss.

It ended an hour later, when the world turned, spun, folded in on itself.

She isn’t sure if they’ll be stuck here forever now, in the after.

--

The before began with Cruz spending five days with Aaliyah Amrohi in her bed.

On Valentine’s Day, they’d sat together in Kim’s restaurant at the same tale for hours. The candlelight danced off Aaliyah’s face, and it lit its way to Cruz’s rapture. Aaliyah spoke in tongues, in perpetual poems. Cruz was certain she could stay there forever, at that wobbly table, listening to her talk.

When the last patrons left, Kim pulled up a chair with them and poured out glasses of wine.

“To love,” she’d said, raising her glass. They clinked glasses and smiled.

Cruz cleared the remaining tables with Kim as she shut down for the night. Aaliyah stood to help, but Cruz stopped her with a hand to her waist.

“Go upstairs,” she’d whispered. “I’ll be right up.”

Aaliyah smiled and climbed the stairs.

Cruz pulled the remaining tablecloths off the tables and carried them through the kitchen, to the laundry room.

“Give me those,” Kim said from behind her, wrestling them out of her hands. “Go be with her.”

“Let me help you finish up,” Cruz resisted.

“Go. Now.” Kim pointed toward the door.

The stairs creaked beneath her feet as she went up. The light peeked out from beneath her door as she opened it.

There she is, lying on her stomach on her bed, stroking Mr. Beans on the head.

Aaliyah shoots her a look over her shoulder as he purrs incessantly.

“I think he loves me,” she says.

Cruz laughs and stands with her back pressed against the door. She takes her in: her tight black t-shirt that stops at her midriff, her green silk pants, the smooth, pristine soles of her bare feet.

“Are you going to stand there or come over here?” Aaliyah says, smirking at her.

Cruz crosses the room wordlessly and climbs onto the bed, sitting next to her.

“You’ve been so quiet all night.” Aaliyah looks up at her expectantly. “But then again you’re always quiet.”

Cruz swallows.

She isn’t sure how to tell her that she’s been lost in the sound of her voice. The way her lips move. How the lines of her face shift when she smiles.

“I just can’t believe you’re here,” Cruz says.

“No? Come here, let me prove it to you.”

Aaliyah’s eyes are temptresses unto themselves. She pulls Cruz down by the neck until her back hits the mattress. Mr. Beans jumps away immediately. Aaliyah bends down and kisses her chin, then moves up to her lips.

“Can you believe it yet?” she whispers between kisses, and Cruz isn’t sure if she does.

She brushes her hand over the side of Aaliyah’s face.

“Was this something recent?” she questions.

Aaliyah scrunches her face.

“Which part? Wanting to kiss you? That’s pretty much all the time.” She leans down and presses another fast kiss to Cruz’s lips, drawing a laugh from them.

“No. Deciding that—that you wanted to be with me?”

Aaliyah’s lips form an “oh,” and she nods her head in understanding.

“I’ve wanted that always. It just took me awhile to have the courage to let myself have you,” she whispers.

Cruz pushes herself up on one palm and grabs a pillow. She nudges Aaliyah down until her back rests on it. Her black hair fans out on the white quilt, and Cruz collapses into her.

She kisses her without abandon. Their lips clash in a familiar way. Cool, then warm, then hot. It’s a dance they both know well, even without much practice. She slides up on her knees and runs her mouth down Aaliyah’s body, to her bare waist. She stops there and presses her nose into her stomach, breathing in.

“I missed you so much,” Cruz says.

“Come up here, my love.”

Cruz glances up at her. Those eyes, the colors within them, shine bright. She leans down beside her. They bring their hands to each other’s cheeks and their mouths open and close slowly.

It’s relaxed, unhurried, and above all, honest. It’s their first time out of hiding, their first time being free. There’s something new about kissing her this way, lips moving with no worry of being found.

Minutes pass and the pace eventually changes again. Cruz sneaks one hand up her shirt, and Aaliyah pulls away, breathless.

“Hold on,” Aaliyah pants.

She runs her hand through Cruz’s hair.

“Are you ok if we take this slow?” she whispers.

Cruz studies her face. She’s biting her lower lip, and there is worry in her eyes.

“Of course,” she says back. She brings her hand to her lower back and scratches her fingers in and out above the elastic of her pants. “Whatever you want to do.”

“But I want it to be what both of us want,” Aaliyah murmurs, tracing the sides of Cruz’s nose with one finger. “I just want to do this right.”

Cruz has no concept of what right consists of. She’s never navigated the parameters of something like this. But right sounds nice. It sounds promising, like something that will extend. Right sounds like exactly what she wants.

“I want you. Not going to pretend I don’t. But I agree, we should do it right.”

Aaliyah’s lips widen into a smile.

“We already know this part works, do we not?” She captures Cruz’s lips in a deep kiss. “I want to give it time for the other things to work too.”

Cruz nods.

“So do I.”

“Good. But that doesn’t mean you can’t kiss me.”

Cruz looks at her mouth hopelessly. Aaliyah yawns suddenly, stretching her legs out.

“It’s getting late,” she says, sitting up.

“Do you want me to drive you home?” Cruz asks.

Aaliyah looks down at her, then to the door. She tosses her hair and Cruz can tell she’s fighting back nerves.

“Or you could stay?” Cruz whispers like a prayer, and Aaliyah’s eyes immediately brighten. She sinks down onto Cruz’s chest and kisses her relentlessly.

“Maybe I brought a bag.”

Cruz eyes her.

“A bag?”

“Maybe in my car, yeah.”

Cruz laughs and rubs a hand across her face, then pulls Aaliyah down and rolls over until she’s above her again.

“What’s in this bag?” she asks, pressing her lips to the center of Aaliyah’s chest.

“Oh, you know, just some things I thought I might need.”

Cruz kisses along the top of her shirt and smiles.

“Where are your keys? I’ll go get it.”

“My coat pocket.”

Cruz slides off the bed. She grabs the keys and opens the door.

“Don’t go anywhere,” she says over her shoulder, and Aaliyah giggles.

She’s back in less than a minute. The bag is really a suitcase, packed to the brim and busting at its seams.

“What,” Cruz grunts, “on earth is in this?”

Aaliyah smiles sheepishly.

“Do I look like I travel light?”

Cruz rolls her eyes and sets the suitcase to the ground.

She stands and rubs the back of her neck.

“So the bathroom is um, just there,” she says, pointing to the door off the kitchen.

“I know where the bathroom is,” Aaliyah jokes, jutting her tongue into the side of her cheek.

She crosses the room and takes Cruz’s hands in her own.

“Don’t be so nervous,” she whispers, rubbing circles into Cruz’s wrists. “It’s just me.”

Cruz pulls her in for a hug and rests her chin on the top of her head.

“Just you? You say that like you aren’t you.”

“You know what I want?” Aaliyah asks, craning her neck up to look Cruz in the eye.

“What?”

“To brush my teeth with you.”

Her smile erupts across her face and Cruz feels the stiffness in her shoulders come undone.

She’s really here.

She’s staying.

She wants to brush her teeth in her bathroom.

Together.

Cruz breathes.

Aaliyah opens her suitcase and grabs a fistful of clothes and a plastic bag of cosmetics.

“Come on,” she says, pulling Cruz by the hand.

Cruz goes about her normal routine. It’s minimal. She splashes soap and water on her face, brushes her hair. By the time she’s done, Aaliyah is just getting started. She sits down on the toilet and watches her slather soaps and scrubs and creams on her skin. She’s radiant, flawless, glowing.

Then she tugs her t-shirt over her head and unhooks her bra, and Cruz gulps. She shifts her gaze to the wall and Aaliyah starts cackling.

“You’ve already seen it all, haven’t you?” She laughs, an intimate hitch in the sound. “Isn’t that what you said? On the bike in Nantucket? What happened to that cockiness?”

Cruz side eyes her, and the roundness of her breast sends fire to her cheeks. Aaliyah chuckles again and throws her t-shirt at Cruz’s face. Cruz catches it and twists it in her hands when Aaliyah steps one foot, then the next, out of her pants.

Aaliyah finishes changing quickly. She takes her toothbrush and toothpaste out, and hands Cruz hers from the sink.

They brush their teeth together. Cruz swirls mouthwash in her mouth and is struck by how normal this feels, standing at a sink and spitting water into it with her by her side. Cruz gapes at her through the mirror, still unbelieving of it all. Aaliyah pokes her in the stomach. There’s laughter in her eyes, and Cruz can’t help but grin.

When they’re finished, Cruz wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and stares at her again through the mirror. Aaliyah’s black hair is pulled up in a bun, and her face is gleaming, makeup free.

Cruz places both hands on the sink, boxing her in, and drops her head to her shoulder. She kisses the side of her neck, and Aaliyah closes her eyes. Cruz looks at her hand. The fluorescents in the bathroom make the topaz and diamonds shine.

Cruz spins the ring in a circle on her finger.

“Are we going to talk about this?” she asks softly.

They lock eyes through the mirror. Aaliyah opens her mouth, and her lips move slightly, but nothing comes out.

“We don’t have to, if you’re not ready,” Cruz says in a rush.

Aaliyah leans back into her and Cruz kisses the side of her head.

“When I found it, I thought it was perfect,” Aaliyah whispers. “It was the whim, wasn’t it? What you spent your savings on?”

Cruz nods into her shoulder.

“I love it,” Aaliyah says.

“It’s—it’s on that finger,” Cruz stutters, gesturing down to Aaliyah’s hand.

Aaliyah swallows and nods.

“It is,” she answers.

Cruz can tell from the look on her face that she’s equally thrown by this conversation.

“Does that mean what it’s supposed to mean?” Cruz asks before she can stop herself.

Aaliyah smiles chastely.

“What do you want it to mean?”

Cruz spins the ring again, then raises her hand to their faces and examines it closely.

“That you’re mine.”

Aaliyah turns in her arms and brings both hands to Cruz’s cheeks.

“I’ve always been yours.” She kisses her until Cruz pulls away.

“But mine in— in that way? Or did you just put it there randomly?” Cruz asks, looking down to her finger.

Aaliyah stares at the ground.

“It’s not random,” she says after a moment of silence, and Cruz’s stomach does a somersault. “But can we not rush it, just like the other things? Just let it be, for now?”

Cruz nods, because letting it be, at least for now, sounds like something that’s right.

“Yeah,” she says. “We can do that.”

Mr. Beans winds between their legs and Cruz looks down at him. Aaliyah lifts him up and he purrs.

“This cat has never been this way with me,” Cruz mutters.

“I told you he’s in love.”

Aaliyah kisses into his fur. She carries him out the door and slips under the comforter, and he immediately settles on the pillow over her.

“Are you taking off that suit?” Aaliyah asks. She licks her lips. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed it.”

The way she looks at her sends tingles down Cruz’s neck.

“Yeah, guess I should.”

She opens a drawer and pulls out a t-shirt and boxers. She hangs her blazer in her closet then sits on the end of the bed, unbuttoning her blouse. Then there are hands reaching around her. Aaliyah’s fingers gently undo each button. She pulls the shirt down Cruz’s arms. Her hands flutter over the clasp of her bra, and then it’s sliding down Cruz’s front.

She gathers Cruz’s hair in her hands and slides it to the side, then kisses the nape of her neck. Her hands reach around and her fingers stroke her stomach, feather-like and cool on her skin. A goosebumps sensation creeps across the middle of Cruz’s back and she closes her eyes.

“I’ve wanted to do this all night,” Aaliyah says.

Cruz turns and finds her lips.

“You’re making it hard to go slow,” she whispers into her mouth.

Aaliyah grins and pulls away.

“Then put your shirt on,” she says.

“I was trying to.”

Cruz pulls it on over her head, then unbuckles her belt and slips her pants off. She tugs the boxers over her legs quickly then crawls in next to her.

“Come here.” She pulls Aaliyah’s back into her chest and wraps one arm around her. Aaliyah moves one leg back until it slips between Cruz’s knees.

“Goodnight, my love.”

Cruz holds her tighter.

“Goodnight.”

She can’t remember the last time she’s fallen asleep so quickly.

—

Her alarm goes off the next morning, and Aaliyah Amrohi is in her bed. Cruz wakes up, dumbstruck, with her face in her black hair. She smells ridiculously good. Cruz sniffs. She can’t peg what it is. It smells pristine, expensive. Like something Cruz has never had.

“Are you sniffing my hair?” she yawns.

Cruz laughs and pulls away to grab her phone. She turns the alarm off.

“What time is it?” Aaliyah whispers, grabbing Cruz’s arm and pulling her closer.

“5:30.”

“Why do you have an alarm set for 5:30 on a Saturday Cruz Manuelos?” Her voice is whiny and adorable, and Cruz sinks into her.

“I usually go to the gym early.”

Aaliyah shifts in the sheets and turns in her arms to face her. She opens one eye and looks at her.

“Go then.” She yawns again.

Cruz looks at the time on her phone and shakes her head.

“No, I want to stay here with you.”

“I’m not getting up anytime soon. Go. I’ll be here when you get back. I want time alone with Mr. Beans anyway.”

Cruz sighs and stretches her legs. She knows she’ll be antsy all day if she doesn’t go.

She presses a kiss to her forehead and throws her legs out of the bed. Aaliyah tugs the covers higher over her head and disappears under them.

Cruz pulls on spandex and a sports bra and brushes her teeth. She tiptoes across the room to grab her Nike sandals, and Aaliyah shifts in the sheets. She has one eye open again, appraising her over the covers.

“That’s what you work out in?”

Cruz looks at her.

“Yeah?”

Aaliyah buries her head in the pillow.

“It should be a crime to look like that.”

Cruz laughs and pulls on sweatpants and a winter coat, then sits on the side of the bed next to her.

“Do you want me to bring you back coffee? You drink it black, right?”

Aaliyah keeps her eyes closed and smiles sleepily.

“You remember?”

Cruz smooths her hair back from her face.

“I remember everything.”

Aaliyah opens her eyes and looks at her.

She sits up suddenly and kisses her on the side of her mouth. Her hair is tousled and there are imprints on the side of her face from the pillowcase.

She is riveting.

“I love you,” Aaliyah says.

Then she collapses back against the pillow and grabs Mr. Beans. He squirms in her arms and she pulls him close. She vanquishes him until he finally gives up and settles in. Even the cat falls victim to her, and Cruz knows as she sits there on the side of that bed that she doesn’t belong to herself anymore.
She belongs to her.

“Now go,” Aaliyah urges, nudging her shoulder. “I haven’t slept like this in forever, and you’re interrupting it.”

Cruz stands. When she’s on the other side of the door on the landing of the stairs, she leans against it and brings one hand to her mouth.

She’s smiling stupidly.

The kitchen door below swings open and Kim steps out. There’s a bandana in her hair and she’s wearing an apron covered in grease.

“Does she want breakfast? I’ll make her breakfast.”

Cruz takes her hand and squeezes it.

“It’s not even 6:00 yet, Kim.”

Cruz slides around her and grabs a water bottle from the fridge in the kitchen.

“Did you ask her about the ring?”

Cruz rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, I asked her about the ring.”

“And?”

Cruz looks at her.

“And what?”

“What did she say?”

Cruz takes a long sip of water.

“That she wants to let it be for now. Take it slow.”

Kim frowns and crosses her arms.

“But that it’s not random, the finger it’s on.”

Kim’s mouth slowly turns up. She grabs Cruz by the shoulders and kisses her on the forehead.

“You deserve this, con gái.”

Then she pushes Cruz toward the door. Cruz steps out, then peeks her head back in.

“What does it mean? What you just said?”

Kim stirs something on the stove and doesn’t look up.

“Daughter.”

Cruz jogs back into the kitchen and plants a hard and fast kiss to the side of Kim’s head, then jogs out again.

When she gets back an hour later, the room is still dark but the sun is starting to peak through the blinds. The covers are bunched up and she can see the top of Aaliyah’s head on the pillow. She doesn’t move when Cruz comes in.

She walks lightly to the bathroom and closes the door gently, making sure it doesn’t click. She showers quickly, throws on a sweatshirt and shorts, then climbs back into the bed next to her. Aaliyah turns over, blinking.

“You’re back,” she says with a smile.

Cruz reclines against the pillows and hands her a coffee in a to-go cup. Aaliyah sits up next to her.

“Come here,” Cruz says, pulling her to sit between her legs. Aaliyah rests her back against Cruz’s chest and lets out a deep breath.

“It’s hot, be careful,” Cruz warns as she sips the coffee eagerly.

“I have a high tolerance for heat,” she whispers groggily.

Cruz laughs and wraps her arms around her.

“Are you always a slow riser?”

Aaliyah rubs her eyes.

“No, not in years at least. I just—“ she yawns. “I just didn’t realize how tired I was.” She yawns again, and Cruz can see her eyes droop.

Cruz takes the coffee cup out of her hands and pulls the covers up to her shoulders.

“Go back to bed then.”

Aaliyah shakes her head and pushes the covers away.

“I want to spend time with you.”

Cruz rubs her shoulder.

“I’ll be right here. Sleep baby girl.”

Aaliyah shifts onto her side and buries her head into Cruz’s sweatshirt.

“I love it when you call me that.”

Then she’s asleep again.

—

On Sunday, Cruz turns off her alarm. For the first time in months, she sleeps in. When she wakes, the bed is empty next to her. She pats the sheets frantically, then hears the shower going.

Aaliyah comes out minutes later. Her hair is wet and slicked back.

Cruz rubs her eyes.

“What time is it?”

Aaliyah smirks.

“Noon.”

Her mouth falls open and Aaliyah sticks her tongue out.

“Who’s the slow riser now?”

Cruz sits up against the pillows and Aaliyah hops onto the bed, slotting herself into Cruz’s side.

It’s only been three days, but Cruz has learned to speak it quickly, this language they share through touch. Cruz had noticed it years before, when Aaliyah couldn’t keep her hands off her on the beach. There was her hand on her knee on the beach chair, fingers weaved together when they were walking into the ocean. Her hands constantly reached for Cruz whenever they could.

Aaliyah does the same now, and Cruz unconsciously follows suit. Every time she’s within feet, an invisible magnet rearranges Cruz’s limbs until they connect with hers.

She didn’t know that another person’s body could become an extension of her own, until this. Touching her is as natural as blinking, as breathing. There is a level of togetherness in herself, one born out of Aaliyah’s hands on her skin.

Aaliyah nuzzles her cheek against Cruz’s chest.

“I forgot what it feels like to sleep, too,” she murmurs against the fabric of Cruz’s t-shirt.

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t slept right in a long time. Then I did on the beach, with you. And again in the boathouse. But this is the first time I’ve slept through the night for days in a row in years.”

She pushes up and presses a soft kiss to Cruz’s jaw.

“If I knew all I needed was Cruz Manuelos’ sheets, what’s to say what I would’ve done?”

She smiles lazily. Cruz laughs.

“Then I guess you can’t leave,” Cruz says. “But I know what you mean. It’s the first time I’ve slept well too, in a long time.”

Aaliyah throws one knee over Cruz’s hip, straddling her. She places her hands on Cruz’s face and parts her lips with her tongue.

Cruz threads her fingers through her hair and kneads her scalp. Aaliyah tilts her head back into Cruz’s hand. The ends of her damp hair tickle the skin of Cruz’s legs. Her camisole has ridden up above her belly button, and her lace underwear scratches against Cruz’s thigh.

It bangs against Cruz’s chest like a gong, her desire for her.

“Do you have any idea what you look like right now?” Cruz asks.

Aaliyah’s eyes flutter open and her lips twist up.

“Maybe,” she says sultrily, leaning forward to capture Cruz’s lips again. Cruz sighs into her mouth, and minutes later Aaliyah pulls away and lies down again on her chest.

They stay there wordlessly between the sheets as the sun filters in.

Aaliyah traces the letters on Cruz’s t-shirt, the M in “Marines.” Cruz has had it from her early days in training.

“All of these medals you have, certificates on your bookshelf. How did you get them?”

Cruz cracks her knuckles over her head. She’s uncomfortable talking about herself. No one’s ever asked, anyway.

“I don’t know. Just earned them over the years. Did well.”

Aaliyah stands and walks over to a bookshelf. She picks up Cruz’s gold cross on a navy ribbon, the one she earned in Afghanistan after she ran back and forth half carrying, half dragging members of her troop to safety when a grenade went off without warning.

“You had to do tests, right? Physical?”

“Yeah. And the ASVAB. It’s a multiple-choice test.”

Aaliyah picks up other framed certificates.

“And how’d you do?”

Cruz pulls at the bottom of her t-shirt.

“Good.”

Aaliyah looks up at her in exasperation.

“Can’t you just admit it?”

Cruz furrows her brow.

“Admit what?”

“That you did exceptional. That you scored higher on the physical test than any woman. That you scored in the top percentage on whatever it is—the ass—whatever test—”

“The ASVAB. How do you know that?”

Aaliyah climbs back into the bed.

“Because I knew you were lethal in your mind and your body. And I wanted to know how much of a genius I had on my hands.”

“So you had me checked out?”

Aaliyah rolls her eyes.

“What, you say it like you haven’t read files on me?”

Cruz points at her and purses her lips. Touche, she thinks.

“You’re the one with the fancy college degrees. Straight A’s in Masters classes. Well, except for that one, right?”

Aaliyah narrows her eyes.

Cruz rubs her chin and looks up at the ceiling in mock concentration.

“Which one was it? The A- on your NYU transcript? Wasn’t it your Arabic Literature class?”

Aaliyah starts smacking her with a pillow and Cruz blocks her head with her hands.

“Oh c’mon, tell me how you managed to do so poorly in Arabic Literature.”

Aaliyah hits her harder then climbs into her lap and pins her hands to the headrest. She glares at her.

“Because the professor taught a book wrong. And he didn’t like it when I corrected him.”

Cruz chuckles.

“The professor taught it wrong?”

“He didn’t understand the themes. I lived them.”

She releases Cruz’s hands and sits back on her ankles.

“What were the themes?”

Aaliyah readjusts her shirt.

“We read something, a fiction novel. He claimed the protagonist had a choice of who to marry, when she didn’t. When she couldn’t have. That’s not the Arab way.”

Cruz rubs her thighs.

“And he gave you an A- for that?”

Aaliyah’s eyes sharpen with mischief.

“That, and when he tried to slip his hand under my skirt in his office once, I kneed him between the legs.”

Cruz throws her hands over her eyes and groans.

Aaliyah curls up again on her chest, and Cruz plays with her hair. They grow quiet.

There are thoughts that nag in Cruz’s ear whenever the silence comes. Questions she still wants to ask her. Things she is still uncertain of. She’s ashamed of the number of times her mind returns to Sarah. She thinks of what Aaliyah told her months before in Nantucket, about how Sarah had made her feel safe. She wants to give her that, more than she’s wanted to give another person anything. Cruz wraps her arms around her and taps her lower back.

“Do you think you’ll eventually be able to—to feel safe, with me?” Cruz whispers.

Aaliyah sinks deeper into her, gripping Cruz’s t-shirt in her hand.

“This is the safest place in the world,” she whispers back.

Cruz smiles, but it’s still not enough. She needs her to understand it, the way it burns in her to protect her from the things that drove her out of one life and into the next.

She shifts beneath her and tugs at her shoulders. Aaliyah sits up again, and Cruz takes her face in her hands.
“You know I would do anything to keep you safe, right?”
Aaliyah’s eyes scan her face and they glisten. She nods, and Cruz’s hands grip her face tighter.

“From all of it, Aaliyah. All the things you had to run from.”

Aaliyah tilts forward and presses a kiss to Cruz’s forehead.

“Those things are gone now,” she says with her lips pressed to Cruz’s skin.

Cruz feels something creep across her neck.

Nothing is gone until it’s eradicated. Cruz knows, has always known, that pushing down one kingpin would only make others rise. But Aaliyah kisses the thought away, her lips traveling down Cruz’s cheek.

“Are you going to let me keep you safe too?”

Cruz stares up at her skeptically. Not a single person in her life has ever done that for her but herself.

“Keep me safe?”

Aaliyah smiles. “I might not be able to twist someone’s wrist off in a restaurant for you, but I can still do it.”

“Safe how?”

Aaliyah bends down and kisses Cruz’s eyelids.

“Let me take it all,” she says. “Everything in those eyes.”

Cruz threads her fingers through Aaliyah’s hair and frowns.

“You don’t think I see all the pain you carry in them, my love?” Aaliyah asks quietly.

Cruz lets out a shaky breath.

“Do you trust me?” Aaliyah asks.

Cruz nods.

“Up,” Aaliyah says, pulling Cruz by the arms.

Cruz sits up straighter against the pillows and Aaliyah reaches for the hem of her t-shirt. She pauses and looks into Cruz’s eyes, and Cruz nods again. Then she gently slips it over Cruz’s head.

When she reaches behind Cruz’s back to unhook her bra, Cruz grabs her wrists.

“You said you wanted to go slow,” she says, her brow creasing.

Aaliyah shakes her head.

“We are going slow. Trust me.”

She leans forward and unhooks Cruz’s bra, slipping it down her arms. Aaliyah’s eyes stay locked on her face, paying no heed to the bare chest before her.

“Lay down on your stomach,” she directs.

Cruz shakes her head.

“Aaliyah—“

But Aaliyah stops her with three fingers to her mouth.

“It’s ok,” she whispers. She tucks a strand of Cruz’s hair behind her ear. “It’s ok.”

And Cruz sees in her eyes that it is.

Cruz slides down the pillows and turns over onto her stomach, crossing her arms under her chin. She rests her cheek on her wrists and looks up at Aaliyah.

Aaliyah leans on her side with her head in her palm. She slowly drops a hand to Cruz’s bare back and runs her pointer finger along an angry lash, the first one that cuts just beneath Cruz’s shoulder blades.

Cruz’s skin tingles instantly. She’s forgotten how those lines feel. It’s not normal, the sensation she gets when something presses against them. The nerves have been split, the skin beneath numb and prickly.

She shifts uncomfortably on the sheets, and Aaliyah bends down and presses her lips along the raised skin.

“The first time I saw you,” she says, planting a second kiss along the line, “all I could think was how stunning your face was. It’s like it’s burned into my eyelids. I’ll never unsee how you looked, that first day.”

Her tongue laps along the line and Cruz’s leg jerks. Aaliyah brings her palm to the center of her back and pushes gently. She lifts her head and looks Cruz in the eye.

“Those cheekbones. Those lips. The most beautiful,” she whispers.

Her finger returns to the first lash.

“Then when we went shopping and you took off your clothes. You were standing there in that black bra and underwear.” She makes her way to the second lash, and Cruz can feel her lips smiling against her back. “All I could think was that they pay people who look like you to walk runways.”

She’s on the third lash now, and Cruz lets out a deep breath she didn’t know she was holding.

“Then in this life when we were in the boathouse and the moon was on you, I thought that there could never be anyone more luminous.”

She’s on the fourth lash, and Cruz feels the tears starting to pool in her eyes. She gulps, and her entire body rises and falls at once.

No one has ever uttered words of adulation to her. Aaliyah piles them on, as though she understands that Cruz has long been deprived of hearing them.

“And the most incredible part is you don’t see it, do you? How magnificent you are. How sublime.”

Her tongue and lips mark every inch of the ugly lines on her back, the ones inflicted before Cruz knew how to protect herself. She doesn’t want to share how they came to be, and Aaliyah never asks.

When she’s finished, Aaliyah lies against the pillows and pulls Cruz’s head to her chest. Cruz cries softly into her. She’s unwrapped, bared to her bones, and yet she feels held together in a way she never has.

Aaliyah adores her, and Cruz gets through the first lesson of learning how to be adored.

“I’m going to take all of it, my love. All of it until your eyes are only light,” Aaliyah says into her hair.

—

On the fifth day, they still haven’t left the bed. Cruz calls in sick for work two days in a row.

She’s never shared a space in such an intimate way. She’s never sat with someone and talked for hours on end. She’s never craved to know everything in someone else’s head.

They’ve watched movies, binged tv shows. They’ve eaten food straight from takeout containers. They’ve spent time downstairs with Kim and Sammie.

They’ve rolled over the sheets dozens of times, mouths pressed together. Cruz has learned all the ways to kiss her. Soft kisses, deep kisses, lingering kisses. She’s learned the taste of her lips, how it changes depending on the lip gloss she wears. Strawberry, cucumber, mint, honey, something sharp and bitter but sumptuous that she doesn’t know the name of. She’s learned how her tongue can coax reactions from her, even without any other touch. She’s learned how Aaliyah can do the same to her.

“What does this feel like to you?” Aaliyah asks from behind her. Cruz’s head rests on her thigh, watching a football game. Aaliyah’s hands are in her hair.

“What do you mean?”

“This, right now. What does it feel like?”

Cruz considers her question.

“Like we’ve been doing it for years.”

Aaliyah’s finger traces her ear.

“It feels that way for me too.”

Cruz turns the volume down and shifts her head so that she’s staring up at her.

“The thing is, I’ve never really done this,” Cruz whispers.

Aaliyah peers down at her.

“Done what?”

“This,” Cruz says, gesturing back and forth between them. “A relationship.”

Aaliyah’s eyes dart back and forth across her face, and she nods slightly. Cruz thinks, again, of Sarah. She thinks of how Aaliyah is experienced in this, when Cruz isn’t.

She’s never done this part before either, the grappling with insecurity. She’s never had to fear what might happen if her heart is dropped by someone else.

Cruz rocks up and stands from the bed. She walks to the refrigerator and pulls out a Gatorade. Aaliyah watches her from across the room.

“Ask me,” Aaliyah says.

Cruz sets the bottle on the counter.

“Ask you what?”

Aaliyah pulls Mr. Beans into her lap and flips her hair to the other side of her head.

“What we both know you’ve been wanting to ask.”

Cruz rubs the back of her neck nervously. It’s uncanny, the way Aaliyah can settle into her mind and read Cruz’s inner thoughts.

Cruz stares down at the Gatorade bottle and screws the cap on and off.

“Do you—do you still love her?”

Cruz forces herself to look back up at her. Aaliyah’s phone buzzes on the end table next to the bed, and she reaches out and turns it off. Their eyes meet, and the skin of Aaliyah’s throat moves.

“Not in that way,” she whispers.

Cruz takes the cap off and sets it down on the counter, then spins it in circles. Her mind spins with it.

“That’s not a no,” Cruz whispers back.

Mr. Beans stretches as Aaliyah scoots off the bed. She walks up to the other side of the counter and perches on a stool.

“What’s something you’ve done before that you really enjoyed, but wouldn’t do again?” Aaliyah asks.

Cruz narrows her eyes. She doesn’t know if she wants to see where this is going. She shrugs.

“Oh come on, there has to be something,” Aaliyah pushes. She reaches across the counter and takes the bottle cap from Cruz’s hands.

“Fine. I liked the training, when I enlisted. The physical part. Gave me something to work toward, a routine I never had before.”

“And why wouldn’t you do it again?”

Cruz scratches her head.

“Because it’s over? I did it. I’m trained. I’m past that.”

Aaliyah smiles and nods her head.

“Ok, well that’s what I feel about her.”

Cruz feels a pain in her temple and shakes her head.

“How can you be over it and still love her?”

Aaliyah sighs.

“It’s like a movie you watch once. It makes you feel good. You’ll always look back and think of it fondly. But you don’t ever watch it again, because when it’s done it’s done.”

She stands from the stool and walks to Cruz’s side of the counter. She edges up to her slowly.

“Then there are some movies you watch once. You love them. And you keep watching them. You don’t want to just remember them. You want to re-live them, keep falling in love with them, over and over. No matter how many times, it’ll never be enough. You’ll always want to watch them again.”

She takes Cruz’s hands and weaves their fingers together. She leans forward and their noses brush.

“Can you guess what type of movie you are?”

She lingers, doesn’t bridge the gap between them. Cruz stares into her eyes, marveling at how the colors break down into endless pigments when she’s so close to her.

Cruz pulls back and flexes her fingers.

“You were pretty convincing,” she says quietly. “In Nantucket, when you said you wanted to be with her.”

Aaliyah brings her hands to Cruz’s cheeks.

“You have to be pretty convincing when you’re lying to yourself.”

Her fingers stroke the line of Cruz’s jaw, and her eyes dart to Cruz’s lips.

“Are we going to re-enact the scenes where I’ve had to beg you for a kiss?”

Her seduction slides over Cruz’s body like a lasso, catching her as her fear sends her in the other direction. Cruz lifts her to the counter and kisses her deeply.

Aaliyah’s lips slide along her chin, hypnotic in a way that draws belief from Cruz in every word she says.

“I’m going to fall in love with you over and over again,” she whispers in the place Cruz’s jaw meets her neck. “It’ll never be enough.”

--

They’re back in the bed again, and Cruz is rubbing her feet. They’re impossibly fine, pedicured and flawless, skin softer than any she’s touched on her yet. She runs a finger over the rings on her toes, gold bands with the tiniest of blue stones on their surface.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen feet like this,” she says lazily.

Aaliyah watches her from the pillow, eyes half closed.

“Don’t tell me you have a foot fetish,” she cracks.

Cruz lets out a deep belly laugh and rolls onto her stomach, clutching one of her feet in her hand. She massages and kneads it with her fingers.

“Definitely not, I normally can’t stand feet.”

Aaliyah joins her laughter, curling her lips irresistibly.

“Then what is it about mine you like?”

“They’re, like, so clean. Perfect. I didn’t know feet could be attractive,” Cruz says. Her tongue slips out the slightest bit, connecting with the center of her sole, and she follows that with a soft kiss.

Aaliyah draws in a sharp breath. She adjusts and wriggles on the sheets, and Cruz loosens her grip on her foot, fearing her discomfort.

“Sorry, do you not like your feet rubbed?”

“No, no.” Her voice drops, to a quieter place. “I didn’t know I could feel it between my legs, if someone kissed me there,” she whispers.

Cruz freezes. Aaliyah’s immodesty, the way she has suddenly cast a kiss on the bottom of a foot as something so salacious, knocks Cruz into silence.

Aaliyah sits up.

“Come here.”

She draws Cruz in and when their faces are inches apart, she brings her thumb to Cruz’s chin and pushes down like a lever, until Cruz’s bottom lip falls. Then her entire tongue fills Cruz’s mouth. They have kissed in many ways, but never with this level of excess, never in a way so full.

Cruz loses all semblance of control. She pushes her down into the pillows with force, and they tangle fiercely.

Aaliyah pulls away. She’s out of breath, eyes moving quickly over Cruz’s face.

“Maybe slow isn’t the right idea,” she whispers in a rush in Arabic, and Cruz isn’t sure what’s caused her sudden shift in language.

Cruz sinks into her fully and circles her hands around Aaliyah’s face. They’re so close that her eyes are out of focus now, that she can only see the blurred features of Aaliyah’s face.

“No, it is,” she whispers back. She resorts to humor to diffuse it, this thing that has just overcome them. “Besides, how am I going to keep you wanting more if I give in so quickly?”

Aaliyah squeezes her arms.

“I don’t think you’ll need to worry about that.”

--

Later that afternoon, Aaliyah taps her on the arm. They still haven’t left her studio yet.

“Can we go somewhere?”

Cruz turns and looks up at her.

“Where?”

Aaliyah smiles. She jumps out of the bed and pulls on her white wool coat. Cruz grabs a sweatshirt and pulls the hood over her head.

“You’re going to freeze,” Aaliyah says, eyeing her up and down.

“No I won’t. I have you,” Cruz answers, throwing her arm around her shoulders.

They walk down the stairs, and Sammie flies out of the kitchen at the sound of their footsteps. He clings to Cruz’s legs.

“Where are you going?”

Aaliyah smiles down at him.

“It’s a surprise. Want to come?”

He nods eagerly and jumps up and down. Cruz lifts him onto her shoulders and he bops his hands on the top of her head.

When they get to the street, Aaliyah pulls her phone out and types an address into an app.

“Where are we going?” Cruz asks.

Aaliyah looks at her, and Cruz can tell she’s scheming.

“You’ll see.”

She takes her hand and pulls Cruz along. They walk up and down blocks. They pass a homeless man on the side of the curb, and he immediately eyes Aaliyah. He wears a trash bag over his clothes, and his hands reach out, trembling, as they walk past. Cruz puts her arm around Aaliyah’s shoulder to pull her closer, but Aaliyah shrugs out of her grip. She walks back to him. Cruz watches as Aaliyah presses money into his outstretched hand. She squeezes his shoulder and says something in his ear, and his eyes well with tears.

Then she takes Cruz’s arm again and continues onward.

“Do you do that a lot?” Cruz asks.

She shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly, but stays mum.

Cruz gets her answer, as the months go on. She does it routinely, so much so that Cruz worries that one day she’ll be taken advantage of. It doesn’t just happen on street corners. She presses cash one day into the hand of a mother who counts food stamps at the grocery store. Cruz finds opened envelopes thanking her for donations at least once a month, from food pantries and shelters and organizations, too many to keep track of. Letters come from universities, enclosing the photos of Arab women she has sponsored with scholarship money.

Aaliyah spends her money on herself, but Cruz already knew that about her. What she didn’t know was the ease with which Aaliyah spends it on others.

They continue their trek to the unknown place, and Sammie gets restless on Cruz’s shoulders.

“Are we going to the toy store, Alex?”

Aaliyah laughs.

“No, but I can take you there, if you want.”

His face lights up and he starts telling her about a lego set he’s had his eye on. Aaliyah engages him with ease, asking about his favorite toys, the things he’s learning at school, the friends he’s made.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Aaliyah asks her.

Cruz grabs at Sammie’s shins to steady him. She thinks of the wire transfer Aaliyah made months before, the money she gave to Kim to pay Sammie’s way through college.

“You know you’ve changed his life, right?” she whispers.

Aaliyah looks up at him and takes Sammie’s hand.

“Best money I’ve ever spent.”

They get to the Brooklyn Bridge. Aaliyah steers them down to a grassy park, ducking and weaving between other couples, bicycles, runners. They find a bench, and Cruz sets Sammie down on the ground. He runs off into the grass to pet a dog.

Aaliyah yanks Cruz down beside her. She exhales and points to the sky.

“We made it,” she says with a smile.

The sky is a tangy orange, and the sun is just beginning to set over the Manhattan skyline. The bridge looms across the river, lit up and bright.

It’s grand enough to be the only place that exists in the entire world.

“Wow,” Cruz whispers.

“I’ve been waiting to come here for so long.” Aaliyah nuzzles into her shoulder.

“What were you waiting for?”

Aaliyah pulls down Cruz’s hood and presses her lips to her cheek as the sun disappears behind the buildings.

“My love story.”

Cruz’s lips slide over her hair. They locate that point on Aaliyah’s neck, the one that is indescribably her, and Cruz breathes it in. It’s notes of something daring, floral, bottled up and capped beneath her skin.

“What is it?” she questions, her voice just above a whisper. “The perfume you wear?”

Aaliyah stands to pet the dog with Sammie.

“Yves Saint Laurent,” she says with a demure smile, her accent adding something intoxicating to the name. “A family member got me hooked on it, years ago. I think it’s lavender, orange blossom. Why, you like it?”

Sammie shouts something in excitement, and Cruz nods.

That’s the scent of it for Cruz, this thing Aaliyah has labeled with a title previously foreign to Cruz’s existence.

Her love story.

--

By the following Sunday, Aaliyah packs her suitcase.

“I have to do a lecture tomorrow. All of my stuff to prepare is in Manhattan, in my apartment. I have to go.”

Cruz looks around at her apartment. Aaliyah’s things are still scattered throughout it. Her toothbrush is in a cup on the sink, her slippers in the kitchen, her nail file on the desk by the window. They’ve created their own bubble, and Cruz feels like it’s about to burst.

Mr. Beans follows them all the way to the door, and Aaliyah bends to kiss him.

Cruz lifts her suitcase and carries it out to her car. She closes her trunk, then grabs her and buries her head into her hair.

“I’ll miss waking up next to you,” she whispers. Aaliyah squeezes her and kisses her on the lips.

“Me too.”

She climbs into the driver’s seat and Cruz closes the door and taps the side of the car.

When she gets back into the restaurant, she leans against the door and shakes out her hands. She walks up the stairs and into her studio, and Mr. Beans is still sitting at the door, perplexed that she’s come back alone.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket, and Aaliyah’s name flashes across the screen.

“Did you forget something?” she answers.

“No, no. I’m still here.”
Cruz walks to the window and stares down at her car.

“Why don’t you come? Only if you want. Stay with me for the week, then we can figure out—”

“I’ll be right down.”

“Don’t forget Mr. Beans.”

Aaliyah looks up at the window and their eyes lock. Her smile reaches from ear to ear.

--

Two months later, Aaliyah clutches her hand as they walk into a dive bar together in the heart of Brooklyn.

“What are their names again?” she whispers in her ear.

“Bobby. Tuck. Two Cups.”

“Is that what I’m supposed to call him? Two Cups?”

Cruz laughs and throws her arm around her.

“Relax. They’ll love you.”

They head to the back of the bar, and when Bobby sees them, she whistles.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Look what the cat dragged in.”

She smacks her palm against Cruz’s and pulls her in for a hug, and Tuck claps her on the back. Two Cups stands in the corner, his eyes widening to saucers as he takes in Aaliyah.

Cruz turns back to Aaliyah and pulls her forward.

“So, uh, this is—”

Bobby waves her off.

“We know who she is, captain obvious,” she quips.

Aaliyah tips forward, takes her by the shoulders, and kisses her on both cheeks warmly.

“You must be Bobby. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Bobby pulls back. Her toothpick falls out of her mouth, and she tugs nervously at her shirt collar. She sizes Aaliyah up and nods.

“Uh, I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”

Then Aaliyah goes to work.

She talks up each one of them slowly, deliberately. She asks about their families, their hobbies. She takes every dirty joke that comes out of Two Cups’ mouth, then one ups him with a better one. Cruz observes, stunned, as each of them says more in the span of minutes than Cruz has ever heard them say.

Within an hour, they’re all eating from the palm of her hand.

Cruz sips on a beer and listens to her dig into a conversation with Two Cups about baking bread.

“So tell me your favorite one to make?” Aaliyah asks him, motioning to the bartender for another round of drinks for the group.

“Well,” Two Cups starts, rubbing his chin seriously. “There’s the artisan sour dough, and you can make that one without any kneading. Need a good oven rack though, the right one.”

Tuck clears his throat next to Cruz.

“Did he really just say artisan sour dough?” he asks.

“Sure fucking did,” Bobby chimes in.

Tuck stares in wonder. “What is even happening to him right now?”

“Same shit that happened to you, when you told her all about your collector’s edition comic book action figures,” Bobby mutters.

Tuck wrings his hands.

“Wait, you told her about your toys?” Cruz snorts.

Tuck stares at Aaliyah, then looks to Cruz.

“You never stood a chance with her, did you?”

Cruz watches as Aaliyah clinks glasses with Two Cups and throws her head back in laughter.

She crosses her arms. “I held out, kept it together,” Cruz says.

Bobby slams her beer down on the bar.

“Oh please. You ran faster than Usain Bolt the first time she said come here, you fucking sap.”

Cruz glares at her.

“You listened?”

Bobby rolls her eyes.

“It was my job to listen.”

“Do you think she can play pool, too?” Tuck asks absently.

“She can play,” Cruz nods.

He breaks away and pulls Aaliyah toward the pool table, handing her a stick. Two Cups sidles up next to Cruz at the bar.

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how gay is she?”

Bobby bursts into laughter.

“What, you want to marry her too?”

He brings up both palms. “I’m just saying, if there’s a chance, ya gotta tell me. At least let me have the fantasy.”

Cruz shoves him in the shoulder and he takes his drink to the pool table.

Bobby sits on the stool next to her, and they watch them play. Aaliyah hoots and hollers when she hits a shot, and Cruz grins.

“In all seriousness, I get it now,” Bobby says next to her.

Cruz shifts on her stool.

“Get what?”

“Why you did what you did. Why you quit it all, then chased after her. She’s…something.”

Cruz follows Bobby’s eyes to Aaliyah. It’s validating, in a way, the proof that Aaliyah can bewitch anyone in her path.

“Yeah, she is,” Cruz says.

“What’s your plan?”

Cruz blinks and puts her beer on the bar.

“Plan?”

“P-l-a-n. Sticking around the office? Coming back to us? Overseas?”

Cruz runs her hand over the surface of the bar and looks down.

“I kind of just want to be, for awhile,” she says quietly. “With her. Is that crazy?”

Bobby juts her lower lip out and nods in understanding.

“Nah, sounds like a damn good plan to me.”

--

Cruz executes her plan to perfection, right up until the point it’s foiled.

They rip through chapters of the love story, month after month.

They consummate a relationship that’s already been consummated, in a way that feels like it’s never happened before.

They clash and bicker for the first time, then resolve the tussle just as quickly as it comes.

They tip toe around the elephant in the room, the ring that sits on Aaliyah’s finger, until it commands so much attention that it becomes exactly what it is.

Then they’re both wearing rings.

Her feet take her home on that Tuesday the following March to the life she’s lived, as though she was only born the year before.

Aaliyah sings.

Cruz gets into the shower behind her, and the sun blazes through the skylight above them.

They spin in a circle in the sunlight. She makes love to her wife.

In the after, she second guesses every move she made. Drying herself off with a towel. Stepping out of the shower. Changing hastily, grabbing her gym bag.

Why didn’t I stay, Cruz will think in the months to come, as though it would have changed something if she had.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” she says to Aaliyah.

Her hood is up, headphones over her ears. She’s a block away from the gym when the SUV pulls up and the window opens.

The before ends.

Joe’s face looks out at her. Her eyes are covered by black sunglasses.

“Get in,” she says.

“Fuck no,” Cruz answers. She whips around to head in the other direction, and then there is a hand on her shoulder, ripping her back. There’s a man in a suit. The door opens, and he pushes her in.

Cruz grabs the handle but it’s locked from the inside.

“You can’t just take me off the street,” she snaps. Her pulse is racing. Joe doesn’t look at her.

“I can do whatever I want.”

They drive for half an hour until the SUV pulls over. Joe opens the door and steps out.

“Let’s go,” she says.

Cruz follows her, reluctantly, into a random office building. They take an elevator to the fifth floor, then walk down a hallway. Joe opens a door to a conference room, and Kaitlyn Meade is sitting at a table with a stack of papers in front of her.

Cruz forgot how cold she looks, how her face lacks any expression. Her eyes are sharpened by something that sends a tremor down Cruz’s spine.

Another woman sits next to her. She’s dark skinned, her hair pulled back into a severe bun. Cruz can see from the broadness of her shoulders that she’s built, defined.

“Sit.” Joe pushes her into a chair.

Kaitlyn folds her hands on the table.

“Good to see you, Marine.”

Cruz doesn’t blink.

“What the fuck do you want?”

Kaitlyn smiles, and it stretches the lines of her otherwise unmovable face.

“The favor you owe.”

Cruz cocks an eyebrow.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

Kaitlyn leans back in the chair, and it reclines. She rests her folded hands on her stomach.

“No? How’s married life?”

Joe takes her sunglasses off and drops them onto the table.

“You think you’d have that life,” Kaitlyn continues, “without her help?” She nods in Joe’s direction.

Cruz edges toward the door. The dark-skinned women in the corner stares up at her, unblinking.

“Sit the fuck down,” Joe hisses.

If a snake could talk, Joe would have its voice.

Cruz remains standing. Kaitlyn opens a laptop and clicks something, and audio blares through a speaker in the corner of the room.

“She married the Marine?” a voice says.

“Weeks ago,” another voice responds.

There’s laughter, the sound of something else, maybe ice clinking against the sides of glass.

“It’s time to end that, don’t you think?” The first voice continues, and suddenly Cruz recognizes it. She’s heard it before, years ago.

“That’s Kamal Al Rashdi, in case you haven’t figured it out yet,” Joe says from the side of her mouth.

The audio continues.

“I don’t know why you’ve waited so long, brother.”

There’s more laughter.

“Ah, but isn’t it more fun to slaughter her when they least expect? Start putting the plan together. The mother, too. Find their money, it’s ours. Don’t touch the Marine. Let her live to see it happen. Too many complications, anyway, if we tried.”

Kaitlyn closes the laptop. Cruz’s heart is racing.

“What was that?” she whispers.

“The start of the plot to kill your wife,” Joe answers simply, as though she’s answering a question about the weather. “Are you going to sit down now?”

Cruz sinks into a chair.

“Mr. Rashdi has created some problems for us,” Kaitlyn explains. “We’re cutting his knees out from under him before he finds solid ground, before it gets too far. He’s the target.”

She slides a folder across a table to Cruz, but Cruz doesn’t open it.

“We need you to go undercover. We have a mark. Aaliyah’s brother, Nadir. He deals with Mr. Al Rashdi regularly. He has a wife. Aaliyah was close to her. We’ll embed you in her world, and you will use your connection to Aaliyah to appeal to her. You’ll get us to the target, and we’ll execute.”

Cruz fingers the folder.

“No,” she says. “I won’t be doing any of that.”

Joe laughs quietly and bends her head down, running one hand across her forehead.

“You will,” she says.

Cruz looks at her. Joe stands up, swings Cruz’s chair around, then hovers over her.

“The thing is, I gave Aaliyah to you,” she sneers. “And I will take her away. I will take you away. I will put you on a different tour every year. You will never come home. Do you understand me? I will uproot your life. You will do this.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Cruz bites back. She grabs the gun out of the holster on Joe’s waist and shoves her back. She has her against the wall in an instant, the gun pressed to the side of her head.

“I told you, I’m done with you,” Cruz spits into her face.

Joe closes her eyes.

“Go look in the folder, hotshot,” she says. Her head tilts toward the table. “Go. Have a look.”

“I’m not looking at anything.”

An arm jerks Cruz’s neck backward, and suddenly she’s on the ground. The dark-skinned women peers down at her. She is a boulder, an immovable rock, and Cruz can’t shake her off. She pries the gun from Cruz’s hand then steps away from her.

“They said you were stronger than that. Too easy,” she laughs. Cruz narrows her eyes at her.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Lara. The person who did all the jobs you ran away from.”

Joe clears her throat and walks to the table. She opens the folder, then holds a photo down to Cruz’s face as she lies on the floor.

Cruz looks at it. It’s Aaliyah.

Except it’s not. It’s a little girl, with Aaliyah’s face. With Aaliyah’s eyes.

Cruz climbs to her feet and rips it from Joe’s hands. “Who is this?” Cruz pants.

“Her daughter.”

Cruz shakes her head.

“That’s impossible.”

Because it is. Aaliyah had told her so, over a year ago. He’d terminated the pregnancy, before it was ever viable.

Kaitlyn stands and fills a water glass from a pitcher in the corner.

“Ani Al Rasdhi. Just under four years old. She’s been in a house in Riyadh her entire life. Cared for by servants. No mother. Absent father.”

She turns around and tips the glass in Cruz’s direction.

“Born prematurely in the same hospital your wife came out of, outside of Medina. Aaliyah Amrohi is listed on her birth certificate, the original one buried in the hospital’s files.”

Joe removes another piece of paper from the folder and slides it across the table to Cruz.

It’s a birth certificate. Aaliyah’s name is on it, next to Kamal’s.

“How do I know this isn’t made up?”

Lara grabs the folder and pushes it into Cruz’s hands.

“Take a peek. All of the hospital records are there, doctor’s notes,” Lara says. Cruz shoves it back toward her, but Lara continues. “She had a c-section. There are notations showing it was under general anesthesia, that she was asleep. After, she was told the baby was delivered without a heartbeat. But there are notes recording every day that kid was in the NICU. She spent three months there. I’ve read every note, every day, myself.”

Joe taps the photo of the girl on the table.

“I can do a lot of things, but I can’t make up the way she looks,” Joe says softly. “This is your chance to bring her back.”

Cruz’s eyes swing from the birth certificate to the photo.

“No,” is all that comes out of her mouth. “No.”

She slides her headphones over her ears, flings the door open, and walks out.

They don’t follow her.

Chapter Text

Aaliyah Amrohi finally becomes herself, up until the day Cruz Manuelos disappears for the second time from her life.

Aaliyah comprehends quickly that Cruz is the component of her being that was always lacking. They’re inextricable, pulled together in a way that’s painful to sever, so they never bother to. It occurs to her that maybe going slow in the traditional sense shouldn’t entail never leaving each other’s sides, but she doesn’t think they can do it another way.

They spend weeks at a time in Cruz’s studio, followed by a month in Aaliyah’s apartment, then long weekends in Montauk. All of their things are spread out equally, and they’ve fit into every space they’ve shared with ease.

Aaliyah prefers Cruz’s studio. She loves the smells from the restaurant, the sound of Kim petering about below them, Sammie banging on the door in the morning, leaving toys on their floor.

“You’re saying you like to wake up smelling like shrimp dumplings?” Cruz had said to her one morning in bed, after she explained how she felt more comfortable in this single room in Brooklyn than she’s ever felt before.

“Only if they’re Kim’s,” Aaliyah laughed.

But she goes back to her apartment in the city and her property on Long Island, because there’s something about Cruz’s face when they’re there. Her eyes went wide in wonder the first time she stepped through the door of Aaliyah’s apartment in the city.

She walked from room to room, running her hands across all the surfaces.

“I’ve never had this much space before,” she’d said, opening Aaliyah’s refrigerator and peering into the endless shelves inside.

“Do you like it?” Aaliyah asked, kissing her shoulder from behind.

Cruz turned and her nose wrinkled. “I think I actually do?” She said it like a question, as though the notion of it confused her.

“Good. Then you’ll have it,” Aaliyah answered.

Cruz was resistant to some of it, at first. She insisted on paying for meals, buying their groceries, chipping in wherever she could. Aaliyah let her, because she sees the pride she has in the money she has earned. Aaliyah’s, for the most part, has never been earned, but she does her best to use it to give Cruz the things she’s never had.

She makes Cruz point to a state on the map that she’s always wanted to go to, and then she whisks her off on a long weekend there. If Cruz’s eyes linger on something, she buys it instantly, shushing her protests.

She pries her favorite foods out of her, then books reservations at the best restaurants in the city that feature them on the menu. Cruz tells her, in the first month, that on the good days, of which there were few, her mother would cook age old recipes passed down from other women in their family. Her favorite was enchiladas. Aaliyah researches and books out an entire Mexican restaurant one night in midtown.

Asif drops them off and Cruz stalls outside the restaurant, eyeing it nervously.

“Come on,” Aaliyah says, leading her by the elbow. When they walk in, it’s empty. Low music plays. There are twinkling lights strung from the ceiling, long wooden tables.

“Are you sure they’re open?” Cruz asks, looking around.

Aaliyah laughs.

“Of course they are. It’s just ours for the night.”

Cruz’s nose wrinkles.

“Ours?”

“I know you hate crowds. It’s usually really busy here.”

The hostess leads them to a back corner. It’s a look Aaliyah will never forget, the shine in Cruz’s eye, the wetness at the corner, her lips parted the slightest bit when the meal came. Her surprise, her awe.

“You did this for me?” she asks, fingering a fork.

Aaliyah reaches across the table and weaves their fingers together.

“Anything, for you.”

In their third month together, she pulls Cruz by the arm into a jewelry store. Cruz sits in an armchair in the corner watching a basketball game on her phone as Aaliyah tries on different pieces.

She finds two necklaces, one large diamond pendant and a smaller version of the same design. She holds each one to her neck in front of a mirror, and the sales lady hums in appreciation.

She tells her the price of each, and her tone is aghast when she says the cost of the larger one, as though she cannot fathom any customer who would ever want to spend such a sum on jewelry.

Not a great saleslady, Aaliyah thinks.

The thing is that the cost is nothing to Aaliyah, a mere chip of the iceberg, but the judgment in the women’s tone is enough to shame her.

“I think I’ll go with the smaller one,” she says quietly.

“No you won’t,” Cruz says, raising her voice loud enough for Aaliyah to hear across the shop. She’s pitched forward in the chair, eyes trained on her phone screen as she holds it in front of her face. She curses at something she sees, lowering the sound when the announcer shouts over a missed shot.

“I won’t?” Aaliyah asks, eyeing her over her shoulder.

Cruz meets her eyes.

“No, you want the bigger one. So get it.”

Aaliyah smiles.

There was always someone over her shoulder for the better part of her life, casting judgment on her choices, questioning her desires. Her reserved family, criticizing her for showing too much skin, and then too little, when they auctioned her off to the richest husband. Friends who weren’t friends, clicking their tongues whenever she brought an outsider to their circle. Ehsan, curling his lips distastefully when she dragged him to bars and clubs and places he felt were beneath them. Even well-intentioned Sarah, telling her that they wouldn’t need Aaliyah’s big apartment in the city when they got married, because there would be too much unused space.

Aaliyah is materialistic, a lover of luxury, a believer in spending money on the fine things because the fine things are truly fine. But she also craves the other side, the greasy spoon restaurants and the back-alley bars and the places with a little edge and no fuss.

She wants it all, and Cruz urges her to have it every time she holds herself back. There is no censorship, no reservations that ever fall from Cruz’s lips.

And Cruz is right. She wants the bigger one. So she buys it, and the saleswoman’s eyes go wider by a smidge as she takes Aaliyah’s AmEx black card.

When she’s done, she sidles over to Cruz and kicks her foot. “What do I have to do to get you to try something on?”

Cruz clicks off her phone and sighs.

“Do I have to?”

“No, but what if you see something you like?”

Aaliyah nudges her with her foot again, and when Cruz gets to her feet, she pulls her off to the nearest jewelry case.

They walk around the store, until Cruz finally pauses. Her eyes lock onto something, and a saleswoman opens the case instantly.

Aaliyah puts her hand on Cruz’s back and looks over her shoulder at a ring on the counter. The band is gold with intricate carvings. The center oval stone is gleaming black, with white diamonds surrounding it in a halo.

“Ah, you’ve found our black diamond,” the saleswoman says.

Cruz’s eyes fixate on it for a second longer, then she looks away.

“Try it on,” Aaliyah urges. Cruz shakes her head.

“No, I don’t need something like that. It’s too nice. I’ll lose it.”

When she tries to walk away, Aaliyah grabs her by the shirt and pulls her back.

“Please?” she begs, fluttering her eyes and pouting her lips.

Cruz laughs.

“Fine,” she grunts.

The saleswoman pushes it onto her hand.

“It’s perfect. This is so you,” Aaliyah beams.

Cruz peers down at it in confusion.

“What’s a black diamond?”

“It’s a diamond, but opaque. Naturally so. Incredibly rare, especially at this size,” the saleswoman explains.

Cruz slips it off her finger and hands it back to her.

“Can we go now?” she asks Aaliyah.

Aaliyah nods.

--

In their fourth month, Todd convinces them to go to Miami for a long weekend to celebrate his 40th birthday. They sit at a restaurant by the water.

Todd adjusts his fedora and unbuttons his shirt.

“Do you have to be shirtless wherever you go?” Aaliyah laughs.

“It’s Miami, darling. It would be a sin not to show some skin.” He winks at her.

Cruz stands to go to the bathroom.

“I’ll be right back,” she says, brushing her hand across Aaliyah’s neck. “Order for me?”

Aaliyah grabs her hand and kisses it.

“You want the—”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“But without the—”

“Yup,” Cruz says over her shoulder as she walks away.

The waiter appears with a notepad, and Aaliyah sets down her menu.

“I’ll do the tilapia special, but with rice not pasta. A glass of pinot grigio. My—my, um—”

She looks at the waiter, then across at Todd, who stares at her expectantly.

The waiter points down at Cruz’s empty chair.

“Right, she’ll have the Greek salad with chicken. No feta. And no Greek dressing, just oil and vinegar on the side. And a margarita, on the rocks. And she likes it with salt on the rim. Thanks.”

She hands the waiter her menu, and Todd looks at her in disgust.

Cruz slips into the chair next to her and rubs Aaliyah’s neck again.

“Did you order for me?”

Aaliyah smiles and nods.

Todd slams his water glass on the table and shakes a finger in front of Aaliyah’s face.

“Oh hell no. What on earth was that? Telepathy?”

Cruz looks at him in confusion. “Did I miss something?”

“What did she order for you, soldier girl?”

Cruz looks at Aaliyah quizzically.

“Greek salad?”

Todd folds his arms.

“And how do you eat it?”

“No cheese? Oil and vinegar?”

“And what about to drink?”

“Margarita on the rocks?”

Aaliyah throws her arm over Cruz’s chair and rubs her back.

“You forgot to say with salt,” Aaliyah adds.

Todd throws his napkin in Aaliyah’s face.

“I’ve heard enough, stop.”

David takes Todd’s fedora and places it on his head. He’s dressed smartly, in a collar shirt and linen pants.

“So how long did you serve, Cruz?” David drawls in his southern accent.

Cruz eyes him across the table. Aaliyah slips her hand onto her knee.

“Still serving, technically. My contract isn’t up yet.”

David raises his eyebrows.

“And yet you’re here with us?”

Cruz shrugs.

“Lucky, I guess.”

David takes off his sunglasses. He plucks a toothpick from behind his ear and places it in his mouth.

“I was with the Seals, for a time.”

Todd looks at David incredulously. “You never talk about that.”

David leans back and throws an arm around Todd’s shoulder.

“No, guess I don’t.” David says. “The whole don’t ask, don’t tell thing got me. Served when it was still in play, before the repeal. You can guess how that went.”

Cruz scrutinizes him.

“You mean, you told?”

David nods.

“Yeah. Couldn’t quite keep him a secret forever,” he says, squeezing Todd’s shoulder. “Reckon that was never a problem for you, though?”

“No, it was repealed by the time I enlisted,” Cruz says, taking a sip of her water. “But it wasn’t a thing I felt comfortable saying, even then.”

David’s brown eyes stare deeply into Cruz’s face, and Cruz leans her elbows on the table.

“Where was your first tour?” he asks.

They get lost in conversation, and Aaliyah smirks at Todd. He rolls his eyes and tugs Aaliyah from the table.

“Come on, let’s go take a romantic walk on the beach. There’s only so much military talk I can take.”

He hangs his arm around her shoulders and they walk through the dunes.

“I’ve never heard David mention that, before,” she says.

Todd’s lips turn down, a sight she so rarely sees on his face.

“It’s hard for him, still. Hard for me, too. He was gone for so long, when we first met. Constantly overseas, months at a time. Was like losing a limb. I never knew where he was, never knew if he’d be coming home. Can’t say I miss it.”

She puts her arm around his waist as they walk.

“When did the finishing sentences start?” he asks.

“How much will you hate me if I say I didn’t even notice it was happening?”

He throws his head back and whistles.

“Girl, you’re down bad. Real bad.”

And she is. She knows she is. She’s never felt this way in her life, in either of the two she’s had. It’s everything she thought it should be, and somehow more.

“But you won’t call her your fiancé? Even though you wear her ring? What’s that about?”

“I don’t know. I asked her to just let it be, for now,” she says.

In all these months, Cruz never pushed it, never questioned it. She’d respected the lines Aaliyah set from the start, and it’s made it even harder to keep them drawn. Cruz has regarded her all along as though she understands that it’s a process, to become one’s own self, as though she gets that Aaliyah is inhabiting her skin for the first time.

“Why?”

Aaliyah pulls away and drops down into the sand. She fidgets with the ring.

There are still remnants of it, the repression that’s weighed her down for as long as she can remember. It’s a part of her, embedded in her consciousness.

In her first life it drove her straight into hiding. It was life and death, matters of the heart, when she was just Aaliyah Amrohi.

Her mother had told her so. She was a teenager, the first time her mother caught her with a girl. She’d yanked her by the elbow into the gardens outside their house, then pointed one crooked finger in her face.

“You do better at hiding this, do you understand me? I can’t save you from this, if your father finds out,” she whispered, but it was as though her voice sounded through a blowhorn, knocking Aaliyah backwards.

“I won’t hide who I am,” Aaliyah had resisted.

Her mother shook her by the shoulders.

“He will make you disappear. Are you willing to disappear for this?”

She hadn’t been. Her fear drove her into hidden corners, behind bushes, then eventually, into hotel rooms, spas, any sanctuary that her money could afford.

In the second life, she’d let some of herself out, bit by bit, with Sarah. It was a taste of what it could be, to feel free, as Alexandra Abadi. But it was only half of it, half of her.

Now she has it all. She’s found the light at the end of the tunnel, but an invisible hand still clutches at her neck, jerking her back.

Aaliyah feels it sometimes before she falls asleep next to Cruz. It slithers low on her back, like an itch that turns to a shiver that morphs into a tremble.

Something will happen, she thinks. It won’t stay this way.

Calling it what it so clearly is will be an open invitation for the other shoe to drop. So she’s treated it like something that must be harnessed and contained, secured in a place where it can never be taken away from her.

“Sometimes I think I’m still locked in it,” she says absently.

Todd throws her a peculiar look.

“Locked in what?”

She wraps her hair up and puts a clip in it.

“What do you Americans call it? The closet?”

He bursts out laughing.

“You? Closeted? I just watched you eye fuck your fiancé who you won’t call your fiancé over a Greek salad order.”

She glares at him and his laughter slowly quiets.

“I’ve just never been me, not fully. Until now, with her,” she whispers.

He plops down next to her and wipes the sand from his hands. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you,” he teases.

Aaliyah leans back into the sand next to him and stares out to the ocean. She brings her hand to the front of her face and waves it.

“And in the end, does it really matter? It speaks for itself,” she says, wiggling the finger with the ring.

“What? The label? That one doesn’t speak until it’s spoken of, honey. You know that.”

--

On their last night, Todd drags them to a bar on the beach. A DJ is set up in the sand, blaring Latin music.

Cruz spins her around instantly and they dance for an hour straight. Sweat drips down Aaliyah’s chest and she throws her arms around Cruz’s neck.

“How can you move this way?” she laughs.

Cruz licks her earlobe, and Aaliyah gasps.

“I can move in a lot of ways.”

She wipes the sweat on Aaliyah’s neck and grins cockily, and Aaliyah feels her chest beat with the pulse of the music.

Cruz’s body orbits around her in a way that screams she’s laid claim to her. It has from the start, even though Aaliyah still hasn’t allowed her to have her completely since they’ve been together. It doesn’t deter her.

Whenever they’re in public, Cruz’s hand is covetous on her thigh. Her fingers mark their ownership on her lower back. Her arms circle her and ward off anyone who dares to cross into Aaliyah’s path. Her grin becomes cocksure and her dark eyes gleam if any man or woman dares to give Aaliyah a second look. All of it broadcasts to the world in bold fashion that Aaliyah is hers, and she’s not sharing.

She does it even when they’re alone, when there is no one to hear or see her claim. She folds Aaliyah into herself like she is something precious, something that must be safeguarded.

On anyone else, it might be a repellant. But on Cruz it’s inebriating, and Aaliyah thirsts for it endlessly.

David sweeps in and grabs Cruz from behind, and Aaliyah lets her go. She links arms with Todd and walks to the bar.

Todd fans himself with a napkin. His shirt is long gone and he’s covered in sweat. Aaliyah nurses an ice water against her forehead. The Miami heat is stifling, but she loves the humidity, the way it makes everything seem drenched with life.

“They’re both stupid beautiful, aren’t they?” he says, head tipping in the direction of the strobe lights on the sand. Aaliyah finds David and Cruz dancing together. They’re dark and serious, all fine lines and perfect points, and Aaliyah laughs.

“They’d go well together,” she quips.

“He’s the gayest man in this state,” he shoots back.

Todd grabs her water and chugs it.

“It looks good on you,” he says.

Aaliyah raises her eyebrows. She adjusts the straps of her indigo blue sheath dress.

“The dress? I bought it at Saks, you were there.”

He shakes his head.

“No, the happiness.”

She smiles and asks for another water from the bartender.

“But you’re not fucking, are you?”

“We are not talking about that,” she says out of the side of her mouth, smiling at the bartender as he hands her a refilled cup with ice.

Todd envelopes her from behind and squeezes her into a bear hug.

“Oh c’mon gorgeous, tell me your pillow secrets. I could cut the sexual tension with a butter knife.”

He kisses the side of her head and she groans.

“It’s that obvious?”

He laughs.

“It’s all over her that you’re not giving it to her,” he whispers into her ear.

She collapses her head onto the bar.

“And it’s all over you.”

She jabs him with her elbow.

He digs his fingers into her sides then backs away, reclining again against the bar. He watches David and Cruz on the sand.

“Fine,” Aaliyah says reluctantly. “We’re taking it slow.”

He cocks one eyebrow at her.

“And how’s that going for you right about now, watching that?”

He points to Cruz as David spins her on the dance floor. She’s in a black tank top that winds around her neck like a choker, then opens and flows in the front to reveal hints of her abs. Her black hair is in a high bun, with a single strand brushing her cheek. Aaliyah dabbed makeup on her against her protests before they left, and she’s runway model beautiful tonight.

Aaliyah swallows.

“Not easy,” she whispers.

“I mean, I’ve seen her naked. I get it.”

Aaliyah glowers at him and he smiles wickedly.

“What happened in that boathouse didn’t stay in that boathouse, baby,” he mocks.

“You are so crude,” she says.

“That’s why you love me.”

Aaliyah sips her water and looks away, but he doesn’t leave it be.

“Whose idea was it to go slow?”

She avoids his eyes.

“Mine.”

Todd stares at her like she has three heads.

“You’re telling me that you’ve caged up that lion,” he says, pointing again to Cruz, “for months…and you, the most exotic, sexual creature, is the one holding the key?”

She rolls her eyes.

“I didn’t want it to just be physical,” she says.

“And is it?”

“No,” she watches Cruz’s hips move in circles. “Not even close.”

Todd dunks his fingers into her drink and flicks water in her face. Her jaw drops and she smacks him on the shoulder.

“Then it’s time for you to get some,” he laughs.

She purses her lips and narrows her eyes at him. She grabs the cup before he can react and dumps it over his head.

“You little—” he launches himself over the bar and fills up the cup with the water hose. When she tries to run, he grabs her wrist and throws it on her.

They laugh hysterically, their hair drenched, then Cruz’s arms fold around her from behind. Her lips press into the side of Aaliyah’s neck. She rubs Aaliyah’s hip bone and Aaliyah closes her eyes. Her feet sink into the sand as Cruz plants warm kisses along her clavicle.

Aaliyah peeks through her eyelids and Todd bats his eyes at her. He opens his mouth and licks the air with his tongue, and she throws up her middle finger.

--

When they get back to the hotel later, Aaliyah presses all the buttons on a control panel on the wall at once.

“What are you doing?” Cruz laughs from behind her.

“I think they open them,” Aaliyah says, nodding toward the windows. “Somehow.”

The entire wall facing the ocean is unobstructed window panels.

“It’s hot out,” Cruz says.

“So?” Aaliyah throws her a look and Cruz shrugs.

“Whatever you want, but stop pressing everything at the same time.” Cruz places her hand on her hip and moves her to the side. Then she presses a single button, and all of the windows open at once. The room floods with the wet heat and the sound of the waves.

Aaliyah walks to a window and breathes in. Cruz sits on the leg of a sofa and pulls her down on her knee. She kisses the side of Aaliyah’s face from behind and Aaliyah throws one hand behind her head, rubbing the base of Cruz’s neck. It’s moist with sweat from the night.

“I’m sorry I’m so gross,” she says into Aaliyah’s ear.

Aaliyah turns, and their noses brush.

“I like it.” She bends and licks the side of Cruz’s neck, tasting the salt of her sweat on her tongue. Cruz’s breath hitches, and her hand clutches Aaliyah’s thigh.

Aaliyah opens her mouth and closes it on Cruz’s lips, and she feels famished. Her lips move sloppily, her tongue dragging across Cruz’s teeth, and Cruz’s hand travels up her dress. Her fingers brush over Aaliyah’s breast and Aaliyah moans into her.

Cruz smiles against her lips. “We should go to bed, baby girl. I’m gonna go shower.”

Aaliyah looks at her. The moon is reflecting in her eyes. They’re light, soft. There is no trace of the torture and pain they’ve carried. She rubs her thumb over Cruz’s cheek.

“Ok,” she whispers.

Cruz disappears into the bathroom just as the sky opens. It’s torrential rain, the type that whips through the air sideways and blinds. It pours into the room, onto Aaliyah’s skin, and she smiles.

She loves the rain.

The neon lights of Miami nightlife fold out beneath her, and beyond them, yachts and barges twinkle in the ocean.

The shower starts running in the bathroom behind her.

Maybe if she releases only parts of it, this euphoria that courses through her veins, she can keep her hands secure around it.

She steps out of her underwear.

There are footsteps on the tiles. She hears Cruz pulling the quilt off the bed and throwing it to the floor.

“Holy shit,” she says. “Get away from the windows, you’re going to get drenched.”

Aaliyah nods and steps away. Cruz is laying on top of the sheets in a sports bra and cotton boyshorts.

“Why’d you throw that off the bed?” Aaliyah laughs.

“I know you could touch the surface of the sun and not feel it, but it’s a sauna in here,” Cruz says as she leans into the pillows.

Aaliyah turns back to the ocean and watches the waves crash viciously against the shore, spurred by the wind and the rain.

“Come to bed,” Cruz calls from behind her.

Aaliyah rises and walks across the room. She crawls slowly onto the bed from the end, and Cruz’s eyes go dark all at once.

“What are you doing?”

Aaliyah doesn’t answer. She makes her way up the bed and straddles her hips.

“You’re all wet,” Cruz says, brushing her hands up and down her arms.

Aaliyah laughs. It’s throaty and raw. “You have no idea,” she whispers.

Cruz’s hands tangle in her hair and her eyes close.

Aaliyah’s dress is hiked up to her waist. She leans down and brushes her thumb against Cruz’s bottom lip, opening her mouth. She pushes her tongue in and kisses her deeply. She can taste the mint of her toothpaste, and it mixes with the vanilla and the sandalwood and the leather, all of the essence that is her. She’s never wanted to inhale the scent and taste of something, someone, so much.

Then Aaliyah grinds against her bare thigh, and Cruz’s eyes fly open immediately at the feeling of her.

“Aaliyah—"

Aaliyah stops whatever she is about to say with a kiss. Her hips move with a mind of their own. The friction is too much yet not enough.

Cruz brings her hands to Aaliyah’s waist, pulling her down at the same time she raises her thigh, and Aaliyah cries out so loudly that it leaves her as a scream. She throws her head back. The water from the rain, the wetness between her legs and the moisture in the air possesses her, to a point of no return.

“My fucking God,” Cruz whispers, watching her move back and forth with her mouth open.

Her fingers press into Aaliyah’s sides, hard enough that they’ll leave marks.

“Aal-Aaliyah,” she groans. Her hands grip her waist, bringing her to a halt. “You can’t do this and expect me not to have you.”

Aaliyah stills and looks down at her. She sees the desperation in her eyes, the furious set of her brow.

“Have me,” she says, wrapping her hand around Cruz’s wrist and directing it between her legs. She reaches down and pulls at the hem of her dress, ripping it over her head, and then she is naked in her lap.

Cruz takes her in, unblinking. “Are you sure?”

Aaliyah moves on her again. “If you don’t, I’ll do it myself,” she says.

Then Cruz is there, just where she needs her. She reclines slightly and spreads her arms behind her, resting her hands on the front of Cruz’s calves. Cruz leans forward and presses deeper into her and Aaliyah slides back and forth in her lap, meeting every touch. Her neck is craned all the way back, and the ceiling is a haze through the hoods of her eyes.

“Another,” she whispers, and Cruz answers with everything she wants. The air around them is damp, suffocating. Aaliyah’s mouth gapes but nothing comes in, and then suddenly it all bursts open, the months of desire and longing and need, the lifetime of locking herself in.

Cruz sits all the way up and clutches her back.

“The way you just looked,” Cruz says into her ear between breaths. “You’re so perfect.”

She presses her lips into the hollow of Aaliyah’s throat.

“Everything off,” Aaliyah says into her hair, pulling her sports bra over her head. Cruz’s hips rise and Aaliyah yanks her boyshorts down. She slides down the bed, between Cruz’s legs.

There is no buildup, no time for dalliance. Her tongue is deft, precise. Cruz immediately jerks and cries out. Her entire face scrunches up, and Aaliyah recognizes her look of ecstasy. She grabs the sheets in her fists and flails when Aaliyah connects with her again.

Aaliyah presses her palm into Cruz’s pelvis, stilling her.

“Relax, my love,” she says, her head bobbing up and down. “I’m going to give you everything.”

Cruz closes her eyes. Her lips part in a half circle. “It feels – it feels—”

“I know what it feels like,” Aaliyah breathes, and she can’t remember why she willingly deprived them of it.

When Aaliyah finishes her, the tears streak down Cruz’s cheek, and this cocksure woman is reduced, again, to a weeping dreamer. That is, after all, who Aaliyah finds Cruz to be at her core when she peels back her layers: someone with a sensitivity deeper than anyone Aaliyah has ever known.

“I don’t know why this happens.” Cruz sighs embarrassingly, wiping at her face. Aaliyah presses soft kisses to her cheek.

“Because there’s nothing righter than this,” Aaliyah whispers back. She brings Cruz’s hand up and presses it to her heart. Cruz smiles and leans up to kiss her.

“I love you,” Cruz says.

Aaliyah still isn’t used to hearing these words from her. She lies against her stomach and blows out a deep breath.

“Whose idea was it to wait to do this?” she jokes.

Cruz laughs and traces circles on her back.

They leave the bed and tumble into the quilt Cruz threw to the floor. This time it’s slower, more measured. Once they’re finished there, Aaliyah pulls her out onto the terrace and pushes her down into a reclining chair and climbs on top of her again.

The sweat becomes too much from the heat and they find their way to the shower. They don’t bother with towels when they come out.

It’s seismic, uncontrollable, and Aaliyah is reminded again of how her body was put together for this purpose, to be had by her.

It’s a dialect of its own, the way they communicate through their skin.

They get so lost in it that they miss their flight home the next morning.

—
Their first fight hits Aaliyah a month later like whiplash.

It’s more of a quibble, one over the insignificant things that somehow morph into matters of significance.

Aaliyah spends the entire weekend trying to piece together something meaningful to say at a seminar today on gender equity in Arab countries.

By 6:00 in the morning on Monday, she’s already dressed in a skirt and blouse, pacing back and forth in the kitchen of her apartment in the city. She flips through index cards of her talking points. She is an imposter in these moments, someone who never feels worthy to speak on topics of importance even when she’s spent years living them, followed by years of studying them.

She furiously crosses out one bullet point and sighs. She’s not going to get it right.

Today is the day, she thinks. Today is the day they’ll know I’m a fraud.

When she’d explained it to Cruz over the weekend, her fear of being found out, Cruz stared at her.

“So you have imposter syndrome, then?” she’d asked.

Aaliyah sat up straighter in her desk chair.

“What’s that?”

“You feel you’re not good enough to do something, even when you are.”

Cruz walked past her and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re more than good enough. Don’t talk yourself into believing something different.”

Aaliyah had smiled, and she smiles again at the memory as she crosses another line out on a different index card.

Boldness runs in Cruz’s DNA, to the point of borderline arrogance. It courses through Aaliyah’s veins too. They’re like dynamite tied together, sparking the other’s confidence, passing their flare back and forth between them.

On occasion, they blow each other to smithereens.

Aaliyah is on a bullet point that doesn’t work. She scribbles new words over it. The stress sits in her shoulder blades, and she checks the clock.

She’s running out of time to get it right.

Cruz comes through the door panting and wiping sweat off her forehead from her morning workout. She washes her hands in the sink just as Aaliyah finishes her coffee. Aaliyah slides around her, rinses the mug, and throws it into the nearest cupboard.

She reads through an index card and hears Cruz let out an exasperated sigh.

“It doesn’t go there,” she mutters from behind her. “It goes here.”

Aaliyah doesn’t look up at her.

Cruz snaps her fingers. “Hey, look,” she says, pointing to the cupboard over the coffee machine. “It goes here.”

Aaliyah blinks at her in frustration.

“Did you just snap your fingers at me?” she asks incredulously.

Cruz rolls her eyes. “I was trying to get your attention. You’ve been in your head for the last two days.”

“Because I’m busy,” Aaliyah says, thrusting her index cards in front of her for evidence.

“I know you’re busy. I’m just trying to show you where it goes.”

Aaliyah tosses her index cards on the table and crosses her arms. “And you make the rules on where things go?”

“I don’t make any rules. I just rearranged things, where they make sense. Mugs over the coffee pot. It’s easier.”

Aaliyah cocks her head at her.

“Easier?”

She walks across the kitchen, opens the cupboard where Cruz put the coffee mug, rips it out, then throws it into a different one and slams it shut.

“It’s easier for me to put it in the nearest one,” Aaliyah says defiantly.

Cruz looks from the cupboard to Aaliyah. Her nostrils flare.

“You’re used to people picking up after you, organizing things for you. You’ve never had to do it yourself,” Cruz snaps.

Aaliyah takes the words like a slap. Her jaw falls open.

“Oh please,” she yells. “It’s a fucking coffee mug, Cruz. This isn’t the military. You don’t get to give me orders.”

Cruz’s eyes blaze.

“I’m not giving you orders. I’m just asking you to respect the order of—of—” she gestures around her, pointing at the cabinets. “Of where things go.”

Aaliyah purses her lips. “Sounds an awful lot like orders. What’s next, I need to call you Sergeant? Will that be enough respect?”

Cruz looks her up and down and shakes her head. She walks up to her, opens the cupboard behind her head, and takes the mug out.

“Give me that,” Aaliyah shouts.

Cruz raises it over her head, to a place Aaliyah could never reach, and peers down her nose at her.

“It’s right here. What’s wrong? Can’t reach?” she taunts.

Aaliyah glares, and Cruz leans down until their noses brush. Suddenly the only thing Aaliyah is aware of is the smell of Cruz’s gum, cinnamon and spice. She can taste it on her lips.

Cruz pulls the string between them so taut that it snaps.

“You’re so fucking hot when you’re angry,” Cruz whispers into her mouth.

She throws the mug into the sink, lifts Aaliyah onto the counter and then they’re attacking each other.

“How much time do you have?” Cruz exhales, pushing her skirt up until it billows around her waist.

“Enough,” Aaliyah breathes through kisses.

Then she’s inside of her, biting down on her neck, and Aaliyah shoves her head away.

“No marks,” she says urgently. “I have students today.”

Cruz laughs and continues. She goes hard, and Aaliyah’s frustration fizzles into impulsive need. The emotional swing robs her of breath.

“I’m—I’m going to—” she starts, and then Cruz pulls away.

She steps back slowly, grabs the dish towel from the stove and casually wipes her fingers with it. Then she walks to the sink. Aaliyah watches, stunned, as she fills the coffee mug with water, gulps it down, then wordlessly places it into the cupboard above the coffee machine.

Cruz’s cheeks are still puffed with water as she slinks back to her. She swallows and wipes her lips.

“You were saying you were about to do something?” she asks, her dark eyes shining provokingly, her brashness settling in like an aura around her.

Just like that, the rage starts to boil again in Aaliyah’s stomach.

She slides off the counter, pulling her skirt down. She smooths the wrinkles from her clothes.

“Move,” she demands, sidestepping around Cruz as she stomps to the table. She arranges her index cards into a neat stack, places them in her bag, and walks to the door. Just as she pulls one heel on, Cruz’s hands circle her waist.

“You haven’t finished yet, baby girl,” she whispers. She spins her around, pushes her back into the door, and bends slowly to her knees. Aaliyah’s chest heaves as she stares down at her. Cruz hooks one leg over her shoulder and leans into her, sliding her underwear to the side.

Aaliyah curses and mutters under her breath in Arabic. It’s maddening, how easily Cruz can get under her skin. It’s unquenchable, Aaliyah’s desire for more of it.

Cruz smiles. “But you love that I drive you crazy,” she says back in the same language.

After, Cruz moves up her body and kisses her softly.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it seem like I’m bossing you around,” she says.

Aaliyah shakes her head. “No, I’m sorry. I snapped at you.” She wets her lips. “Do we get to do this every time we fight?”

Cruz laughs. “You’re going to be late. Go. Good luck.”

When Aaliyah gets home that night, the coffee mug is on the counter with a note beneath it.

It can go wherever you want it to.

The butterflies erupt inside of her.

She smiles, picks the mug up, then slides it into the cabinet over the coffee machine.

—
In August, Aaliyah drags Cruz to have brunch with her mother.

“What do I wear?” Cruz asks from Aaliyah’s walk-in closet. Aaliyah had insisted on filling it with Cruz’s clothes months before.

“Clothes?” Aaliyah says from over her shoulder, scrolling through her email on her laptop.

“Like, fancy clothes? Casual clothes? Help me out here.”

Aaliyah laughs and walks into the closet.

“This,” she says, pulling down a black t-shirt dress.

“And this,” she grabs a green jean jacket with silver buttons.

“These,” she thrusts open-toe leather sandals at her.

Cruz changes, and Aaliyah disappears. She comes back seconds later. Her fingers slot small silver hoops into Cruz’s ears.

“You’re perfect,” she says, kissing her cheek.

She tugs her out the door and they start walking in the direction of her mother’s apartment.

“I’m hot,” Cruz complains, pulling off the jacket. She fans herself and slides her sunglasses up her nose, then back on her head, then down on her nose again.

Aaliyah pulls her hand, halting them.

“Calm down, my love. It’s just brunch.”

Cruz sighs.

“Brunch with your mother.”

They start walking again. They get to the apartment and Aaliyah glides past the doorman.

“Ms. Abadi,” he says, tipping his head toward her.

She smiles and pulls Cruz along.

“You look like you’re going to faint,” Aaliyah whispers as they ride the elevator.

“Your mother freaks me out,” Cruz whispers back.

“Why? She’s harmless.”

The elevator door opens and Aaliyah steps inside.

“Wait, wait, what am I supposed to call her?” Cruz asks frantically, but it’s too late.

Aaliyah’s mother pulls Aaliyah in for cheek kisses instantly. The sunshine gleams through the windows and the diamonds sparkle in her mother’s ears, around her neck, on her fingers, from her wrists. Aaliyah catches Cruz staring at her wearily as her millions reflect off every limb.

“You’re late,” she says in Aaliyah’s ear. “The food is on the table.”

Then she sweeps around Aaliyah and presses kisses onto Cruz’s cheeks.

“Ms. Manuelos,” she says, “we meet again.”

Cruz runs her hands through her hair.

“Uh, yeah, you too? Mrs.—Mrs.—"

“Oh, darling, there is no Mrs. You took care of that, remember?” Aaliyah’s mother says with a wink.

Cruz’s mouth opens, and Aaliyah bites her lip to keep from smiling.

She ushers them through her penthouse, to a dining room with a long cherry wood table. A crystal chandelier shines overhead. There are platters of eggs, pancakes, bacon, pastries, fruits.

At the head of the table, a man with a sculpted face and long blonde hair sits in an untied robe and boxers. He waves as they walk in, and Aaliyah stops short.

“Mama, you said it would just be us,” she says through a tight smile.

“Nonsense, I thought we could have a double date. Landon, this is Alexandra, my daughter, and Ms. Manuelos,” she announces to the man, apparently named Landon.

Her mother points to two empty chairs and Aaliyah pulls Cruz down next to her.

“Nice to meet you, Landon,” Aaliyah says, staring daggers at her mother.

The man itches his bare chest. He smiles crookedly as his grey eyes take in Aaliyah, staring at everything but her face.

“Likewise, honey,” he says slowly, and Cruz clears her throat from the chair next to her.

Aaliyah’s mother launches into a story about a run in she had with someone famous at a makeup counter in Manhattan, and Aaliyah holds Cruz’s hand under the table, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

The conversation idles and then Aaliyah’s mother grabs Cruz’s plate and stacks pancakes on top of it.

“Since you’re not helping yourself,” she says, handing it back to Cruz.

Then she thrusts a saucer with a spoon in Cruz’s hands.

Cruz stares at it, perplexed.

“That’s some thick syrup,” she mutters.

“That’s honey. The Arab way. Eat up.”

Aaliyah fills her plate and she feels Landon’s foot graze against her own beneath the table. She jumps in her seat, and Cruz stares at her.

“What?” she asks. “Everything ok?”

Aaliyah gulps her water.

“Mmmhmm, fine.”

“So, you two good friends?” Landon asks, as one side of his robe slips from his shoulder to reveal a hairless, toned chest.

Cruz clears her throat again, opening her mouth, but Aaliyah beats her to it.

“No,” Aaliyah interjects. “She’s my—my—my, um,” and now it’s Cruz’s hand squeezing hers under the table.

Aaliyah’s mother’s eyes narrow into slits.

“Spit it out, dear. She’s what?”

“We’re together,” Cruz interjects, and Aaliyah exhales.

Her mother’s eyes narrow even further, and she cocks one eyebrow.

“Together? That’s an interesting way of saying you’re engag—”

Aaliyah jumps out of her seat.

“Mama, is there more bacon in the kitchen?”

Aaliyah’s mother’s eyes pointedly swing from the platter heaped with steaming pieces of bacon in front of them to Aaliyah’s face.

Landon waves his hands.

“Hold on, hold on. You mean, like, romantically together?”

His eyes remain fixed on Aaliyah’s face, and Cruz rubs the back of her neck.

“Is that so hard to believe?” Cruz asks, her tone sharp.

The room goes quiet.

“What’s hard to believe is my daughter’s sudden inability to speak,” her mother says eventually.

Aaliyah is still standing. She crosses her arms over her chest and lifts her head the slightest bit, preparing for battle. She’s well versed in the art of war with her mother.

Her mother gestures toward Cruz. “What am I to call her? Your lover? Girlfriend? Fian--”

“You can call me Cruz,” Cruz chimes in, pulling Aaliyah back into her seat.

“We’ll stick with Ms. Manuelos for now. Come.” She stands and motions for Cruz to follow. “Why don’t you help me in the kitchen for a second? We need another pitcher of mimosas, I’m afraid Landon has guzzled it.”

Cruz’s neck turns red.

Aaliyah nudges her knee.

“Just go,” she whispers apologetically, and Cruz stands.

Landon shoots Aaliyah another crooked grin. They walk out of the room, and he taps his hands on the table.

“I see where you get your looks from,” he murmurs appreciatively, and Aaliyah rolls her eyes.

“Can you not?” she snaps.

“Not what?”

She shoots him a look.

“Not do whatever it is that you’re thinking of doing.”

He leans in closer to her, his mouth opening to say something, and then Cruz walks back in with a pitcher.

Cruz eyes her and raises an eyebrow, and Aaliyah clutches the bridge of her nose.

“What’s wrong?” Cruz whispers into her ear as she sits back down.

“Nothing, I’m great. Fabulous.”

Her mother slides into the seat across from her, and Landon stands.

He walks around the dining room, hands brushing over furniture, a China cabinet, a painting on the wall. Aaliyah sees Cruz’s eyes following his every movement, and she tries desperately to salvage the mess of the morning.

“So Mama, are you going to the auction on Saturday? I read there’s some--”

“Honey, your mama told me you went to NYU,” Landon interrupts Aaliyah mid-sentence, dropping back to his seat.

Aaliyah blinks and stares at him.

“Oh c’mon, I won’t bite.” He reaches out a hand to Aaliyah’s face, and Cruz seizes his wrist immediately.

“If you call her honey again, we’re going to have a problem,” she says, her jaw clenching.

“Cruz—” Aaliyah starts, but it’s too late. Cruz is on her feet.

“Empty your pockets, Legolas,” she demands, glaring down at him.

He looks up to her, a confused expression on his face. Cruz looks to Aaliyah and her mother expectantly.

“Lord of the Rings? The hair? Anyone? No?” she sighs.

Aaliyah stares at her, befuddled. This is a dark comedy gone wrong, and she wants nothing more than to crawl under the table and stay there until it ends.

“What do you want with my pockets?” Landon protests.

“I saw what you just did.”

He rips his wrist from Cruz’s grip and bangs his fist on the table.

“Are you accusing me of something here? Because maybe we do have a problem.”

Aaliyah’s mother grins wider than the Cheshire cat.

“Careful, Landon. She killed my first husband.”

He stares at her in confusion, Aaliyah collapses her head into her hands, and Cruz yanks him out of the chair.

“Get the fuck up,” she grunts.

Then her hands are in his pocket, pulling out a gold stopwatch.

Aaliyah’s mouth falls open.

“That’s my grandfather’s,” she whispers.

Cruz hands it across the table to her mother, who falls silent.

“I don’t know how that got there,” Landon says meekly.

“Get out,” her mother says quietly. “Leave the robe.”

He widens his stance, planting himself where he is, and Cruz’s body tenses.

She bends over Aaliyah’s chair. Her fists clench.

“Can you call Asif? I don’t want to make a scene.”

Aaliyah dials him. He’s there within seconds, ushering Landon out the door. He leaves the robe behind, balled up on his chair.

“Mama, why can’t you just find someone your age?”

Her mother picks up a fork and spears a piece of melon.

“Because I’m living the way I choose to. You should practice doing the same, instead of cowering from all you want,” she says.

“Cowering?” Aaliyah shouts, grabbing a bagel from a nearby bowl and furiously smearing cream cheese onto it. “You’re the one who told me I’d be killed my entire life for being who I was. You wonder why I act the way I do.”

Her mother rolls her eyes and adjusts one of the many necklaces on her neck.

“You would’ve been, back then. But there’s no one to kill you, at least not now,” she says in an even tone back.

They start speaking quickly in Arabic to one another. Aaliyah’s voice becomes increasingly heated, and Cruz stands abruptly.

“I think the dog needs to go for a walk,” she says, pointing to the yorkie sitting at her mother’s feet.

“A lovely idea, Fred could use a jaunt,” her mother replies.

Aaliyah stomps away from the table, grabs the leash in the foyer, and hooks a harness around the dog’s chest.

She looks at Cruz. “Are you coming?” she demands.

“No, Ms. Manuelos and I are going to sit on the terrace while you go walk off your demons.”

“My demons? I have no demons, Mama. You’re the one—”

Cruz’s fingers slide over her shoulder, cool and light. She holds her steadily and shakes her head.

“Hey, it’s ok. Calm down. Just go walk the dog.”

Aaliyah is startled by how unbothered Cruz is by all of this, how she’s able to quiet the agitation that ripples in Aaliyah’s chest with a single touch. Aaliyah takes a breath, nodding.

She hurries outside, pulling Fred down the block, and he looks up at her helplessly.

“I don’t know how you live there with her,” she says to him under her breath.

She walks until her heart rate slows, then turns around and takes the elevator back up. When she lets herself back in, Cruz and her mother are gone. She picks Fred up and walks to the terrace. The door is ajar, and the curtains blow in the hot August air.

They’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the rail. Green bushes and gardens surround them on all sides, and the built-in sprinkler system sends a mist into the air.

Aaliyah pauses, listening to their conversation.

“What are your intentions with her?” her mother asks.

Cruz slides her hands across the rail.

“To be with her.”

“You understand she’s high maintenance, my daughter? Nothing with her will ever be easy.”

Aaliyah’s pulse quickens, and she runs her hands across Fred’s fur. Cruz says nothing.

“Don’t let her façade fool you,” her mother says quietly. “Aaliyah is a master of being both forward and indirect with what she wants.”

Cruz laughs.

“Yeah, I’ve learned that.”

“Have you?”

“Years ago,” Cruz explains. “She didn’t say I love you, not with those words at least. She talked around it, said it in a different way. She wouldn’t say she wanted me, either. Not that I was any better.”

Her mother turns and faces Cruz directly.

“Well, that’s my doing. So blame me, if you want to blame anyone. I raised her to keep it close to her chest, and she still does. It’ll come out of her, eventually. She’s already announced it all already, with that ring.”

Cruz keeps her eyes trained ahead.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere,” she says quietly. “I don’t care how long it takes.”

“And what of her past? I trust you realize that being with her will present its own difficulties, eventually.”

Cruz nods, picks at something absently on the railing.

“Doesn’t bother me,” she answers.

“No? What will you do, if it ever comes to that?”

Comes to what? Aaliyah wonders.

“Whatever it takes,” Cruz says, her voice loud with confidence.

Her mother side-eyes her and nods in satisfaction.

“Good.”

Later that afternoon, Aaliyah leans against a door frame in her apartment and watches Cruz push dumbbells over her head on a workout bench. Aaliyah turned one of the rooms into a small gym months before.

Cruz’s eyes meet hers in the wall of mirrors.

“What?” she asks, her chest heaving with exertion.

Aaliyah climbs onto the bench behind her and wraps her arms around her waist.

“I’m sorry for all of that earlier,” she apologizes into her shoulder. “You were amazing, how you handled it.”

Cruz sets the weights down and leans back into her.

“It’s fine, that was tame compared to the fights I used to have with my mom,” Cruz says seriously. “I love how well your mom knows you. Mine was never that way.”

Aaliyah’s fingers stroke her abs, and she nuzzles Cruz’s neck with her nose.

“You know you’re everything, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean to me. You’re everything. My whole heart.”

Cruz wipes her face with a towel.

“You mean I’m not just your lover?” she jokes sarcastically, echoing her mother’s words from earlier.

Aaliyah weaves their hands together from behind and brings them in to Cruz’s chest.

“You know you’re not. I want all of it, with you,” Aaliyah whispers. “I’m just terrified of how big this is. I’m scared I’ll lose it. I’ve never had everything I’ve wanted, like this.”

Cruz angles her head and finds her eyes.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?”

Cruz kisses her.

“Yeah. I promise.”

Aaliyah returns to these words repeatedly, when it all falls to pieces. She wishes she could go back in time and tell herself not to be so naïve. Not to allow love to blind her enough to believe in a promise that can never be kept.

But she believes. God, how she believes, in the moment.

Aaliyah presses her mouth to her neck.

“Wife,” she says softly.

Cruz goes still.

“What?”

“My mother asked what to call you. That’s what I want to call you, one day.”

Cruz sits up straighter and swings her legs around on the bench so they’re facing each other. Her brow crinkles.

“I—I don’t know what to say.”

Aaliyah laughs and spins the ring on her finger.

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

Cruz’s face spreads into a grin and she sprawls her hands behind her on the bench, flexing until her muscles burst from her biceps.

“I kind of figured that was guaranteed at this point,” she says firmly.

Aaliyah raises one eyebrow.

“Guaranteed?”

Cruz sips her water and licks her bottom lip, shrugging her shoulders.

“I mean, with all the orgasms I’ve given you, that shits gotta get me somewhere,” she ribs.

Aaliyah gasps and smacks her in the stomach.

“Oof,” Cruz lets out.

“You say that like you haven’t gotten them back.”

Cruz’s dark eyes fill with jest.

“I keep track. You’ve gotten more.”

Aaliyah folds her arms across her chest.

“You keep track?”

Cruz points to the side of her head.

“Yup, it’s all here. I’ve got the tally.”

Aaliyah tries to feign annoyance, but she knows she’s right. Cruz approaches lovemaking in a way Aaliyah had never experienced, in a way Aaliyah approaches it herself. Aaliyah was used to one-offs, transactional interactions. Do for me, and then I do for you, and it’s over. But it’s never over with Cruz.

From the start, her black eyes had stared down at her, benevolent.

“More?” she’d asked her during their first time years before. Aaliyah had laid there in shambles. More. Not finished, not done, not demanding anything for herself. Just more.

Cruz gives endlessly to her, quenches her need until she’s overfilled.

Aaliyah gives it back to her in the same way, except for one difference.

“You’d have the same amount if you didn’t stop me sometimes,” Aaliyah says.

Cruz grabs a dumbbell and starts curling it in and out.

“I stop you because us normal humans can’t physically produce that many in a row.”

Aaliyah tries to tug the weight from her and grunts with its heaviness.

“Now you’re saying I’m not normal?”

Cruz rips the weight back and curls again.

“I’m saying the frequency with which you can come is abnormal, yes.”

Aaliyah smacks her in the stomach again.

“You act like you don’t love it.”

Cruz grabs a heavier set of weights and lies against the bench, thrusting them over her head.

“Of course I love it,” she says through puffs of air.

She releases the weights to the floor, winded. They bounce and fall to their sides, and she stretches her arms behind her head.

“So you’d agree, then? It’s guaranteed?” Cruz asks breathlessly.

Aaliyah taps her chin. She pretends to stare off into the distance.

“Guaranteed? Eh, what’s to say I’m not still weighing my options?”

Cruz narrows her eyes and stands halfway up from the bench, but Aaliyah yanks her back down by her shirt.

“Get over here,” she commands. She climbs on top of her. “It’s more than guaranteed,” she murmurs between kisses.

She brushes her hands over the front of Cruz’s shorts.

“Why don’t you let me raise the tally a little?”

Cruz laughs and shoves her hand away.

“You’re interrupting my workout. I’m not done.”

Aaliyah shifts on top of her, shooting her a dramatic look.

“Oh, I think you are.”

“Actually, I’m not,” Cruz says, pushing her off. She drops to the ground and starts doing sit-ups, and Aaliyah laughs lowly.

She unzips her sweatshirt and tosses it to the floor. She walks backwards, pulling her shirt over her head. Cruz’s movements slow, but she keeps her eyes focused ahead.

Aaliyah unbuttons her jeans, then pulls her zipper down, inchmeal.

Cruz stares at her as she steps out of one pant leg, then the other.

She gets to the door and unclasps her bra.

“Catch,” she says, throwing it in Cruz’s direction.

Cruz grabs it out of the air and glares.

She steps backwards through the door, then throws her underwear through. It lands feet inside the entrance to the room, and she walks slowly down the hall. She stops and leans against the wall casually, one leg over the other. She picks at her nails and smiles when she hears her footsteps coming.

Cruz comes through the door, the slant of her brow severe, her eyes decidedly black.

Aaliyah stares at her smugly as she pins her against the wall.

“Told you you were done,” she whispers in her mouth.
--

In September, Cruz drives her to the same theater where it all began, for the same lecture Aaliyah gave over a year ago.

“The Saudi Women Who Dare To Love,” Aaliyah reads aloud from the poster in her hands. “Such a dramatic title.”

She turns the air conditioning up and takes out a makeup compact from her purse, dabbing her cheeks with a brush.

“Do they always repeat them?” Cruz asks as she changes lanes.

“Sometimes. This one was a hit,” Aaliyah says.

They walk into the theater hand and hand, and Aaliyah kisses her on the cheek.

“I’ll see you after.”

She breezes through her talking points on the stage, having memorized them over a year ago. She thinks of how far removed she is from the Arab way she lectures on. There is no one left to control her, no one left to govern her. She’s walking without red lines for the first time.

When the question-and-answer portion of the lecture begins, someone in the front of the audience asks the big one immediately.

“Did you ever face backlash from a relationship with a woman in your country?”

She says yes, once. Because she had. But she doesn’t give details of her life to these people she doesn’t know.

The microphone gets passed up rows to the back, and then there’s Cruz’s voice.

“Did you regret it, that one time, given the risks?”

Aaliyah shields her eyes from the spotlights over the stage until she finds Cruz’s face. She’s grinning. She leans forward in her seat, awaiting Aaliyah’s answer to the same question she asked over a year ago, in this same lecture.

Aaliyah licks her lips.

“Not even a little bit.”

Someone hoots in the audience, and everyone claps.

Afterward, Cruz stays by her side in the lobby as champagne flutes get passed around. Aaliyah can’t help but to think of how far they’ve come from the last time they were here.

The chair of her academic department pushes through the crowd and makes his way toward them.

Aaliyah groans. “It’s Richard. I don’t want to talk to him, hide me,” she says, burying her face in Cruz’s shoulder.

“The bow tie guy? He’s looking at you like you’re dessert,” she says.

Then Richard is upon them.

“Alex! So lovely to see you. What a fabulous turnout tonight. You’re dazzling, as always.”

He kisses her cheeks and turns to Cruz, just as she’s slipping a cracker into her mouth.

“Sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Cruz chews and places up a finger as she tries to swallow, and Aaliyah rubs her shoulder.

“This is Cruz,” she says. “My fiancé.”

The words tumble out before she realizes what she’s saying, and Cruz starts coughing immediately. Her eyes fill with water, and Richard raises his eyebrows.

“You didn’t tell us, Alex. We would’ve had a champagne toast for you in the department. Let’s have one now.”

He grabs flutes from a passing waiter and shoves glasses into their hands. Cruz is pounding on her chest, and Aaliyah rubs her temple.

“Cheers to you,” Richard proclaims, clinking his glass against theirs. “When’s the big day?”

Aaliyah is on fire. She avoids Cruz’s gaze.

“No plans yet,” she says with a tight smile.

She small talks him for ten minutes, then pulls Cruz out the door.

Her heart is racing. She can’t believe she said it so easily, as if they’ve talked it through instead of skirting around it for months, as if they’ve agreed that it’s no longer taboo to acknowledge it all.

Cruz grabs her hand as they walk to the car.

“What made you say that?” she whispers, reaching out to play with a strand of Aaliyah’s hair.

Aaliyah eyes the concrete.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Cruz clutches her waist.

“Don’t say sorry. I know you asked to leave it be, months ago. Have you changed your mind?”

Aaliyah looks up at her. Her black eyes are softer than they’ve ever been.

“There’s nothing to change. I wanted it the day I put the ring on that finger. I told you it wasn’t random.”

Cruz takes a half step back and rubs the skin at the corner of her eyes.

“I don’t know how to read this, Aaliyah. I don’t know how this works. Does—does this mean we’re engaged?”

Aaliyah stares at her, then looks around them. The light above them turns red, and people start darting through the crosswalk.

They’re on a street corner, in a city that embraces them, that allows them to be who they are.

She can do it, here.

She can love her.

She can have her.

She can marry her.

She doesn’t need to hide anymore.

She takes Cruz’s hands.

“Is that what you want it to mean?” she asks softly.

Cruz laughs.

“Isn’t that obvious? I want it so much I almost just died choking on a cracker when you said it.”

A warmth blossoms in Aaliyah’s stomach. She drops her head into Cruz’s chest and breathes deeply.

She loosens her grip around the final pieces.

She sets it all free.

“I want it to mean that too. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.”

Cruz’s arms wrap around her and they stand together as cars zip by and strangers hurry past.

Cruz keeps one arm around her shoulder as they walk to the passenger side of the car. She opens the door for her, and Aaliyah slips into the seat.

Cruz’s face suddenly sets in a serious line.

“But I haven’t asked,” she says.

Aaliyah frowns.

“Asked?”

Cruz takes her hand and fingers the ring.

“Isn’t that what happens? The person who gets the ring asks the question?”

She’s whispering, as if this is the most sacred question she’s ever uttered.

Aaliyah will never get over how Cruz is an overconfident, matter-of-fact ballbreaker, until she isn’t. Until she’s a dreamer, someone capable of exuding the type of quiet intimacy that creeps up and overwhelms all at once.

Aaliyah kisses her.

“You don’t need to ask, my love. I’m already yours.”

--

On a Friday in October, Cruz picks her up from work early. When Aaliyah hops into the car, she throws a scarf into her lap.

“Put that on,” she says, re-adjusting her rear-view mirror.

“But it’s not cold,” Aaliyah responds.

Cruz grabs it from her lap at a red light.

“No, I mean around your eyes. Come here.’

Aaliyah pulls away and grabs her wrist.

“My eyes? What are you talking about.”

“Yeah, your eyes. Let’s go, the light’s turning green.”

Aaliyah slowly pitches forward and Cruz ties it tight around her eyes.

“Can you see what I’m doing?”

Aaliyah frowns. She’s staring into darkness.

“Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

She can feel the car taking a turn, and Cruz turns up the radio, then rests one hand on her thigh.

“Just hold tight.”

Aaliyah tries to lift the scarf from her eyes minutes later and Cruz smacks her hands.

“No, that stays on. Don’t ruin your surprise.”

The car eventually slows and Aaliyah hears her put it into park. The music goes off. Cruz shuffles around in the car, opening and closing something. Paper rustles, a pen clicks.

“What are you doing?”

“None of your business. Hush.”

Then a door opens and closes, and the passenger door opens.

“Come on, take my hand.”

“I can’t see your hand to take it, Cruz.”

She grabs Aaliyah’s hand and wraps an arm around her waist. Aaliyah steps timidly out of the car.

“You’re blindfolded, not handicapped,” Cruz says into her ear.

Aaliyah huffs and Cruz snickers.

Cruz keeps her arm around her waist, steering her in an unknown direction. Aaliyah hears water moving and splashing. Leaves blowing in the wind. The sounds of people walking past them.

The October temperature is brisk, but just right.

“Ok, ready?”

Aaliyah brings her hands to the scarf and Cruz unties it.

She blinks. There’s a fountain in front of them. Aaliyah looks around. It’s the same fountain they sat on after Cruz drove her to City Hall.

“Come on,” Cruz says. She hoists herself onto the fountain and reaches down, pulling Aaliyah up behind her.

They settle in next to each other and Aaliyah peers up into the trees and buildings overhead. It looks exactly as it did the last time they were here.

Cruz splays her hands behind her on the fountain and looks up with her.

“That day we were here—it was exactly a year ago, if you were wondering,” Cruz says. “We drove here together. Had a good laugh in the car, remember?”

Aaliyah nods.

“Then I might’ve yelled at you a little bit. Something about how getting married in City Hall didn’t fit you? Then you yelled at me. Then we came outside and ate hot dogs.”

Aaliyah nods again.

“I just felt, that day…the whole day, the car ride to Nantucket too…that I could do that with you forever. I wanted to.”

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out Aaliyah’s phone, then hands it to her.

Aaliyah picks it up. “You stole this from my purse?”

Cruz motions with her eyes.

“Take the case off.”

Aaliyah’s pulse quickens with the realization that this is one of those moments, the kind that screams that something is coming, something that will fill her to the brim until she runs over.

She gingerly takes the phone case off. There’s a piece of paper tucked into it. She takes it out and unfolds it.

Her hands tremble.

It’s Cruz’s truths. The one’s she wrote for Aaliyah to know, the one’s Kim handed to her in the restaurant, the one’s Aaliyah carried for months in her phone case until she couldn’t keep them hidden anymore.

She scans the front of the page, the lines she memorized long ago.

Her eyes find I loved you instantly, followed by, and every day since. They trail down to I’ve only felt alive with you, then I feel it in my stomach, how much I love you.

She makes it to the final line, a new addition.

Turn me over.

Aaliyah looks up at her, and there are tears in Cruz’s eyes. She flips it over and looks down.

Marry me?

The page shakes in her hands. Cruz takes it from her and drops something else into her lap.

It’s the ring box, for the ring already on her finger.

Cruz smiles and raises her eyebrows, and Aaliyah launches into her.

Her eyes are wet and her heart is pounding and she knows this is it. This is what they write about, make films about, wax poetic over, the people who try to capture the magnitude of this feeling.

Nothing comes close to the real thing.

Cruz hugs her tightly and kisses her hair.

“You have to say yes or no, you know.”

Aaliyah sobs.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

When Cruz disappears, this is the moment Aaliyah revisits most often. She wonders what would have happened if she’d said no. She didn’t keep her hands secure around it. She set it free. She let the other shoe drop.

She wonders if, in the end, this is all her fault.

--
Cruz

For the next three months, it feels like they never have a conversation without Aaliyah bringing it up.

“How can you not care about the details?” she asks in a huff, throwing a wedding magazine down on their bed. Cruz sits on the side and pulls the tape off her hands after a round of boxing.

“It’s not that I don’t care,” she says over her shoulder, wincing as she rips at the tape.

“I just feel like you’re not as excited as I am. You won’t talk to me about the flowers, or any of it.”

“I don’t care about the fucking flowers,” Cruz says under her breath, wincing as she rips at the tape on her hands.

“That’s my point!”

Cruz sighs and massages her hand. Aaliyah grabs her wrist and looks down at her bruised fingers, frowning.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” she says absently. She jumps off the bed and comes back seconds later with a hot washcloth. She dabs at the blood on Cruz’s knuckles.

Cruz pulls her wrist away and stands from the bed.

“Come here,” she murmurs, pulling Aaliyah to the edge. She drops down on her knees before her.

“I couldn’t be more excited. I don’t care about the details because…flowers, stuff like that, it’s not me. I just want to do it, and I want you to plan it in whatever way you want. That’s it. It’s that simple for me.”

Aaliyah half smiles.

“Whatever way I want?”

Cruz nods and squeezes her knees.

“Ok, then I just want it to be us. No one else. And I don’t want to wait. I want to on Valentine’s Day, because that’ll be a year anniversary. A beach somewhere, out of the country.”

Cruz moves her head up and down with every word.

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

Aaliyah cups Cruz’s neck with both hands.

“But there has to be something you want? What about the place? Any country. Pick it.”

Cruz looks down, shaking her head, and Aaliyah pulls her chin up gently.

“Please? Just say one, that’s where we’ll go.”

“Ok, fine. Mexico. Where I’m from. I’ve never been.”

Aaliyah’s smile lights her eyes. “Perfect. Done. Now pick three more things, please.”
Cruz rolls her eyes, but when Aaliyah juts her lips out in a pout, she gives in.

“Ok, chocolate cake.”

“Done, next.”

“I don’t want to have to worry about what to wear, so you pick it. Just not a dress.”

“Done. Final one?”

Aaliyah stares down at her excitedly, and Cruz laughs at the image in her head, one imprinted there from the day she asked.

“I want you to wear white,” she says lowly.

Aaliyah smirks. “Obviously I’m wearing white? We both are.”

Cruz shifts on her knees.

“No, after. I want you to wear something white, that night.”

Aaliyah’s lips part slightly and her eyes shine.

“Done.”

--

They go to Mexico.

They spend ten days in the sunshine.

They eat, they laugh, they drink.

On the eleventh day, Aaliyah is gone by the time Cruz wakes. Their bungalow is open concept, suspended over the water. The center spills out onto a deck with a whirlpool, and steps lead straight into the clearest water Cruz has ever seen.

The room is overwhelmingly bright, and she blinks the sunshine out of her eyes. A white suit is strung from a hanger over the bathroom door. There’s an envelope tucked into one of its pockets.

She plucks it out and smiles at Aaliyah’s handwriting.

I can’t wait to see you in this.

Let them do your hair and makeup.

Be nice. No grumbling.

Chocolate cake, and something white later.

See you soon, my love.

There’s a knock at the door, and Cruz opens it to find three women with a rolling suitcase. They speak to her in Spanish, asking if they can come in for hair and makeup.

Cruz wants to shoo them away, but she looks down at Aaliyah’s note.

No grumbling.

She opens the door wider and they come through.

They make her sit in a chair in the light, and she picks at her cuticles until they’re finished.

When they leave, she slips into the suit. It’s impossibly soft, like silk on her skin. She wears only a white lace bra beneath the jacket, and she tugs at the lapels. When she looks in the mirror, she’s surprised to find herself staring back. Her hair is in a slicked back bun, pieces falling loosely out of the bottom. There are diamond studs in her ears. She doesn’t look overly made up or awkward. She looks beautiful, and that's a sentiment she's so rarely thought of herself.

She can’t help but shake her head.

Aaliyah always gets her right.

She walks down the dock, holding the ropes on both sides as she goes. The water ripples beneath her feet.

She gets to the main hotel and walks into the lobby. She fills a cup of water from a cooler and brings it to her lips. It smells like cucumbers, tastes like lemons. A man in a wide-rimmed hat plays a piano across the way, and she watches the action unfold in the lobby with people checking in.

Then she rounds the corner, and the cup slips from Cruz’s hands. It lands at her feet. Water splatters over her shoes, wetting the legs of her pants.

She’s smiling and talking to two women who are showing her something on a tablet.

She has never been more radiant.

Her black hair is pulled back from her face. Curls fall out on all sides. There’s a hairpiece in her head, something that sparkles and makes her eyes erupt. Her skin glows, bronzed and glittering with whatever magic she’s heaped onto it.

Then, her dress.

It’s classic, unadorned by poofs or ruffles or gems or glitter, because it doesn’t need any of that for her to look the way she does. She’s the centerpiece. It dips down her chest in a v. She turns, and it’s completely backless. There’s a small train that blows behind her.

Cruz blinks rapidly.

She could spend a million years trying to find the words to capture what she sees. None would ever do it justice.

Her eyes find Cruz and her feet stop for a moment. Her face turns up in brightness, until she’s lit so much that she’s blinding. Then she glides toward her and Cruz dissolves into the air.

“You weren’t supposed to see me yet!”

Cruz keeps blinking.

She bends down and picks up the cup Cruz dropped, re-fills it, and hands it to her.

“It looks like you dropped this, my love,” she says, her tongue between her teeth.

Cruz reaches out for her waist like it’s her only means of survival. Her hands circle around her, fingers grazing her bare back. She pulls her close.

“Look at you,” she breathes, her eyes moist.

Aaliyah’s lips spread even wider. She places one hand on the bare skin on Cruz’s chest, between the lapels of her jacket.

“Look at you,” she says back.

She takes Cruz by the hand and they walk outside together. They stand by the shore, barefoot. The officiant says words that Cruz never hears. There’s only her, her eyes, her face. Cruz kisses her at the wrong time twice. Aaliyah makes funny faces, trying and failing to keep the tears from Cruz’s eyes. They come anyway.

Cruz is helpless, stupefied. Aaliyah coaches her through it with gentle instructions.

“Take the ring out of your pocket now, my love.”

And Cruz does.

“Put it on my finger.”

And Cruz does.

Aaliyah applies pressure to Cruz’s hands.

“Repeat after her,” she says, nodding toward the officiant.

And Cruz does.

Then when it’s time for Aaliyah to do the same, Cruz waits, expecting the simple rubber black band she told her to buy off Amazon weeks before.

But Aaliyah slips a black diamond on a gold band over her finger instead.

“I hope this is okay,” Aaliyah whispers, and now there are tears in her eyes too.

Cruz stares down at it. Her eyes were drawn to it when she first saw it, but she’s never lived the spontaneity of buying anything for herself or having things bought for her.

“It’s perfect.”

When the right time finally comes, they don’t kiss. They just stand there, holding each other tightly.

They eat chocolate cake after the sun has set, their legs bumping into each other over the side of the dock outside their bungalow. Cruz slides her dress down her body right there, and they lie together, suspended over the ocean.

Later, Aaliyah puts on something else white.

The honeymoon period extends for a month. Then the Tuesday in March comes, and the after begins.

Chapter Text

Cruz doesn’t go to the gym after she hears the audio of someone saying that they wanted to kill her wife.

She goes to the storage unit she rented out when she first moved to Brooklyn. The attendant gives her a key, and she opens it. There isn’t much in there, because her life before Aaliyah was minimal compared to what it is now.

She pulls out cases of handguns and ammunition, then locks the unit.

She carries them, one in each hand. She uses the key Aaliyah had made for her months before to let herself into Aaliyah’s apartment in the city. She hides a gun in their bedroom, beneath the bedframe. She grabs the keys to Aaliyah’s car from the kitchen and drives to Montauk, and does the same there.

Then she calls Asif. She meets him in a parking lot. He pulls up in a dark SUV next to her and rolls down his window.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Manuelos?”

“I want you to tell me if you pick up on anything, from here on out. Anything that seems out of the ordinary, amiss. I want to know if there’s anyone following Aaliyah, her mother, me.”

If he is questioning why she makes this request of him, his face doesn’t show it. He nods slightly.

“There’s a threat,” she says quietly. “And I want you on her, every day. Aaliyah. Wherever she goes. Follow her. Don’t let her see you, keep your distance.”

He nods again. She pulls away.

She drives home, to Brooklyn. She checks the restaurant kitchen before she walks in. When the coast is clear, she hauls her cases in and opens a locked storage closet, one only she and Kim have the key to. She takes out one gun and puts it in her waist, then places the cases on the highest shelf, behind boxes.

She climbs the stairs and when she opens the door, Aaliyah is sitting on the bed in a robe, her hair wrapped in a towel.

It feels like a year ago, a lifetime ago, standing in that shower with her in the sunshine.

Aaliyah looks up from her laptop.

“You went and got my car?”

Cruz takes a breath.

The only thing she is certain of is that if she tells her the truth, she won’t be able to leave if it comes to that. Aaliyah will never let her go, and Cruz will never be able to tell her no.

And beyond that, this is hers to carry. She refuses to give Aaliyah the same fear that sits like a rock, crushing her windpipe.

So she makes the decision on a dime to do it again. To deceive her.

It feels cowardly. It feels selfish.

How could I do this to her? Cruz questions.

But she does it anyway, because she sees no other way.

The gun is cold and hard against her back as she steels herself.

“Yeah. I thought we could go to Montauk for the weekend. There’s more space in yours, I don’t like driving mine,” she says with a smile. The tightness of it stretches her face, makes her skin feel thin.

Aaliyah smiles back.

Cruz sits next to her on the side of the bed and takes her hand.

“Hey, I’m gonna have this on me,” she explains, reaching behind her back and taking out the gun. The color in Aaliyah’s face slowly drains as she stares down at it. Cruz rubs her thumb over her arm in circles. “It’s for work.”

Aaliyah slips one hand under the sleeve of Cruz’s t-shirt.

“What do you mean for work? You’re in an office all day.”

Cruz shakes her head.

“I’m going to do some interrogations, one-on-ones with some witnesses. It’s standard safety protocol, to carry it. I didn’t want you to worry if you saw it.”

Aaliyah’s eyes narrow the slightest bit, and Cruz’s heart stops. She must be more convincing.

“I mean, I can leave it at work, if it makes you uncomfortable. But the whole purpose is some of these people are sketchy, so the policy is we carry them. Sort of like an undercover cop, they carry it everywhere.”

Cruz walks to the safe on her desk, the one she bought to store a weapon in. She’s never used it, because she’s never needed one. She punches the code, locks the gun, and sets it inside.

“No, it’s fine,” Aaliyah says from behind her. “You’re safe though, right? This isn’t going to put you in danger?”

Cruz laughs lightheartedly and pulls her shirt off, stepping to the bathroom to shower because she was just supposed to be at the gym.

“Course not. I carried one every day, before I went into the office. It’s second nature, by now.”

Her entire body buzzes with her lies as she takes the rest of her clothes off. She climbs into the shower and leans her head to the wall. She feels it exploding from her chest instantly, and she punches her own fist into her mouth to silence it. The sob comes anyway, and she coughs to conceal it.

“You ok, habibi?” Aaliyah calls from the other room.

“Fine,” Cruz shouts. “Water went down the wrong pipe.”

-

For the next two weeks, Cruz jumps out of her skin at the smallest incident.

They go grocery shopping on a weeknight, and she analyzes every movement around them. She looks into the eyes of the people who pass Aaliyah with a cart, waiting to find the ones that are coming for her. A man in a beanie hat bumps into Aaliyah in front of a case of bananas, sending bushels of them to the floor, and Cruz is on her in a second, angling her body between them.

Aaliyah looks her up and down in confusion, and Cruz puts a hand on her waist.

“I love this sweater on you,” she says, pulling at the hem of the beige turtleneck that Aaliyah wears. Aaliyah smiles, and Cruz sweeps the aisle for the man, but he’s gone.

At night she tosses and turns. There are suddenly more sounds that keep her awake than there have ever been before. The floors creak, and surely those must be footsteps. Something pops, and that must be a door opening. The heat turns on and off, but it could be a window in another room as someone slides in.

She tries to keep their routine normal. It’s easy to stay close to her, because they rarely spend any time apart. She drops her off from work and picks her up, but she makes small changes.

She walks her to the building. She stands by the door at the end of the day and waits for her to come out. When Aaliyah asks why she isn’t waiting in her car, Cruz makes something up about wanting to be outside after being stuck indoors all winter.

If Aaliyah goes somewhere, she follows. She does this in the ordinary course, except now she willingly tags along to places she wouldn’t otherwise go. She gets a manicure with her. She goes shopping with her. She even goes to her pilates class with her.

Aaliyah laughs as she tries to maintain her balance through the movements.

“You are the most in shape person I know, but you look like you’re about to pass out,” she jokes.

“I think I might,” Cruz says, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Why do you do this? It’s awful.”

They meet Todd and David one night for drinks in a dark bar. Cruz spins her cocktail in circles. She tries to focus on the conversation, but her eyes swing from one end of the bar to the next. She’s wearing a leather coat, and when she shifts on a stool and tugs at the bottom of it, she finds David’s eyes staring at the holster on her waist, the gun beneath. He frowns, and she frowns with him.

The crowd thickens with the happy hour, and Cruz slots Aaliyah in front of her, both hands to her waist.

“Always so protective,” Aaliyah laughs over her shoulder, and Cruz’s grip on her tightens.

Someone knocks Aaliyah’s purse to the floor and its contents spill out. She bends to pick them up, releasing her for an instant, and then there are loafers in her line of vision. They move quickly. There’s a man in a long coat. He’s reaching, one out-stretched arm, and it’s headed just in Aaliyah’s direction.

Cruz springs to her feet and slams his arm to the bar, hard enough that his hand releases the dollar bills he was just about to set there for a tip. He stares at her, stunned, and his wife let’s out a shout of dismay behind him.

“Cruz?” Aaliyah whispers.

Aaliyah looks at her, her eyes widening, and Cruz can’t cover for this. She doesn’t know how to talk her way out of it. She’s blown it, already.

Then David moves between her and the man, tugging her hand away from his arm, and she releases her death grip on him.

“Don’t you know it’s poor manners to bump into a lady like that?” he drawls, his accent accusatory.

“Bump into a lady? I didn’t bump into anyone! She—”

David shoves his shoulder and the man appraises him. David has at least a foot on him, and his wife pulls him away before it goes any further. David turns back to Cruz and Aaliyah and shrugs it off.

“Guy was going to knock you right over,” he says to Aaliyah, then orders another round of drinks.

Aaliyah buys it, and Cruz wonders what causes him to cover for her in this way. Later, when they walk out together, David stares at her intently. He has the look of someone who suspects something.

“Something have you concerned?” he asks quietly.

Cruz runs her hand through her hair and ignores him. She walks quicker to catch up to Aaliyah and Todd.

When they get home that night, Aaliyah levitates over her in the bed. A candle is lit on a dresser in the corner, and it sends flickering shadows to the ceiling. Cruz tries to focus on the feeling of her hand, those fingers that expertly move against her in a way that normally dispels everything else in her head.

But it turns out they can’t dispel the thought that someone wants to kill her wife.

She fights to get through it, but her body refuses to give in. She considers, for the first time in their relationship, faking it. She used to do that regularly, years before with men who never cared to touch her right.

Aaliyah stares down at her, concentration etched into her face as she works to satisfy her, and Cruz knows she can never fool her in this.

She stops her hand.

“Hey, I don’t feel so good. I think something I ate at dinner isn’t sitting right,” she whispers.

Aaliyah leans back, wiping her hand on her thigh.

“Do you want me to get you something to settle your stomach?”

“No, no. I think I just need some fresh air.”

Aaliyah nods, and Cruz opens the door and sits on the terrace next to a heat lamp.
She stares up at the night sky, counting the stars and clenching her hands in and out. There are footsteps behind her. Aaliyah comes out with a blanket. She folds it over Cruz’s shoulders and sits down on the chair at Cruz’s feet.

“Tell me what it is,” she says.

Cruz plays dumb. She furrows her brow. She checks her phone. Aaliyah takes it out of her hand.

“Cruz, tell me. I see it all over your face. What’s wrong?”

Think, Cruz tells herself. Think.

Sometimes the best lies are true.

“I’ve just been having these nightmares,” she whispers. Her chin quivers, and she wills it to still.

Aaliyah’s unease fills her face.

“Nightmares about what, my love?”

Cruz squeezes her thumbs into her palms.

“That something happens to you, and I can’t stop it.”

There it is, the truth. It lifts off her chest, but it doesn’t leave entirely. Parts of it remain, heavy and immovable, weighed down by her ongoing dishonesty.

Aaliyah grabs her hands.

“Nothing is going to happen to me. We’re happy. We deserve this. Don’t let your fear of something going wrong get in the way of that.”

Cruz searches her face and sees that she believes that Cruz is only haunted in her dreams. She has no inkling that Cruz is haunted because of reality, because someone wants to kill her, because she isn’t sure if she will be able to save her, because she is grappling each day with a choice of staying and failing her or leaving and maybe even failing her still.

“I know,” she forces out of her mouth. “Sometimes that’s just hard.”

Aaliyah nods.

“I used to feel that way all the time, when we were first together. I was so worried something bad would happen, and all of this would slip away. But it won’t. We have it. I promise.”

She gives Cruz a reassuring smile.

If only she knew.

--

The next day Asif calls her. She leaves work to meet him in Kim’s restaurant. He hands her a folder.

“You said to tell you if anyone turned up around you.” He taps the folder repeatedly. “This guy, he’s been on you, both of you. Good at keeping his distance, though.”

Cruz pulls it across the table and looks at the photos inside. Her mouth dries instantly.

“Recognize him? If he’s the threat, then we can take care of this quickly.”

Cruz flips through the pictures.

“He’s a threat. Just not the one I was expecting.”

She closes the folder and hands it to Asif, then orders a beer. She drinks it in three gulps. He says nothing, waits for her to fill in the blanks.

“He’s my brother,” she says eventually.

Asif hands her a slip of paper with an address. She gets in her car and drives to the Bronx, to the type of neighborhood they grew up in. She knows places like this, one’s with men on street corners, kids gathered on stoops with long faces, boards on windows and trash in the road and fires in trash cans.

She bangs on the door and he opens it within seconds.

“There she is,” he smiles. “My kid sister.”

He pulls her in for a hug and she squirms. The hair on his chest itches her neck, and he smells of her past. The stench of it makes her stomach flip.

“Come in, come in.”

He pulls her inside and shuts the door. She doesn’t look around, because she already knows what’s there. Filth, mess, drugs, alcohol.

“When did you get out?” she asks.

He steps to the fridge and offers her a can of Bud Light, but she waves him off.

“A month ago. Did my time, now I’m free.”

“What are you doing here?”

He smiles. His eyes are like coal, hard and darkened. She hates that she can see her mother’s face when she looks at him.

“Isn’t it obvious? I came to be around family.” He claps her shoulder and sits on a couch. His gut pours out of his tank top. He turns on a small television in the corner and opens his beer.

He looks her up and down. “I see you’ve done good for yourself.”

Then he smacks his knee.

“God damn, that apartment you came out of. What floor do you live on? The penthouse?”

She doesn’t answer him.

“And that lady,” he whistles. “What a fucking piece she is. I seen her getting in and out of that Mercedes, with the driver. How on earth you manage to sink your fingers into that pot?”

“I don’t want you coming near her. Or me. We don’t have a relationship, never have. It’s staying that way.”

He stands and walks toward her. He’s taller than her, by several inches. His girth far exceeds her mass.

She’s lethal, trained to kill. She could end him, but she wants to run the other way. His gaze chills her, terrifies her, and she’s reduced to nothing by the fix of his eyes.

“Fuck you gonna do if I don’t?”

He lunges, and she winces. He laughs, and the sound pushes phlegm through his throat.

“I’m just kidding, sis. Come on. You know I’m harmless. I’m just asking you to share a little of the wealth. We’re family, after all.”

She grabs the nearest bottle from a counter and smashes it into his face before he has time to react. He falls to the ground, hands reaching out to cover his head. Blood drips from the side of his eye. She pulls him up and slams him against the counter.

“I will end you if you come near us.”

He starts laughing hysterically. The blood drips into his mouth, and she can see it on his tongue. It mixes with his saliva, and she grimaces at the sight.

“Holy shit, since when can you scrap like this?”

She releases him and walks out.

--

A week later, Aaliyah nearly jumps on her in excitement when Cruz gets home from work on a Thursday night. Her neck is stiff, her limbs rigid, the stress nested deep within them. She can’t meet Aaliyah’s energy, isn’t sure if she has it in her to try.

“Why didn’t you tell me habibi?” she asks, grabbing Cruz’s hands as she hangs up her coat.

“Tell you what?”

“You saw your brother!”

Cruz stills. Something scratches her throat, a tickle. She tries to clear it.

“My—my brother?”

“He was here! Earlier today, looking for you. He told me you went to see him. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Aaliyah releases her. She begins washes a container of fruit in the sink, bends absently to pet Mr. Beans as he winds between her legs.

Cruz stands, motionless, by the closet.

“He just got out of prison, Aaliyah. Not really something I wanted to discuss.”

She begins unbuttoning her shirt.

“Don’t get changed, he’s coming for dinner.”

The tickle becomes a lump, and Cruz coughs.

“He’s what?”

Cruz walks hurriedly to the counter, following behind Aaliyah as she puts the fruit in the fridge.

“He was here, I invited him. I felt it would be rude not to, Cruz. He’s your brother.”

“The restaurant is closed tonight. It’s Thursday. Kim doesn’t open on Thursday.”

Aaliyah’s head is buried in the refrigerator, rearranging things on the shelves.

“I talked to her. She’ll set a table, just for us. I asked her to join us, but she said she’d prefer to cook.”

Cruz rakes both hands through her hair.

“This isn’t a good idea. When he shows up, I’ll tell him something came up, we had to cancel.”

She unzips her pants and walks to a dresser. She opens a drawer but doesn’t take anything out.

“We can’t do that, habibi. He’s family. Don’t you want to at least try?”

“Would you want to try with your father?”

Aaliyah crosses her arms, body still half shielded by the refrigerator door.

“Is your brother a terrorist? You never mentioned it.”

Cruz groans loudly and closes her eyes.

Aaliyah walks up to her and slips her hands into the back of Cruz’s pants. She kisses her chin.

“Don’t worry about this. I’ll do the talking. Just give it a chance, ok?”

Cruz opens one eye and squints at her. She’s smiling widely, her eyes sparkling. “No” is not in Cruz’s vocabulary, not when it comes to those eyes.

“Fine,” she whispers. “But let’s make it quick.”

--

Tommy sits across from them at the table in a wife beater. Aaliyah is immaculate in a green silk shirt, her hair pulled half up. She doesn’t belong here, at this table with this man who smells of foul things, and Cruz clenches her fist in her lap when Aaliyah smiles at him warmly.

“So Tom, have you found work yet? Or do you prefer Tomás?”

He shoves a dumpling in his mouth and swallows it after one chew, then swigs his beer.

“No one’s ever called me Tomás. And nah, not yet. Guy like me, have to feel out my options first.”

Aaliyah nods. She reaches her hand into Cruz’s lap and settles it on her thigh. She squeezes her skin and looks at Cruz expectantly.

Cruz clears her throat and forces out a question.

“Planning to stay here?”

He stares at her and grins. He has her eyes, but they’re set deeper into his face. They look darker against his skin.

“Got some loose ends here to tie up, then maybe. Sure.”

Aaliyah squeezes her thigh once more then pulls away and picks up her chopsticks. She swirls some noodles around on her plate.

“What about Mexico? That’s where you were born, right?” Aaliyah asks.

Cruz can tell that she’s trying to keep the conversation going. She wants to tell her not to bother. She wants to tell her that he’s not capable of civilized communication. That he’s only here for one reason.

“Mmhmmm.” He takes another swig, then belches.

Cruz flinches, and Aaliyah’s arm slides across the back of her chair. Her hand comes up to her neck, and she rubs the skin above Cruz’s collar softly.

Tommy follows the movement of Aaliyah’s hand, then locks eyes with Cruz and laughs.

“Never pegged you for a girl kisser,” he mutters to Cruz. Aaliyah’s hand stops moving against her neck.

He settles both elbows on the table and leans closer to them. Cruz can smell the beer on his breath.

“But she’s godamn sexy, so I get it.” He winks and smiles, his mouth open. He’s missing several teeth. Others are chipped and yellow.

Cruz slams the table. “Don’t you fucking say a word about her.” Her tone is menacing, her voice thuggish. She hasn’t sounded like this in years.

“Cruz,” Aaliyah whispers desperately.

Tommy laughs and waves his hands.

“No, no, course not. I’ll be quiet.”

He orders another beer and downs it in two gulps. Then a third, and now he’s on his fourth. Aaliyah continues trying to make slow talk, and Cruz is silent. She can’t pretend.

His eyes are glassy and his chest is growing more splotchy by the second. Cruz recognizes those eyes, his drunkenness.

“So Cruz tell you it wasn’t just us, growing up?”

Aaliyah peers at him across the table, unblinking.

“Nah, see, we had a little brother.”

He motions with his hand next to him, as if indicating that a small child is standing beside him.

Cruz’s heart-rate gallops. Aaliyah’s hand returns to her thigh.

“Jose,” Tommy says, and Cruz’s eyes narrow at the sound of his name coming out of his lips. “What a kid. Loved baseball. Used to send me pictures of himself in his uniform, when I was in the slammer.”

He shakes his head and crosses his arms.

“Course he’s gone now. You made sure of that, didn’t you?” He glares at Cruz across the table.

“Tom.” Aaliyah says his name with a warning, but he doesn’t heed it.

“Shut your mouth,” Cruz snaps at him, shaking her head.

“What? Don’t like to talk about how you couldn’t even keep a kid alive? I leave, and you kill him.”

Cruz flies up. The table is flipping over, and she doesn’t realize she’s the one flipping it. Glasses shatter on the floor. She can feel Aaliyah grabbing at her arm, but she shrugs her off. Then it’s in her hand, the gun that’s supposed to be in a holster on her back. She’s pointing it at his head.

“Get the fuck out.”

He laughs at her, then looks to Aaliyah.

“So she didn’t tell you then? Didn’t tell you that she killed him?”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Cruz screams. Her finger pulls back the trigger the slightest bit, and Aaliyah is begging in her ear.

“Put it down, Cruz. Put the gun down, now.”

But she’s not Cruz, not the one Aaliyah knows. She’s a thug. She’s someone raised on the streets. She’s a stripper, a dancer. She’s Edgar’s bitch. She’s a killer, and she’s going to kill her brother.

“She tell you how she shook her ass for years after that? What’s your name? Alex? That’s what your girl over here did, Alex. Danced for money.”

Cruz lets out a roar and then there’s a stern voice behind her.

“Put that gun down right now,” Kim says.

She circles around Cruz and stares her in the face.

“You don’t do this in my restaurant. You don’t do this under my roof. Put it down.”

Cruz is shaking. She looks at Kim, and then at Aaliyah. Aaliyah’s hands are raking through her hair, and there are tears in her eyes. She lowers her arm, and Kim takes the gun out of her hand.

“Get upstairs,” she commands from the side of her mouth. “You go with her,” she says to Aaliyah. Then she raises the gun to Tommy’s head with gusto. “And you get the fuck out of my restaurant.”

Kim stands to the peak of her five feet of height. Her hair is tied back in a net. There are food stains on her apron. Her arm is unwavering, the gun held steady. Something in the look on her face makes Tommy rises to his feet. He walks backward with his palms up to the door.

“I want no trouble,” he whispers.

“Good. Saves me from blowing your head off,” Kim seethes.

When he’s out the door, Kim looks at Cruz with disappointment on her face. She walks into the kitchen with the gun, and the door swings back and forth when she passes through.

Aaliyah turns without a word and climbs the stairs. Cruz follows her.

The second she walks through the door, Aaliyah spins around and is in her face.

“How could you do that?” she breathes. Tears are flowing down her cheeks. There’s judgment in her eyes, and Cruz knows she’s been exposed for who she really is. Aaliyah has never seen it before, and now she knows. Now she knows that she’s really a monster, after all.

“I told you it wasn’t a good idea,” Cruz says through gritted teeth.

Aaliyah throws her hands up and walks to the sink in the kitchen. She runs the water but doesn’t put a glass under it. It drips into the sink and her eyes are blazing.

“That doesn’t mean you pull a gun. Sammie was in the kitchen. What if he came out?”

Cruz stands by the door.

Somebody wants to kill her wife.

Her wife has a daughter she doesn’t know about.

She almost just shot her brother.

The pressure is a stampede, pummeling her into the ground. She can’t take it anymore.

“This is your fault,” she whispers. The second the words leave her mouth, she can’t believe she’s said them. But it’s done. They’re out, and Aaliyah’s eyes widen.

“My fault?” Aaliyah shrieks.

“You didn’t listen to me, because you don’t fucking know who I am! You don’t know what I come from. I’ve lived hard,” Cruz screams, slapping her palm to her chest. “I’m hardened. You don’t know what that’s like.”

Cruz crosses the room and drops onto the bed. Aaliyah’s eyes widen even more.

“I don’t know hard? Did you really just say that to me?”

Cruz has done it. She’s ripped the lid off the box of bad things, and now they’re spilling out. This is it, a real fight. A fight with words that can never be taken back, and she feels it filling the room in a way that’s stifling. But she can’t stop herself, because this is what she’s made of.

She’s born from rot.

“Yeah, I said it. You have no idea. You haven’t lived what I’ve lived. You lived in a dream world with your fucking money and your cars and your planes and your beach houses. I lived on a street.”

Then she stands and rips her shirt over her head.

“Do you know what this is?” she shouts, pointing to the burn over her breast. “It’s from a cigarette butt.” Her fingers dig into the flesh under her arm. “And this one is from a cigar. So is this one, and this one, and this one.”

Aaliyah covers her mouth with her hands and closes her eyes.

“Do you know how I got them? He’s right. I danced. I shook my ass for cash. And if I got too close and the guy had too much to drink, I got burned.”

Cruz claws at her face with her hands. She’s past the point of redemption.

“And on my back? Those were from Christmas lights. My ex whipped me with them. On Christmas day. He whipped me until I bled, and then he bent me over a table and had his way.”

She kicks Mr. Bean’s kibble bowl, and the pieces skid across the floor.

“Ever heard of planned parenthood? They have that where you’re from? That’s where I went, the next day. To make sure I didn’t carry him in me.”

She picks up the kibble and flings a fistful of it at the wall.

“You wanted to know, didn’t you? Because I’m your project, right? You think you can fix me?”

She can see Aaliyah’s chest rising and falling rapidly.

“I have killed people. I’ve taken lives. I’ve shot people, in the head. I’ve watched their blood drip out of them.”

Cruz brings her fist to her forehead and pounds it there.

“I’ve been in houses that got blown up. In Pakistan. With bombs. With people in them. I blew them up, Aaliyah. I did.”

Pure hysteria floods out of her, and the ringing in her ears reaches a fever pitch.

Cruz sets her hands on the other side of the kitchen counter. The faucet is still running.

“Look at me, Aaliyah. Open your eyes.”

Aaliyah shakes her head and wipes at her face, then locks eyes with her.

“This is who you married,” Cruz finishes. “That’s the life I lived. That is hard. You wouldn’t know it if it hit you in the face.”

Cruz’s chest heaves, and she slams the faucet off. Aaliyah flinches. Her eyes are wounded, stunned, and Cruz’s gut twists at the sight of that look on her face.

What have I done? she thinks.

Aaliyah nods her head. Her lips curl into a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I don’t know hard?” she whispers. “Me, the daughter of a terrorist? The daughter of an abuser? The one who lived under the thumb of a man her entire life?”

Aaliyah taps her hands on the counter, and Cruz watches as her fingers spasm.

She walks around the counter, all the way up to Cruz’s chest.

“Have you forgotten that my father’s throat was slit in a kitchen? By you?”

She licks her lips. “That I was locked into a house for five months after with another abuser?”

“Hold on,” Cruz says desperately. She tries to grab Aaliyah’s hands, but she jerks away.

“What about when he fucked me like I was one of his toys because I thought if I let him do it, he’d let me go?”

Cruz winces and stares at the floor, but Aaliyah tugs her chin back up, until they’re looking at each other again. Her eyes are fierce.

“Slipped your mind that he kicked me on the floor until I passed out?”

Cruz shakes her head.

“Stop it,” she whispers. “Please. Please stop.” But it’s too late. She’s invited this, and Aaliyah is serving what she asked for.

“Stop what? You forgot when he took my baby from my body?” Aaliyah lets out a low sob, and her eyes are turning red. She tugs her shirt up and points to the small scar between her hip bones, the place where Cruz knows they cut into her.

The baby he took from her body.

The baby who lived. The child Aaliyah doesn’t know about, the one with her face. With her eyes.

Cruz tastes something sour in the back of her throat. She swallows.

“What about when I had to leave the only life I ever knew, to come here? What about when I set aside that you broke my heart?”

Cruz retreats. She steps back and away from this, because these are things she can’t unhear. Aaliyah chases her, leans all the way in. Her breath hisses across Cruz’s face.

“You call that easy?”

Cruz reaches her hand out to her waist, but Aaliyah slaps it away.

“Aaliyah—”

“No!” she shouts, pointing a finger in her face.

She says nothing more.

She grabs the keys to her car. She’s out the door before Cruz can stop her.

Cruz sinks to the ground and bangs her head against the kitchen island.

Minutes pass, then the door opens.

Please be her, she thinks.

She looks up frantically, but it’s Kim.

She stares at Cruz on the ground, then closes the door behind her. She drops down next to her, and places the gun in Cruz’s lap.

“I’m so sorry, Kim.”

Kim clutches her hand.

“Why do you have this out?” She gestures toward the gun.

Cruz picks it up and locks it. She looks into Kim’s wrinkled face, her sunken eyes.

“She’s in danger. Aaliyah. I don’t know if I can keep her safe. I don’t know what to do, anymore. I haven’t even told her.” She exhales the words like they’re poison and collapses her head onto Kim’s shoulder.

“It’s going to be ok,” Kim says into her ear. “But you’ve got to go after her.”

Cruz takes a deep breath.

“I know.”

Then she climbs to her feet and pulls a sweatshirt on. She takes the gun and slips it into the back of her waist.

She looks down at Kim.

“Please don’t tell her.”

Kim looks at her. She takes off her hair net and runs her hands through her black hair. Cruz notices the stray strands of grey at her temples.

“Be careful, con gai,” she whispers.

Cruz grabs her keys and races down the stairs.

--

Aaliyah has never driven so fast in her life. The lights from buildings and other cars zip by in her rearview mirror. She makes it to Montauk in record speed.

She jumps out of the car. She storms into the house, reeling from every word Cruz said, every word she said herself.

She pictures the gun in her head, Cruz’s hand shaking as she held it. Her brother, pock-marked and drunk, sitting across from them at the table. How spit flew out of his mouth when he blamed Cruz for a death that Aaliyah knows Cruz never caused.

Aaliyah wasn’t expecting him to be so vile, and she doesn’t understand how she could be so naïve. She knows evil. She comes from it.

She grabs a blanket and towel and takes off to the beach. She throws them to the side the second her feet hit the sand and cries.

She stares at her ring. The moon makes the diamonds twinkle.

She thinks of Cruz’s face, the hysteria on it when she yanked her shirt over her head and told her what Aaliyah already knew. That the lashes on her back, the burns on her skin, were from abuse. Her eyes were full of pain, heartbreak.

The bottom falls out of Aaliyah’s stomach. She told her she’d keep her safe from that pain.

What am I doing? She thinks. How could I leave her there like that?

She jumps to her feet and jogs back up the beach. She tears through the front door and rushes into the kitchen to grab her keys from the bowl on the island, and then she hears footsteps behind her.

“Aaliyah.”

She spins around, and Cruz is there. She closes the distance between them in two steps and grabs her by the neck, pulling Aaliyah straight into her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” she cries. “I hate myself. I hate myself for talking to you that way. Please forgive me. Please.”

She sinks to her knees and Aaliyah watches her, speechless. She drops down next to her and takes her face in her hands.

“It’s ok, it’s ok. I shouldn’t have left. Come here. Come here.” She pulls Cruz into her chest.

Cruz gargles her apologies with her sobs, and Aaliyah hushes her. The headlights from Cruz’s car are still on, and they cast blinding light through the front door. Aaliyah places her hands over Cruz’s eyes and kisses her forehead.

“I’m sorry too. I didn’t listen to you, when you said you didn’t want to see him. I’m sorry,” Aaliyah whispers into her hair.

Cruz wraps her hand around Aaliyah’s forearm, and she grips her so hard it hurts.

“I thought I was going to kill him,” she says.

Aaliyah pulls back and looks down into her eyes.

“But you didn’t. It’s over now.”

Cruz’s eyes are wide and filled with torment.

“Is that who I am? Am I the person who shoots her fucking brother in a restaurant?”

Aaliyah wipes her thumbs under Cruz’s eyes, collecting her tears. She shakes her head.

“No, my love. No.”

When she finally calms down, Aaliyah stands and pulls her to her feet. She walks out into the driveway and takes Cruz’s keys out of the ignition and turns off the lights.

Then she takes her hand.

“Come,” she says, and Cruz follows her. They walk to the pool, and Aaliyah coaxes her onto a bed. The night sky hovers above them. It's unseasonably warm for early spring, but Aaliyah pulls a blanket around them anyway. She brings Cruz's head down to her chest, and they gaze up at the stars.

“I know who you are, Cruz. Don’t ever tell me again that I don’t know.”

Cruz’s head moves up and down against her chest.

Aaliyah rubs her ear and kisses her head. “I love you. All of you.” She tips Cruz’s chin up so that they can find each other’s eyes. “You aren’t your past. This is you, right here,” she says, taking Cruz’s hand and bringing it to her lips. “I’m never going to let those things hurt you again.”

“You love me still?” Cruz asks, astonished.

Aaliyah laughs.

“You think I’d stop loving you? That’s not how this works. I don’t love you any less when you’re in your darkest valley, my love. I love you more.”

She loves her more.

Cruz floats in it, the indescribable safety of being loved even in the face of the bad things.

“He’s going to come back,” Cruz whispers eventually. “Tommy. He won’t go away. He’s a leech. He knows you have money.”

Aaliyah clutches her head tighter to her chest.

“I’ll take care of that.”

Cruz sits up and looks down at her.

“N-no, I—”

“I told you, I’m the one who stands up for you,” Aaliyah interrupts. “You need to let me, habibi,” Aaliyah says.

Cruz blinks.

“It’s done. We’re done speaking of him.” Aaliyah pulls her back down and Cruz stills against her.

--

The next day, Aaliyah calls Asif.

She tells him to get a restraining order against Tommy with the courts.

“Whatever you need to do to get it, do it. Say he threatened her, pulled a gun.”

A week later, he picks her up from her apartment in the city and drives her in her mother’s black Mercedes to the Bronx. Aaliyah has never been here before. She looks out the window as they drive through the streets. Some of the faces that look back at her are worn. Others are vibrant. She can’t help but to think what an interesting mix of life it is.

Asif stops in front of a small apartment building. There are boards over some of the windows. She gets out of the car and grabs the duffel bag. He follows her.

He walks up the steps and bangs on the door. A group of men sit on a porch next door with a stereo. It booms with a beat that reverberates through Aaliyah’s chest.

Tommy opens the door. He’s shirtless, in socks and boxer briefs.

“The fuck you doing here?” he asks.

Asif pushes him through the door, and Aaliyah follows.

“Back up, my friend,” Asif says.

Tommy looks him up and down and takes a step back. Aaliyah glances around the apartment. It smells stale, like body odor. There are crumbs all over the floor, flies buzzing around the sink.

She walks up to Tommy. Asif tries to grab her arm, but she yanks free. She slams the piece of paper into Tommy’s chest. He takes it in his hands and squints down at it.

“What is this?”

“A restraining order,” Aaliyah says. “You’re to stay away from her, from us.”

Then she drops the duffel bag at his feet.

“There’s twenty thousand dollars in here. Pennies to me, but the most I’m willing to pay a scum like you to stay away.”

He immediately drops to the floor and opens the bag, rifling through the wads of bills. He stares up at her from the ground and laughs.

She grabs his hair in her fist and jerks his head back until his adam’s apple juts out. He moves to grab her arm, and then Asif takes out his gun.

“Don’t you move,” he shouts over Aaliyah’s shoulder.

She bends down and stares him right in the eye. He reeks of beer.

“If you come near her again, I won’t play nice. I won’t even use that piece of paper,” she points to the restraining order, “to put you back in jail.”

His breathing is shallow as he scans her face.

“In my country, they throw men like you into cages with rabid dogs. And then they bet on how long it will take for them to be eaten alive.”

She smiles and yanks his hair harder, and he groans.

“I will do that to you, do you understand? If you come near my wife again, I will find a cage. I will put dogs in it. I’ll throw you in, and they’ll rip your flesh from your bones.”

She sees Asif’s gun moving closer from the corner of her eye.

“Who the fuck are you?” Tommy asks.

She laughs. There is venom in her voice, in her veins.

“Someone with enough money to kill in whatever way I want to. Tell me you understand.”

He tries to nod his head, but she jerks him back by his hair.

“Say it. With words.”

“I understand,” he wheezes.

She releases him and turns to leave. Asif stays behind her as she steps through the door.

“Wait!” Tommy yells.

She looks over her shoulder. He’s standing, and his eyes are welling with tears.

“It wasn’t her fault. Any of it. Can you tell her that for me? She was my responsibility. So was he. I fucked up.”

He wipes his nose with his forearm.

“Don’t let her blame herself for that shit. It’s on me.”

For a split second, she sees Cruz’s eyes in his face. They soften and round.

She nods her head.

Then he bends to the duffle bag and starts counting the money.

Days later, they go out to dinner and Cruz swirls wine in a glass.

“Listen, about my brother—”

Aaliyah grabs her wrist.

“No, my love. I told you we’re done with that. I handled it.”

Aaliyah sips her wine and gathers herself.

“But he wanted me to tell you something.”

Cruz looks at her curiously across the table.

“He said it wasn’t your fault.”

Cruz sets her wine glass down and brings her hand to her lips. Aaliyah squeezes her knee under the table.

They don’t speak of it again.
--

The guilt eats at Cruz, late at night.

Aaliyah has protected her.

Cruz knows she isn’t doing everything she can to protect her back.

When a car with tinted windows pulls up to the curb as Cruz stands by the crosswalk outside of her office, she feels dread.

Because she knows instantly what it is, who it is.

She knows that she has to make a choice.

The driver’s side window rolls down and Joe doesn’t turn to face her.

“I’m not getting in,” Cruz says, stepping backward.

Then the window in the backseat rolls down and Bobby’s head juts out.

“Oh c’mon, not even for me?”

She grins widely and Cruz sighs. Cruz holds out a finger and calls Aaliyah.

“Hey, I’ve got some things to finish up here. Don’t wait for me for dinner, ok? Love you. See you soon.”

Bobby makes a kissing face and Cruz rolls her eyes. She slips into the passenger seat next to Joe and they drive off.

“What do you want?” Cruz asks, eyeing Joe’s side profile.

Joe keeps her eyes on the road and remains silent.

Bobby leans forward from the back seat and taps her on the shoulder.

“Who you got tonight? Knicks or Lakers?”

Cruz squints out the window. “Where are we going?”

“Swim meet,” Bobby says from the back.

Cruz turns around slowly and raises her eyebrows.

“Swim meet?”

Bobby pops a piece of gun in her mouth and nods enthusiastically.

“You’ll see.”

Thirty minutes later, they pull up to a high school in the suburbs of the city.

“Let’s go, we’re late,” Joe says urgently, hustling out of the car.

Cruz stays in her seat until Bobby yanks open the door.

“You heard her, up.”

Cruz unclicks her seatbelt and follows them into the high school. They walk down a hall, through a door, then they’re in a massive space with an indoor pool. They sit in the nosebleed section, peering down at the swimmers below.

Joe takes off her sunglasses and starts clapping and cheering immediately.

Cruz stares at Bobby, flummoxed, and Bobby offers her a piece of gum. Cruz smacks it out of her hand and the box falls to the bleachers below them.

“I just bought that,” Bobby says.

Cruz stands and starts walking away.

“Sit the fuck down,” Joe’s voice booms. A family nearby stares in shock.

“What are we doing here?” Cruz asks.

Joe points down at the pool, then starts cheering again.

“You got this baby! Here we go!”

Then she stands and bends over until her hands are on her knees, watching as a group of swimmers do the butterfly across the pool.

“It’s her daughter,” Bobby whispers out of the side of her mouth.

Cruz sinks into a seat and eyes Joe. Her eyes are laser focused on the pool. There’s a stopwatch in her hand, and she clicks it then smiles.

“That’s my baby,” she says under her breath, and Bobby claps her on the back.

“New record?”

Joe nods and bangs the bleachers. She puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles, and Cruz watches as one girl with darker skin below stares up and waves. Joe waves back frantically. Her face brightens and softens, something Cruz has never seen.

As soon as the girl turns around, Joe drops back down to the bleachers and leans back, jutting out one leg to the row in front of her.

“You make a decision yet?” she says.

“I told you no already,” Cruz replies.

Joe smiles again and shakes her head, then looks to Bobby and nods. Bobby reaches into her pocket and takes out her phone, scrolls for a minute, then holds it out to Cruz.

“Press play,” she instructs.

Cruz takes it cautiously and stares down at the audio recording on the screen. She presses down, and then the same voices from weeks ago come through.

“So tell me, what’s your plan to take care of them, brother?”

There’s shuffling and static.

“We have to catch her alone, without the Marine. Should be easy enough. They alternate between three properties. We think the one in Brooklyn is most accessible.”

A pause.

“When?”

“Soon enough. In play for next week, the week after at the latest.”

Cruz’s palms are sweating. Something knocks repeatedly in her chest, like a hand trying to bang its way out. Bobby takes her phone back.

“They’re going to kill her,” Joe whispers. Her black eyes swing around until they plant on Cruz’s face. “And her blood will be on your hands, because you did nothing to stop it.”

Cruz squeezes her fists. Bobby reaches out and presses down on her shoulder, keeping her in place.

Joe taps the bleachers with her fingers.

“You’re going to let that happen?”

“I’m not doing your bidding again. You’re trying to manipulate me,” Cruz whispers.

Joe sneers.

“Manipulate you? You can’t see past your own ego can you?”

Joe leans further back, her body slinking like a predator.

“If someone came for my family, I would do everything in my power. Everything, until there was nothing left, to protect them. I sure as shit wouldn’t sit on my ass with a gun in my pants and wait for it to happen.”

Cruz shifts uncomfortably.

“It’s a glock right? Saw it on you from a mile away.” Joe laughs, a low, vicious sound. “I’m sure that will stop the army he’s sending your way.”

Joe sits up and wipes her hands.

“You think I’m a monster because I believe in what I do. And you can think whatever the fuck you want about that. But I’m a person,” she says, thumping her hand against her chest. “I have daughters.” She points down to the pool. “A husband. A family. I would want someone to tell me that they were going to have bullets in their heads before it happened, so I could try to stop it.”

“You’re using me because it’s convenient for you,” Cruz snaps.

“Of course it is,” Joe bites back. “This is business, Manuelos. I get what I want. You get what you want. I am offering you a deal that you’d be a fool not to take.”

Cruz’s ears start ringing.

“You haven’t even told her, have you? About the girl?”

Cruz looks down at her shoes, and Joe laughs again.

“What do you think would happen, if she knew? Hmmm? What do you think she’d do, sit in your studio in Brooklyn and eat fucking dim sum with you for the rest of her life?”

Joe seizes Cruz’s chin in one hand and yanks her head to the side until they’re eye-to-eye.

“She is a mother,” she hisses. “She would do anything to get that girl back, if she knew. And you’re going to sit here and do what? Let her go on thinking her daughter never lived?”

She releases Cruz’s face in disgust and stands abruptly.

“You have no concept of what a mother would do for her child.”

Then she disappears up the bleachers.

Cruz drops her head into her hands. Bells, whistles, sirens, beeps sound at a fever pitch in her head. Bobby slides down to sit next to her.

“She’s right, and you know it,” Bobby says.

“I can keep her safe,” Cruz retorts.

Bobby shakes her head and her lips turn down.

“Maybe, once or twice. Maybe you get lucky. Maybe her mother’s hired muscle pitches in. But they’ll get her, eventually.”

Cruz slams her fists on the bleachers.

“I’m just the easy way for her to get to her target. Nothing more,” Cruz says.

“Jesus, Cruz. Why do you think you’re here right now? You think this is an accident? You think she thought you might enjoy watching her daughter’s travel swim team meet?”

Bobby wipes her nose and sniffs, and Cruz glances at her. There are tears in her eyes, and the sight of them stuns Cruz into silence.

Bobby spreads her hands out around her.

“You’re here because she’s showing you who she is. She’s showing you that you can trust her. You can trust that she’s trying to help you.”

Bobby stands. Cruz listens to the sound of her retreating boots on the bleachers.

Cruz stays rooted in place. She watches two more heats in the pool below.

Then she leaves.

She walks slowly to the parking lot. Storm clouds roll in the sky, blue and black and ugly.

She gets into the car and Joe taps the steering wheel.

Cruz sets her face, resolute and hard.

“Why is he coming for her?”

Joe rolls her eyes, continues tapping the wheel.

“Isn’t it obvious? He blames her for his brother’s death.”

Cruz slams the glove compartment, the veins in her arms popping.

“And who’s to really blame for that, Joe? You. You’re the one who has put my family in jeopardy. And if you don’t do everything in your power to help me protect her, I will kill you. With my bare hands. Do you understand me?”

Joe doesn’t meet her eyes, but a smile slowly creeps across her face.

“It’ll take both hands? Not just one? Shame.”

Cruz throws herself back into the seat and stares out the moonroof of the car.

“What will happen to her, when we leave?” Cruz asks softly.

Joe’s lip twists upwards again the slightest bit. She starts the car and drives back toward the city.

“We’ll have two safe houses. I can’t give her on-site security, but I can give her somewhere remote to go, off the grid. We’ll monitor the best we can, from a distance. If she’s found, we’ll get her to a backup one.”

“Bullshit. Why no on-site security?”

“Because I cannot justify paying full time government employees to monitor your wife endlessly, in person, at a safe house. The house is monitored externally. If something happens, drop time to get there is less than 10 minutes. Don’t pretend you don’t know how this works.”

“And what? She stays there until I come back?”

“If you come back. And if you don’t, we’ll keep her there until the target is taken care of.”

Cruz swallows. Joe’s if hangs heavy in the air of the car.

“Will I be able to know where she is? Will I be able to reach her?”

Joe laughs.

“You know better than that, Marine. You know that’s not an option.”

Cruz nods.

“How much time do I have?”

“You leave in three days. Lara goes with you. We meet you when you’re close to the target.”

Cruz picks at her bottom lip.

“And what if I tell her everything before leaving?”

Joe shrugs.

“That’s not a question for me to answer. You think you’re going to be able to walk away from her after she begs you to stay? Because that’s what she’ll do. That’s what anyone would do.”

Cruz already knows the answer to that.

She won’t be able to.

How could I do this to her? she questions again.

“It’s going to hurt her either way,” Bobby says from the back seat. “Whether you tell her, or not. You know that.”

Cruz promised to never hurt her again.

And yet here she is, planning to disappear without notice.

Bobby grabs her shoulder from behind, and Cruz turns to look at her.

“You’re doing this to save her life, Cruz. She’ll understand that, eventually.”

“Doesn’t make it right.”

“Doesn’t make it wrong, either.”

Cruz stares at her angrily.

“What would you know, you’re not the one doing it.”

Bobby leans back with her hands up.

“Ok, I’ll shut up.”

Cruz faces Joe again.

“The girl comes out first. I won’t give him to you, unless we get her out first,” Cruz insists.

Joe rolls her eyes.

“You’ll do this in the way I tell you to, or you won’t do it at all.”

Cruz slams the armrest and points in her face.

“She fucking comes out first, or I’m out. I’m not doing it.”

“We’re going to do everything we can to get her out,” Bobby says. “But you know the order can’t be set. It’s the opportunity that dictates that. When it’s there, we will.”

Joe drums her fingers on the armrest.

“You have my word,” she says, her tone grave. “If there’s an opening, we will get her out.”

Cruz nods.

“Then what? Where does she go?”

Joe motions with her head toward the glove compartment, and Cruz opens it. There’s a yellow envelope inside. She pours the contents out on her lap. There’s a passport, legal documents. The girl’s face is on them, except her name has been changed. Anne Abadi.

“If she needs to come here alone, without you, then we need someone with clearance who can meet her at customs,” Joe explains.

“I’ll take care of that,” Cruz says, staring down at the passport.

They stop outside of Aaliyah’s apartment building in the city, and Cruz makes to get out of the car. Joe stops her with a hand to her wrist.

“Make sure Aaliyah has who she needs around her to get through this. You’ve got to plan for that, when you leave your people behind,” Joe whispers.

Cruz blinks. Joe lowers her sunglasses and stares her down.

“And you make sure she has who she needs if you don’t come back.”

Cruz looks at Bobby in the back seat. She gives her a slight nod, and Cruz gets out of the car.

--

The circle of people you can depend on when someone wants to kill your wife is surprisingly small.

Cruz makes a list.

She comes up with six names. Six people who care about them, who care about Aaliyah, enough to do this. Six people she knows she can depend on.

She starts with Asif. Two days before she disappears, she goes to the gym then meets him at a diner afterward.

He sips coffee and regards her from across a booth.

“Something you need, Ms. Manuelos?”

She bites into a piece of bacon and chews.

“I have to go take care of the threat,” she says quietly.

His expression doesn’t change. He is stoic, and she appreciates his lack of reaction.

“There’s going to be a safe house. You’ll take her mother there. I don’t know where it is.”

Asif nods.

“No flying. No credit cards. Make sure you use cash. Make sure you avoid as many tolls as possible. If you go through any, make sure you have hats. Sunglasses. Change cars, don’t drive in the same one the whole way.”

He nods again.

“Then when you get there, you set up a perimeter. Don’t take any chances. If something doesn’t seem right, take it out. No hesitation.”

He nods a third time.

“She’s going to try to get away, eventually. But you can’t let her. She’s smart. She’ll figure out how to slip away, if you don’t stay on her.”

This time he sets his coffee mug down and frowns.

“It’s the brothers, correct? His or hers?”

Cruz swallows.

“His.”

He nods a fourth time.

Cruz stands and drops cash on the table. She walks to the door, and a bell above it dings when she opens it. Then she turns back and walks up to the booth.

“You took her to handle my brother?”

He looks up at her.

“Yes.”

“How did she do it?”

He strokes his chin and sips his coffee.

“Gave him a restraining order and money.”

Now Cruz is the one who nods.

Then he smirks.

“After that, she yanked his hair out of his head and told him she’d throw him into a cage and send dogs in to eat the flesh from his bones if he came near you again.”

Cruz lets out a single laugh, and Asif chuckles. She realizes this is the first time she’s heard this man who has been following her wife’s every move for years laugh.

He coughs and drinks water, and his face turns serious again.

“She meant it,” he says.

Cruz looks down at him. She knows she meant it too.

--

She goes to her mother-in-law’s apartment next.

Cruz steps into the marbled foyer and she glides down the staircase.

“Ms. Manuelos,” she greets her. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

They still aren’t on a first name basis.

“I need to talk to you,” Cruz says.

She adjusts her eyeglasses and nods, then spins and walks into her study.

She drops down into a chair and twirls from side to side, and Cruz stands before her.

“Well, out with it.”

“You’re in danger,” Cruz whispers. “Both of you are.”

Her face is impassive.

“You think I didn’t know?”

Cruz opens her mouth then shuts it.

“I’ve known for months. Doubled our security, as I’m sure you noticed.”

Cruz stares at her.

“But I suppose you’re here to finally tell me that it isn’t enough? That they’re going to get us anyway?”

Cruz swallows.

“They’ve been planning. It’s supposed to happen soon. You have to leave. You both do.”

Her mother-in-law frowns.

“You’ve got to take out cash. Don’t do it all at once. Do small withdrawals. Once you leave, send someone back for more. Don’t do any wires. No credit cards.”

“I have cash on hand already, for something like this.”

For the first time, Cruz sees the wrinkles on her face. Exhaustion sits there, displacing the regal presence she normally exudes.

“And I take it you’re not coming with us, are you?”

Cruz shakes her head.

“I can’t. I have to go. I have to try to stop it.”

“And I assume you won’t be telling her, will you?”

Cruz squirms.

“If I did, I don’t know if—if—”

“If she’d let you go? She wouldn’t.”

Cruz breathes out. At least someone else knows this, too.

“There’s something else.”

Cruz takes the small envelope from her backpack and shoves it across the desk.

“What’s this?”

Cruz says nothing. She watches as she opens the envelope gingerly, then the photo of the girl slips out.

She picks it up with trembling hands and slides her glasses higher on her nose.

“Did you know?” Cruz asks.

She shakes her head and closes her eyes.

“No, it seems this one escaped me.”

Cruz nods.

“I’ll do what I can to get her back to her. To you.”

She stands abruptly from the desk and grabs Cruz’s hands. She brings one up and kisses it, and a tear falls down her face.

“I never imagined my daughter married to a woman,” she says quietly. “But I also never imagined her with someone who would lay their life down for her.”

She drops her hand and walks back to the desk.

“Don’t ask me to tell her,” she whispers. “I’ve had my share of life shattering conversations with my daughter. I can’t be the one to tell her you’re gone.”

“Ok,” Cruz says.

They stare at each other, a quiet understanding passing between the two.

“If something goes wrong, will you tell her about—about—” Cruz can’t bring herself to say it. Her eyes drop to the photo, the face that is Aaliyah’s, when it isn’t.

“One day,” she answers.

Cruz nods and steps away, making her way toward the door.

Her mother-in-law fingers the envelope.

“What’s this note in here?” she asks.

Cruz picks up her backpack.

“Something for her. Give it to her, when she gets to wherever you’re going.”

Then she leaves.

--

Her next stop is at Todd and David’s house in New Jersey, only it isn’t quite a house. It’s more of a mansion, sprawling out and back so far that she can't see where it ends. She presses the buzzer at the gate, and Todd’s voice chimes back at her.

“You may enter, soldier queen.”

She can’t help but laugh.

She drives up to the house. It has long white columns in the front, a sprawling green lawn. When she gets to the steps, the large glass door swings open. Todd is in a bike kit.

“Caught me just as I was hopping on the peloton. What’s this surprise visit? Where’s Al?”

Cruz steps inside. “Is David here?”

He squints at her. “You’re here for David?”

“I don’t have much time.”

“David darling, the marine is here to see you.”

David rounds a corner, barefoot in linen pants and no shirt. He’s cut in a way that impresses even Cruz.

“Cruz,” he says, his voice velvet smooth. He kisses her on both cheeks.

“I need to talk to you,” she says.

He stares at her, then walks toward the back of the house. She follows down a long hallway. The walls are decked with modern artwork. The floors are grey.

“Actually, David. I think it would make sense if—if you took me to where you store your gear.”

He looks at her over his shoulder.

“My gear?”

She needs to see it with her own eyes. She needs to know that she’s leaving her in capable hands.

“Yeah,” Cruz whispers.

“Are you asking to see my husband’s junk?” Todd shouts from behind her.

Cruz rubs her eyes.

“Please take me,” she says desperately. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

She can tell that David understands all at once by the look on his face.

He takes her by the elbow and leads her to the back of the house. She can hear Todd following, but she doesn’t bother to shoo him away. He needs to know, too.

They walk into the backyard. There’s a large terrace and a pool with fountains. David’s grip stays tight on her elbow. They make their way quickly around the pool, to a palatial pool-house behind it. There’s a keypad by the door. David presses in a code, and they walk inside.

There are three computer screens lined up on a desk, a Persian rug on the floor. David rips it up, and there’s a door beneath it with another keypad. He punches in a code and opens the hatch. There’s a stairway leading to a basement, and they climb down it.

Then they’re in it, and Cruz turns around. He has everything. Guns. Knives. Long ranges. Grenades. Hammers. Even a bow and arrow. She takes it in, and then looks at him.

“Really a Seal, huh?”

He smirks.

Todd's feet are clunky on the stairs.

“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”

Cruz sits down on a bench and puts her head in her hands. This is getting harder as she goes.

“I’m leaving,” she says.

Todd crosses his arms.

“The fuck you’re not,” he shoots back.

She shakes her head. Her hands start to twitch.

“I have to. David, I need you to look after her. I need you to promise you will. I can’t go if I don’t know she’ll be safe.”

She looks up at him. Asif is capable, but he’s not what David is. He’s it, the only one Cruz can truly trust with this. She knows it. She’s seen it in David’s eyes, in the few times they’ve had alone. She knew it from that day in Miami, when he told her what he used to do, who he used to be.

He will kill, expertly, if he has to. He will do anything, if he has to. He’s trained for all of it.

David says nothing.

“Where could you possibly be going?” Todd asks.

Cruz sits straighter on the stool.

“Her name isn’t Alex. It’s Aaliyah Amrohi. She’s the daughter of a terrorist. He’s dead. I killed him.”

Todd’s mouth drops open, but David’s stays in a straight line.

“She was going to marry a man. A Saudi royal, major player in oil. He’s dead, because I killed him too. His family isn’t. They’re dirty, all of them. And they’re lethal. They’re coming for her.”

David goes to a computer and types quickly on a keyboard. Kamal’s face appears on a screen.

“Him?” he asks.

Cruz smiles ruefully. She sensed all along that he knew every truth.

“I need you both to take care of her, to be with her. I’ll owe you my life. I’ll do anything.”

Todd rakes his hands through his black hair, and it flops across his forehead. His eyes are bulging.

“You knew? All this time? You never told me?” He’s facing David, incredulous.

David says nothing, then Todd whirls on Cruz.

“I told you I’d kill you if you hurt her. You can’t just leave.”

“I have to.” Her voice is hoarse, and she closes her eyes, blinking back the tears. “There isn’t another way.”

Todd lets out a shaky breath.

She opens her backpack and pulls out a folder. She hands it to David.

“Don’t open it yet. There’s an address in there. It’s a safe house. I don’t know where it is. That’s where you’ll take her. Pay cash, for everything. Don’t fly. Avoid major highways.”

She reaches into her backpack and pulls out a plastic bag.

“These are burners, enough to last a couple weeks. Make sure you take her phone. Everyone’s phones have to go. Get her a new laptop, set up a VPN. Don’t let her log any information to it.”

David reaches out and puts one hand on her arm.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Marine. You don’t have to explain.”

She sucks in a breath.

“There’s another address, if something goes wrong. Go there next. There might be a delivery at some point. I don’t know when, but you’ll know if it’s coming. I’ll make sure of it.”

“A delivery?” Todd shrieks. “Of what? Eggs? Milk? What the actual fuck is going on?”

“Don’t, Todd,” David says quietly.

Cruz sucks in another breath, then turns to Todd.

“You have to tell her. I’m leaving, tomorrow morning. She won’t know. She’ll think I’m late coming home from work.”

Her voice breaks, and the tears come down her face. Her lips quiver and she can’t get the rest of the words she needs to say off her tongue. She clutches one hand to her mouth and gasps.

“You can’t leave her sitting there, Todd. Promise me you’ll go. You’ll tell her I’m not coming home. Then you’ll leave with her.”

She looks up at him and his eyes are pooling with tears.

“Where am I supposed to tell her you’ve gone?”

She hasn’t thought this part through, not enough. She hasn’t been able to face it.

“T—tell her I had to leave. That I’ll be gone for awhile. That I’m going to do whatever I can to come back.”

“That’s it?”

“And that I love her. Her mother will fill in the blanks, when it’s time.”

Todd pulls her into a hug and she cries into his chest.

“Promise me,” she begs.

“I promise,” he says into her forehead.

She pulls away eventually and grabs her backpack. She looks to David, and he nods at her.

She sniffles and points to a folder.

“There’s a number in there, but then I realized you probably already have it. Call her, if it gets to the point you need to. You’ll know when. She’s good with kids.”

Todd stares at her quizzically.

“Call who?”

She doesn’t answer.

--
She goes to Brooklyn next.

She sits at the table in the restaurant kitchen as Kim cuts vegetables in rapid fire succession.

“You’re leaving,” Kim says, slicing through three carrots at once.

“How did you know?”

“Your eyes. They say everything you haven’t been saying.”

She turns and faces her, wiping her cutting knife on her apron.

Cruz nods.

“I am.”

Kim sets the knife down and sits next to her, taking her hand.

“Do you have to?” she asks tentatively, the worry rippling in her jowls.

“I do. And I need to ask you to do two things for me. I’m sorry for asking, you’ve already done so much—”

Kim shakes her head furiously.

“Ask.”

Cruz blows out, empties the air from her chest.

She takes the envelope from her backpack, the one with Aaliyah’s name scrawled on the front, the one she felt she couldn’t hand to her mother-in-law in the moment.

“I need you to give this to her, if I don’t come back.”

Kim eyes the envelope wearily. She shoves it away.

“No, you bring bad luck by speaking this way.”

Cruz seizes her wrinkled hand.

“Kim. Please.”

Kim stares at her, her sunken eyes defiant. But she takes the envelope gingerly anyway.

“And if I don’t come back, I need you to stay in her life, ok? With Sammie. You’re all I have, other than her. And I just—I want her to have people, from my life, with her.”

Kim’s tears move slowly. They get caught in the wrinkles on her face, held up in their journey to falling. They can’t escape, and it gives the effect of puddles on her skin.

“Ok, con gái. Ok.”

--
She gets to the end of her list.

She makes her last stop.

Cruz walks slowly up the steps, eyeing the brownstone before her.

No one else on the list has any experience with children, not even Aaliyah’s own mother. Aaliyah had told her, long ago, that she was always loved by her mother, but never truly raised by her. There was hired help for that, and everything else.

She gets to the second to last step, then turns around in a rush and flies back down them.

No, she thinks. I’m not doing this.

She rips up the block and clenches her fists. She goes to war with herself in her head.

She’ll need help.

What if she’ll want more than help from her?

It doesn’t matter, there’s no one else to ask who cares enough about her to do this.

She turns back around.

She climbs the stairs again.

She remembers what she told her at a gun range, over a year ago now. How she adored children. How she spent weekends volunteering in children’s hospitals. How she thought she would’ve made a great nursery teacher, if not for her art.

You know she’ll help her.

Cruz presses the buzzer by the door and hears the click as it unlocks. She walks through the foyer, and then a door is opening down the hall.

She never thought she’d see Sarah Chambers again, but there she is, in the flesh. Her feet are bare and she has baggy jeans rolled up on her ankles. There are streaks of blue paint on her hands.

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

Cruz readies herself.

“Can I come in?”

Sarah looks her up and down and frowns. She steps to the side, and Cruz walks through the door.

Her loft has high ceilings with beams. Green plants hang from every surface. There are tarps on the floor covered in paint in the living room. A canvas sits on an easel in the corner.

“Water?” Sarah offers. Cruz nods, and she hands her a bottle from the fridge. Cruz catches her eyes lingering on her ring.

“Looks like congratulations are in order,” Sarah says, nodding to Cruz’s hand.

Cruz twirls the ring on her finger.

“Thanks.”

“If I’d known you were getting married, I’d have sent a gift.” Sarah winks at her and sits at a scratched and worn table in the corner of the room.

Cruz walks around the room, taking in the artwork on the walls. She stops when her eyes find one hanging above Sarah’s fireplace.

It’s Aaliyah’s face. She’s looking up at something, her lips slightly parted. Sarah has captured the exact color of her eyes, the blend of blue, green, hazel, the lighter colors around her pupils.

“Can’t tell you how many offers I’ve gotten for that,” Sarah says from behind her.

Cruz rubs the back of her neck.

“Haven’t sold it?”

“Not yet. Told everyone to sod off so far.”

Cruz tears her eyes away and walks to the table. She sits in the seat across from Sarah.

“How is she?” Sarah asks.

Cruz avoids Sarah’s eyes and swallows.

“She’s good,” she replies.

Sarah nods.

“What brings you here?”

Cruz twists the corner of the wrapper off the water bottle and rolls it between her fingers.

“I came to ask if you could do something,” Cruz says softly. “For her.”

Sarah stills in her chair, and her eyes focus on Cruz’s face.

“What could you possibly need from me?”

“I need to leave,” Cruz continues. Her pointer finger and thumb starts to twitch, and she folds them in her other hand and squeezes until they still. “And she might need help when I’m gone.”

Sarah’s mouth drops open.

“You’re asking me to go be with your wife because you’re leaving?”

Cruz’s fingers twitch again. Now that Sarah has said it out loud, Cruz hates the way it sounds, what she’s asking this woman to do for her.

“Where are you going?” Sarah asks.

Cruz doesn’t answer.

Sarah scoffs.

“You’re walking out on her? After everything?”

She shoves the chair back from the table and bangs a fist on the surface. She paces. She picks up a paint brush absently and shoves it into a can of water, then cleans it with her hands.

“No,” Cruz says. “That’s not what this is.”

Sarah shakes her head and smiles sadly.

“The two of you and your secrets. I’m done with them,” she whispers.

Cruz stands from the table and walks up to her.

“You asked me to promise you that I would take care of her. This is me doing that, Sarah. I have to leave to do that.”

Sarah rubs her chin and frowns.

“Are you saying she’s in danger, mate?”

Cruz looks down at the floor and closes her eyes. She nods her head slightly.

“From what?”

Cruz opens her eyes.

“Loose ends. They have to be taken care of.”

Sarah scans her face.

“Does she know?”

“No. And she can’t. She can’t know I’m leaving.”

Sarah throws her hands on top of her head. Her honey brown eyes fill with tears.

“How could you not tell her this?”

“Because if I told her she’d never let me leave. And she’s safer this way.”

Sarah scrutinizes her.

“What exactly are you asking me to do?”

“I’m asking you to be there if she needs you. If something goes wrong, and I’m—I’m gone.”

“But with what? What could she possibly need me for?”

Cruz looks past her, uncertain of how much she should share. She could tell her the truth, but then again she isn’t even sure herself what Aaliyah might need. A foul taste enters her mouth at the thought that Aaliyah might not just need her. She might eventually want her, if Cruz doesn’t return.

Sarah brushes past her and walks into a bathroom. She turns on the faucet and splashes water onto her face, then leans down over the sink and takes a deep breath.

“How am I supposed to know if she needs me? We don’t speak. We don’t have a relationship. She doesn’t need me. She needs you,” she says shakily into the sink.

“You’ll know. I’ll make sure you know.”

Sarah turns to look at her again.

“Why me?”

Cruz walks back to the fireplace and gazes up at the painting, the colors of Aaliyah’s eyes.

“You love her still,” Cruz says. It’s a fact plain as day, staring Cruz right in the face over the fireplace.

Sarah laughs uncomfortably.

“You and I both know how hard it is to get over her,” Sarah says, and there is sorrow in her voice.

Their eyes meet.

“Yeah, I fancy her. Always will. But I’ve moved on. And what? Now you’re here asking me to go be second best when you disappear? As if she’ll ever want me the way she wants you?”

Sarah lets out a sound, a cross between a laugh and a whimper.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. This is wrong.”

Cruz walks to the door.

“Just— just hold on a second, mate.”

Sarah rubs her hands over her face. “Bloody hell,” she groans.

Her eyes lock on Cruz and she runs her tongue over her teeth, nodding.

“If she needs me — and that’s a big if. I’ll be there.”

Cruz exhales. She feels the skin around her mouth tightening. She tries, desperately, to hold the line. She tries to hide how she has never suffered more than she is right now, in this moment.

“Thank you,” Cruz whispers. She opens the door and steps out, but something makes her turn back.

“I just need to know,” her voice cracks, and she brings one hand to her mouth. She swallows back a sob, steadies herself. “I just need to know that people will be there to help her, if I don’t come back--.”

Sarah walks to the door and stands before her.

“Ah ah,” she says, wagging one finger in Cruz’s face. “You’re coming back, from whatever this bloody mess is.”

Then before Cruz knows what’s happening, Sarah hugs her.

“You have to. For her,” Sarah whispers in her ear.

Cruz pulls away and wipes at her eyes.

“I guess I should say I’ll kill you, if you touch her.”

Sarah laughs loudly.

“You know I can throw a proper punch.”

Cruz nods, and Sarah nods back. She holds the door open for her and Cruz walks into the foyer.

It shuts behind her, and as she walks away Sarah lets out a muffled sob from the other side. The sound confirms that they both understand the gravity of what Cruz has just done, the sheer weight of asking another woman to care for her wife while she’s gone, and maybe if she doesn’t come home. Because she knows Sarah will. It’s there, painted on top of her fireplace, in the way Sarah brushed the color of Aaliyah’s eyes into art.

By the time Cruz stands in the elevator of Aaliyah’s apartment building, it brings her to her knees.

—

Cruz moves over Aaliyah’s body that night by degrees.

She starts at her ankle and works her way up from there. She kisses the beauty mark on her shin, licks along her knee, brushes her mouth into her thigh, traces the contours of her stomach with her fingers, buries her face between her breasts, stares longer than she normally would in her eyes. She flips her over and takes the same route on the other side of her body.

It’s gradual and deliberate. She pours everything she has into learning her by heart, and Aaliyah pours it back into her in the same way.

“I love how slow this is,” Aaliyah breathes into her ear. Her hand is between Cruz’s legs. She’s moving by millimeters, then centimeters, a snail’s pace that will still reach the finish line in dizzying fashion. Cruz shakes under her touch.

Aaliyah slumps against her chest eventually in exhaustion, and Cruz wraps her arms around her and stares at the ceiling.

She can’t leave her like this. She can’t walk away from her like this. She has to tell her, in some way.

“Can I ask you something?” she whispers.

Aaliyah stirs against her and hums. Cruz rubs her bare shoulder.

“If—if you knew something was going to happen to me, what would you do?”

Aaliyah pushes up and looks at her strangely.

“What are you talking about?” she asks quietly, her forehead wrinkling.

Cruz plasters a fake smile on her face.

“I don’t know, sometimes I just think weird things. I think about what would happen, if anything went wrong,” she says lightly, praying that Aaliyah won’t see through her.

Aaliyah frowns and shakes her head.

“Don’t think that way, habibi. We talked about this. Nothing is going wrong.”

She settles back into Cruz’s chest and closes her eyes.

“But if it ever did, I would do anything. Everything. Whatever it took, to make sure you were ok.”

Cruz presses a kiss into her shoulder.

“You know I would do the same, right?”

Aaliyah nods.

“No, Aaliyah. Please say it. Please tell me that you know that I’d do anything to keep you safe.”

She sits up again and takes Cruz’s face in her hands.

“Of course I know that, my love. Go to sleep.”

Cruz holds them in until Aaliyah’s body stills on top of her with sleep. Then they come, her silent tears.

She doesn’t sleep. She spends these last hours fully conscious, fully aware of what it feels like, to have her in her arms.

She waits, and waits, and waits, and then there it is, her morning alarm. She closes her eyes. The beeps feel like something detonating in her stomach. Aaliyah is tucked into her side, breathing deeply under her arm.

Cruz moves unconsciously.

She gets out of the bed. She washes her face. She changes.

She grabs her backpack.

Aaliyah’s face is peaceful, and she doesn’t want to wake her.

But she can’t walk away, without seeing her one last time.

She turns on a lamp and sits on the side of the bed.

She presses kisses into the side of her head, and Aaliyah stretches her arms over the pillow. She drapes them around Cruz’s neck.

“Have a good workout, my love,” she says sleepily.

“Open your eyes, baby girl.”

“I’m sleeping,” Aaliyah mumbles, burrowing deeper into the pillow.

Cruz brushes Aaliyah’s cheeks with her knuckles.

She bends to her ear.

“Look at me,” she whispers. “I want to see them.”

Aaliyah rubs her eyes with her fist and blinks. She stares up into Cruz’s face, and Cruz feels a part of herself detach, one she knows she might never get back.

She presses her lips to Aaliyah’s cheeks and says the goodbye Aaliyah doesn’t know she’s bidding.

“I love you so much.”

Aaliyah smiles and pulls the covers up.

“I love you too,” she says, her voice heavy with sleep. “You’ll be home for dinner?”

Cruz falters for a beat.

“Yeah,” she whispers.

Then Aaliyah’s eyes close, and she’s asleep again.

--

Aaliyah lowers the heat on the oven and checks the clock behind the burners for the time.

Cruz is running late.

She pours herself a glass of white wine and her phone buzzes in the pocket of her silk cardigan. She takes it out, expecting it to be Cruz to tell her she’s on her way. But it’s the doorman.

“Todd is here for you,” he says.

Aaliyah pours a second glass of wine and smiles.

“Send him up.”

She unlocks the door then goes back to the oven. She opens it and pokes at the salmon with a fork to check if it’s gone dry. She hears the front door open.

“In the kitchen,” she shouts over her shoulder.

She hears the bottoms of his dress shoes clicking against the tiles behind her.

“I poured you a glass,” she says, moving the salmon across the baking pan and squeezing a lemon on top of it. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

She closes the oven and turns to face him.

He’s pale. His tie is undone, and there are rings under his eyes. His hair is standing on end on his head, and she knows he’s been raking his hands through it.

She gets a chill and pulls her cardigan around her.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

He opens his mouth to say something, but brings the glass to his lips instead. He takes a long gulp of wine.

“Do you want to stay? I made salmon. Cruz should be home soon.”

He grimaces and rubs his hand over his face, then looks to the ceiling.

“Please help me do this,” he says to something above, and suddenly Aaliyah’s heart accelerates.

No, she thinks. No.

He walks to her and ducks around her. She hears the oven click off. Then he takes her hands.

“Aaliyah,” he says softly.

He pronounces her real name correctly, like he’s heard it before. She rips her hands away.

“What did you just call me?”

He rubs the sides of his mouth with two fingers and shakes his head.

“She’s not coming home, sweetheart.”

Her heart drops. She didn’t know it was capable of dropping, didn’t know it could leave one’s chest and go to another place. But it does.

She tries to yank it back up.

“What—what are you talking about?”

Her voice is something broken, a song sung wrong.

He reaches for her but she shoves at his chest and sidesteps him.

“She’s not coming, Aaliyah. She had to go. She loves you. And we need to go now, too.”

Aaliyah closes her eyes. He’s mistaken. Cruz is coming home. She said so, this morning. She’d bent over her in the bed, kissed her forehead.

“No,” Aaliyah rebukes. “She’s coming home.”
She pushes past him and turns the oven back on, and he grabs her waist from behind.

“Aaliyah, please listen to me.”

Aaliyah slams her eyes shut again. She’d said she’d be home, this morning. In the bed. He’s wrong.

But then she remembers it, what else she had said as she’d leaned down over her pillow.

Cruz had asked to see her eyes, before she left.

Aaliyah paces in the kitchen.

Her mind runs wildly as it reaches even further back, to their conversation the night before. Her question. The way she’d asked her if Aaliyah knew that she’d do anything to keep her safe.

Her eyes. She asked to see them.

It’s evident, then.

Cruz is gone.

She grabs her glass of wine and throws it aimlessly. It shatters and wet streaks drip down the wall, to the tiles.

“Where is she?” she screams.

She rushes Todd and pounds her fists into his chest.

“Tell me where she is,” she shouts. “Tell me. Tell me now.”

He grabs at her wrists and there are tears seeping out of his blue eyes.

“We have to go, Aaliyah.”

She slaps him. She’s never hit anyone before, in her life. Her palm stings.

“Aaliyah,” David’s voice says from behind her.

She turns.

They know her name.

Cruz is gone.

None of this is real.

“This is what she wanted,” David whispers. “She wants you to be safe, and right now you aren’t. We have to go.”

He points to the door.

“Go where?” she sobs.

“You’ll see when we get there. Your mother is already on her way.”

She shakes her head and runs her hands through her hair.

“Is she coming back? Is she coming with us?”

David frowns. He walks up to her and takes her hand.

“Not anytime soon,” he says. “But I know she’s doing everything she can to come home to you.”

He squeezes her thumb, and she screams. She shoves at him, and he bends down. In one swoop, she’s over his shoulder. She pounds on his back and struggles.

“Let’s go,” he says to Todd.

He carries her out, against her will.

She’s gone, and Cruz is gone too.

Chapter Text

It only takes forty-eight hours for speech to leave Aaliyah. It exits her body, along with everything else.

David and Todd usher her into an SUV. They drive for two days straight, and she doesn’t sleep once.

She swings from screaming to crying, from desperation to rage.

She fights them when they take her phone, when David smashes it to pieces. She pleads with them to bring her back home, so she can at least pack a bag.

They try to pacify her with lowered voices, with reassuring hugs, with gentle looks. But it’s no use.

There’s no taming a heart as it breaks.

They don’t answer her questions, and eventually her only clue is in their route, and more particularly the way they take it.

They drive along back roads. They avoid tolls, for the most part. When they pass through them, David forces her to put on a hat and sunglasses. If something is purchased, she sees only cash change hands. Whenever they stop, David stays with her in the car. If she says she needs to use the restroom, he follows her inside, stands outside the door, never leaves her side.

She detects it the first time they pull over for gas, the outline of the gun under his shirt.

They’re hiding from something.

She knows how this works. She’d lived it for years, when her father was alive. Slipping through the cracks undetected is second nature for her.

“What is it?” she demands. “What is it that we’re running from?”

Todd looks at her wearily, and David’s eyes flash at her in the rearview mirror.

They stay mum.

“Please sleep,” Todd whispers. “You need to sleep.”

But she won’t, because her wife is gone, and she doesn’t know where she is.

They change cars two times, once in Baltimore, and again in Georgia.

They hit Florida, and Todd rolls down a window. The humidity floods the car. They keep going to a part of the state she’s never been to. They cross a bridge, and she looks out into the ocean. Nothing surrounds them. It’s remote, wherever they’re headed, and she places one hand on the window as the sea flies by.

Then they’re in a village. There are signs that welcome them to St. George Island. She doesn’t want to be welcomed here.

The sun blazes overhead as they drive through trees on a sanded road. There are no houses, no signs of life.

A property surrounded by white walls is at the end of it. A large white house looms and waves roll in the ocean behind it.

“This is it,” David says quietly.

They pull up to a gate. It slides open. She peers out at the house. It’s raised up on stilts, and there are surfboards and canoes and at least one boat parked beneath it. Palm trees line the path up to the door. It opens, and her mother steps out.

Aaliyah flies out of the car and her mother’s arms come out instantly to take her. Aaliyah collapses into them, sobbing.

“What is this, mama? No one will tell me. Please, please.”

She grabs her mother’s cheeks and shakes her, and her mother pulls her through the door.

The house is all white and light blues on the interior. Faded, antique wooden beams line the ceiling. It’s open, airy, with windows lining the walls.

But she feels suffocated.

Her mother sits her at a table and places water in front of her.

“Drink this,” she says.

Aaliyah throws it at the wall.

“Tell me what’s happening!”

She rips at her head. She pulls at her hair. She throws every object that’s near her.

Todd and David stand at the door, and they walk back outside to avoid her fury.

She throws herself to the ground and rocks back and forth. She bangs her fists to the floor. She regresses by years. She’s a child, having a tantrum. Her nose runs. Her eyes water. She is inconsolable.

Her mother bends down and takes one of her hands.

“We were in danger, habibi. We had to leave.”

Aaliyah sniffs and wipes her nose.

“Why isn’t she here? Why didn’t she come? Where is she?”

Her mother smiles, but it’s an upside-down frown.

“You’re smart enough to know, darling. She’s trying to protect you from it.”

“From what? Who is it, mama? Who?”

Her mother dabs tissues under Aaliyah’s eyes and smooths back her hair.

“From him.”

Aaliyah looks into her eyes, and then that feeling is back, for the first time in over a year. It flutters. It kicks from behind her belly button.

Him.

“No,” Aaliyah whispers. “No. Why? Why now, after all this time?”

Her mother doesn’t answer.

“She needs to come back. How do we reach her?”

She climbs to her feet and paces, and her mother sits down on the floor. Aaliyah stares at her.

She’s never seen her mother on the ground, not once in her life.

“You knew!” she screams. “You knew she was leaving, and you didn’t stop her. How could you not stop her?”

She squats down and shakes her mother’s shoulders. Mascara runs down her mother’s cheeks with her tears, but Aaliyah is relentless, unhinged.

“You did this to me,” she yells. “You didn’t protect me. You put me in danger, you let this happen. You let her go.”

She grabs a glass bowl with apples on a counter and smashes it to the ground.

“How could she not tell me? How could she do this to me?”

Her mother doesn’t meet her eyes.

“What is it you would’ve done, Aaliyah? What would you have done, if she had?”

Aaliyah kicks at the apples on the floor, spins in a circle. Control has left her body. Her limbs, not her own. Her heart, no longer in her chest. Her voice, someone else’s. Someone desperate, maddened, agonized.

“I WOULD HAVE MADE HER STAY!”

Her mother climbs to her feet and faces her.

“And that’s exactly why she didn’t tell you.”

Aaliyah runs to the nearest door and flings it open. There’s a deck, and she stomps across it. There are steps, then a dock, then a small beach. She turns in circles, looking for the way out, but there isn’t one.

There are only high walls, massive, looming trees behind them, the gate they came in from, the gate that’s now closed with a car parked in front of it. Asif stands to the side, watching her.

She’s trapped.

She screams, and screams, and screams.

She doesn’t know how long it goes on for, but eventually her voice leaves, gets sucked up by her despair, and she sits on the ground.

David lifts her up, eventually, carrying her back into the house. They go up a flight of stairs, to a bedroom. He sets her on the bed and closes the door, and she stares at the ceiling.

Her mother comes back. She tip toes in and sits at the edge of the bed. She places a worn piece of paper on the pillow next to Aaliyah’s head.

“She wanted me to give this to you.”

Then she leaves.

Aaliyah picks it up with trembling fingers. Its corners are wrinkled. There are lines permanently affixed across it from the amount of times it’s been folded.

It’s Cruz’s truths. It’s the page with her marriage proposal on the back. She turns it over, and there are new lines, one’s Aaliyah has never seen, scrawled beneath “marry me?” Unlike the others, they’re written in pencil.

I’m so sorry for leaving like this.

I promised you that I would do anything to keep you safe. I had to leave to do that.

I don’t know how to tell you in words how much I love you. I don’t just feel it in my stomach anymore.

I feel it everywhere.

Let them help you.

All of them.

There are lines that are erased, scribbled over in pen to hide whatever they said, whatever Cruz initially wrote then thought better of.

Then, the final line.

Wherever you are, put the coffee mugs in the cabinet over the coffee pot for when I get there.

Aaliyah imagines she wrote that to try to make her smile. To make light of the situation.

But there is no way to lighten this. No, this is a weight that sinks, all the way to the bottom.

She folds the page. She cries endlessly, until there’s nothing left.

Then she stands up. She walks down the stairs. She rips apart the cabinets and pulls out every coffee mug. Todd watches her wordlessly from the table, his brow furrowed.

She flings open the cupboard above the coffee machine and yanks the dishes and plates out. Then she stacks the mugs neatly, one by one.

When she’s finished, she turns to Todd.

“Where’s our cat?”

“With Kim.”

She nods.

It’s the last thing she says before she goes into the void, before words leave her.

--
Aaliyah learns every inch of the bathroom floor by heart.

It’s porcelain tile. Cream, with hints of red, dark brown. The caulk between the tiles is beige. There are chips on exactly four tiles, minor dents invisible to the naked eye. Unless the naked eye is laying on them, sprawled across them, intimately familiar with them day after day.

One tile has a drop of blood on it. She wonders how it got there. Who it belonged to. Whether that person ever made it out of here. Whether that person perished here, on this floor, where Aaliyah lies.

She curls into a ball, sometimes with a blanket, other times with nothing but a towel.

She started on the floor because it kept bubbling over from her stomach. She’d dry heaved over the toilet for days, her nerves ferocious and overpowering. And once she was there, she found no reason to leave.

There’s nowhere for her to go, after all.

Her wife is gone.

The tile is cool and hard against her skin. It’s quiet here, away from the windows, away from the light, and so she stays.

Three weeks pass, and she doesn’t speak. She barely eats. Her mother implores her to get on her feet, to take a walk outdoors. Todd brings her plates of food throughout the day, snacks that he knows are her favorites, but she doesn’t bite.

It’s the fourth week, just under a month, when he comes into the bathroom with a box. He sets it at her feet. She’s leaning against the wall, staring at those tiles.

“I think you could use this,” he says. He sits down beside her and opens it, then sets a framed photo in her lap.

It’s of the two of them, in Miami. Cruz’s arms are wrapped tight around her, and she’s laughing at something. Aaliyah is staring up at her, adoration in her face.

“Where did this come from?” Aaliyah asks, her voice faint and cracked from lack of use.

Todd stares at her in shock, and she knows he’s taken aback by the words she’s just uttered, her first in weeks. He plows past it, seizing the opportunity to converse with her.

“I grabbed as many as I could, that day. They’re in here,” he says, tapping the box. “I thought it might help.”

She runs her fingers over Cruz’s face. The tears come, hot and stinging. She’s sick of them, had enough of them. Her eyes are dried out and worn, to the point that blinking causes her pain.

“Why are you here, Todd? Why are you doing this for me?”

He laughs and throws an arm around her shoulder.

“Because you did the same for me. Maybe we weren’t locked together in a mystery house on a random island in Florida, but you still did it.”

She strains to understand his reference, but comes up with nothing. Her mind has short-circuited. She can’t recall what occurred before this. She can’t think of what might come next. There’s only now, this floor, her tired eyes, her pale skin, her chapped lips. All the symptoms of her despair. They don’t allow anything else to exist.

“Had to have been two years ago now. David and I had a row. He was talking about enlisting again, and God I wanted to claw my face off at the idea of it. Anyway, it was bad enough that he left, for two whole weeks. Went to Dallas, visited his family.”

He squeezes her shoulder, pulls out another framed photo. In this one they’re on the dock, in Mexico. They’re both dark, tanned. Aaliyah is on her lap, and they’re smiling at each other.

“I called you, a hot mess. You came and stayed with me, that entire time. Brought me food. Made my smelly ass shower. Watched all of Bridgerton with me. You were a saint.”

He laughs, and Aaliyah feels the beginnings of one stir in her chest too. But it doesn’t come out.

Guess I’m not capable of that, she thinks.

“You never left me when I was in my hole.”

She looks at him, then, as though she is just now recognizing who he is. His eyes are his greatest feature. Bright, blue, smiling. An impossibly beautiful man, her best friend. For a fleeting moment she wants to tell him she loves him. She wants to thank him. But she can’t manage that, either.

“Your hole is obviously deeper. It’s like we’re digging to China, in here,” he says, eyes scanning the bathroom, a hint of gloom on his face. “I’m not going to leave you while you’re in it.”

That’s it. She understands, now, what to call this, her suspension on this tile, the nothingness she’s floating in.

Her hole.

“You said it was like losing a limb,” she says at random.

He stares at her.

“I said what?”

“In Miami. On the beach. When you were telling me what it was like when David served, when he’d be gone for months and you didn’t know where he was. You said it was like losing a limb.”

He nods, following.

“It’s that,” she says, resting her hands against the tiles. “Except it’s like my whole body. Gone.”

“What if you took a shower, honey? And then we went downstairs and had some wine?”

Aaliyah eyes him.

“You smell,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “And you’re too gorgeous to smell.”

She says nothing more, and he sighs. He leaves her with the box of photos.

She takes each one out. She studies Cruz’s face. Maybe she’ll find the answers in the line of her brow, the curve of her lips, the dimple that shows on one cheek when she smiles widely.

But then again, the answers had been there all along, staring her in the face. She’d just been too oblivious to see them. Too in love to accept that they were there, just like the first time.

The gun.

The way Cruz suddenly started to toss and turn every night.

Her distraction, when they had sex. As if she were somewhere else.

The talk of her nightmares.

She asked to see my eyes.

Aaliyah beats herself into the ground over it. She cannot fathom how she didn’t catch on, that morning lying there in the bed, that her wife was saying goodbye.

She flips through the photos repeatedly, then gets to her feet.

She takes a shower, and when she gets out she wipes the condensation on the mirror with a towel.

The person staring back at her is unrecognizable.

She goes back to the floor.

--
The tears flow inaudibly as Cruz sits in the cargo plane. They haven’t taken off yet. She folds her hands in her lap and stares into space.

She wonders what part of her morning routine Aaliyah has gotten to.

She wonders if she’s drinking her espresso right now, as Cruz sits and waits for this plane to take her to a place she might never come back from.

Bobby shifts nervously across from her. She’d picked her up that morning, driven her to the airfield. They didn’t speak a single word on the drive, but every now and then she’d hand her a tissue. She diverted her eyes from Cruz’s face, giving her privacy as she crumbled.

She does the same now.

“There’s still time,” Bobby whispers. “If you want to turn back.”

Cruz stares at her.

“I’ll go with you. I’ll help you. We can take turns following her, keeping an eye out.”

“You’d do that?”

“I would.”

“You said they’d get her, eventually.”

“They would. But you shouldn’t do this, Cruz, unless you feel you can make it to the other side. You have to believe you can.”

Cruz clicks on her phone. It’s a new one. Bobby had handed it to her, when she got in the car. The only thing on it from her past, from the before, is her photos.

She’d set the lock screen instantly. It’s a photo of Aaliyah, one Cruz took when she wasn’t looking. Her hair is pulled up above her head, and stray pieces fall on her cheeks. She wears lines of gold earrings in both ears, a chunky gold chain around her neck. Her gaze is trained on something in the distance, and the sun is directly on her face. Her eyes are electric, and Cruz’s skin tingles as she looks at them.

“Do you feel like you can do it?”

Cruz meets Bobby’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t be here, if I didn’t.”

She slips her ring from her finger. Then she unclasps the gold chain around her neck, the one she grabbed from Aaliyah’s jewelry box this morning for this very purpose. She threads it through the center of the ring, then affixes it back to her neck.

She tucks it beneath the collar of her shirt.

The plane begins to roll, slowly then in a rush. They lift into the air, and Cruz closes her eyes.

--

They touch down at an air base in Riyadh. Cruz peers out the window as the plane coasts to a halt on the runway. She stands, but Bobby stays seated.

“You’re not coming?”

“Not for this, no. I’ll be around, though, eventually.”

Bobby salutes her and smiles, but Cruz can’t find it in herself to smile back.

Her limbs move, machine-like, until she’s in a room with unforgiving lights and a white board. Joe stands before it, a baseball cap over her eyes. Lara sits in the corner bouncing a tennis ball against the concrete floor.

“The target,” Joe says, pointing to Kamal’s name on the white board, “is manipulative. He’s been toying with us, for months. Impossible to track down. He has no digital footprint, and his physical one is virtually nonexistent.”

“Where’s the audio from, then?” Cruz asks. Her tongue feels like chalk.

“He was meeting his brother, Assid, in a restaurant for months. We bugged all of the tables. They figured it out, two days ago.”

“How do you know they figured it out?”

“Bugs are gone.”

Cruz nods.

“So how is—how is the brother’s wife going to get us to him?”

Joe draws her name on the white board.

“Amira,” she says, tapping the letters. “Is married to Nadir, Aaliyah’s brother. She had a close relationship with Aaliyah, from what we can gather. Nadir and Kamal do business regularly. They attend the same social functions. You’ll get Amira to tell you, eventually, when the two of them will be together next. Then we’ll take it from there.”

“Why do I get to know her background, this time? Her name? I didn’t know that, with Aaliyah.”

“Because you’re coming to her as the person you are. A woman trying to save her wife, and her wife’s child. You’re supposed to know who she is, this time.”

“So you want me to use my wife to get you information?”

Cruz’s chair scrapes across the floor as she stands.

“What the fuck else would you be here to do?” Lara chimes in from the corner.

“Sit, Cruz. We’re not done,” Joe says quietly.

Cruz begins to pace.

“She’s being hunted, Joe. Someone wants to kill her. And you want me to use her as a pawn?”

“Do you have a better fucking idea on how you’re going to get information? Because I’m all ears.”

Cruz doesn’t.

“What about the other brother, from the recording?” Lara asks.

“Assid? He’s collateral. If we get him, we get him. If we don’t, we don’t.”

“And what’s driving it, this time? They’re playing too much with oil prices again?” Cruz says sarcastically.

“Sure, that’s part of it. That, and they’re starting to reach across borders with the groups they fund.”

“What?”

“Aaliyah’s father stayed concentrated in the Middle East. They’re not. Their money is reaching to places we can’t afford it to go. So we cut them off, now.”

Joe turns to the white board and writes down another name in black marker. Three letters.

Ani.

She points to it.

“And we’ll need intel on where she is, too.”

Cruz freezes.

“What do you mean, where she is?”

“We don’t know where she’s kept. We just know she’s here. There are medical records, of her being seen over the years in Riyadh.”

Cruz clenches both fists. She feels the tension in her neck, exploding from within.

“You fucking lied to me,” she seethes.

Joe has no retort.

“You told me she was in a compound, here. You made it seem like you knew where she was. Now you’re telling me you have no fucking clue?”

Lara bounces the tennis ball and stands.

“It won’t be hard, if you do your job right, to get her to tell you where they keep her,” Lara says.

“How could we not know that by now? How do we not have that information?”

Joe sits down and drums her hands on the table.

“Easy. Wherever she is, they don’t let her out. Ani Al Rashdi doesn’t exist outside of the four walls they keep her in.”

Cruz feels her heartbeat in her throat. It pulses with rage as she thinks of her face, the micro-version of Aaliyah’s. She’s been trapped, wherever she is, for the four short years of her life.

“Amira is traceable,” Lara says. “She’s out in public, all the time. It won’t be hard to pin her down.”

“How am I supposed to do it? How am I supposed to get her to give me the information we need?”

“Appeal to her. Appeal to whatever relationship she had with Aaliyah. Tell her the truth.”

Cruz cocks her eyebrow.

“The truth?”

Joe looks at her sadly.

“That you’re here to help the person you love. That you need Amira to help you do that.”

It is the truth. But when Joe says it, it sounds foul, manufactured. Like a means to an end, when the reality is that it is Cruz’s entire existence, her entire being.

--
Cruz and Lara get dropped into a house on the outskirts of Riyadh. It’s plain, unremarkable in all respects. The perfect place to hide out and wait for their opportunity.

And that’s all they do.

The days blur together, and Cruz floats through them. She never feels like her feet touch the ground. She has no footing in this place, because Aaliyah isn’t here with her.

It haunts her, late at night. She tosses and turns, unable to sleep without her body pressed to hers. She scrolls through the photos on her phone endlessly, staring at Aaliyah’s face, her body, her smile.

She and Lara circle each other like lions in a den. Cruz feels the air simmer with the threat that one of them will eventually attack the other like prey.

Lara looks at Cruz with disappointment, as though she feels that Cruz is weak, unworthy of being here in her presence.
She’s right. But Cruz isn’t just weak. She’s nothing at all.

There’s a room in the basement with weights, a treadmill, machines that are supposed to keep them fit and ready. But Cruz’s limbs are flaccid, unable to lift anything at all.

The day comes, eventually. Lara rustles her awake, and Cruz groggily rises from the bed.

“She’s going shopping, today. Confirmed. We’re on.”

They drive together to the Riyadh Gallery Mall. It’s large, sprawling. It looks just like any mall in the States would, and the sight surprises Cruz. She expects something foreign, something different. But when she walks inside she finds brands that she knows from all the times Aaliyah had pulled her through the streets of New York, ducking endlessly into storefronts, Cruz armed with an arsenal of bags behind her.

“There’s a Cinnabon here,” Cruz mutters into her earpiece.

“That shit is good,” Lara says back, her voice loud and clear.

The center of the mall has a large indoor pool of water. Trees extend from within it, propelling into the second tier. People move around her in droves.

“Why am I wearing this?” Cruz asks her.

“Wearing what?” Lara replies.

“The hijab. There are women here, without it. What’s the point?”

“It’s no longer law. But there are still many that do. Amira is one of them. You want her to trust you, so you need to wear it, too.”

“Whatever,” Cruz says. She sulks against a sign, pretending to scroll on her phone.

Then she sees her, standing alone by the side of the pool with a shopping bag in hand.

“She’s thirty feet out. I’m going to make contact,” Cruz says, holding the earpiece beneath her hijab.

“You’re clear, she came in alone.”

Cruz approaches her from the side.

She’s a small woman, shorter than Aaliyah by inches. Her features are dark, her button nose turned up in judgment at the world around her. Cruz closes in on her.

She’s five feet away. Now three, now two.

She bumps into her. She does it because it worked, last time, on Aaliyah. But this is not Aaliyah, and the same trick can’t be used twice.

Amira stumbles and drops her phone. It lands straight in the pool, sinking to the bottom.

Shit, Cruz thinks.

“I’m sorry,” Cruz says in Arabic.

Amira turns to look at her. At first there is no indication that Amira recognizes her. No indication that Amira knows who Cruz is, that she is the one responsible for killing her husband’s father.

Cruz grabs the phone out of the water and dries it off on the ends of her head scarf, then hands it to her.

“I’m sorry,” she says again, this time in English.

Amira looks at her closely, her eyes narrowing.

She takes a step backward.

“You,” she gasps.

“Guess the cat’s out of the bag already,” Lara says in her ear.

Cruz opens her mouth to say something, and then it happens very quickly.

The scent hits her. It’s strong. Overwhelming.

Orange blossoms. Lavender.

The scent of her wife.

She spins in a circle. Her eyes search the mall corridor frantically.

Aaliyah.

It’s still in her nose. It’s only getting stronger.

She throws one hand over her mouth.

Aaliyah.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Lara shouts in her ear.

It all crashes in spectacular fashion. The panic descends on her, straps her in and sends her hurtling down like a roller coaster.

Her heart races and her tongue goes dry and she can’t hear and her vision is spots and flashes and there’s a pain right in the center of her forehead because that smell is of her wife and yet she cannot find her because she’s not here, because Cruz left her, and she has no idea where she is, and then her feet are racing away, leaving Amira behind, and there’s a trash can. She’s bending over it, heaving. She empties the contents of her stomach.

‘What the FUCK?” Lara screams.

Cruz grips the sides of the trash can, as though she is fighting for her life. And she is. Because that smell cannot exist here. It needs to leave her nostrils, evict itself from her body.

“Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together, now. Meet me in the back of the parking lot.”

It takes thirty minutes for Cruz to even process Lara’s words in her ear.

When she gets in the car, Lara’s face is folded into a frown. She says nothing on the ride back to the house, until they cross the threshold and she closes the door behind them.

Lara removes her earpiece and rips the hijab from her head.

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck just possessed you to do that?”

Cruz tears her own head covering off and gulps water straight from the sink in the kitchen counter.

“Manuelos! Answer me!” Lara shouts.

Cruz gargles and spits into the sink.

“I smelled it. Her perfume.”

“I’m sorry, you what? You smelled perfume? And what, that made you lose your lunch?”

“Aaliyah’s. It was Aaliyah’s perfume. I smelled it.”

Lara crosses her arms. Her muscles bulge, menacing and rigid.

Then she laughs scornfully.

“You fucking pussy.”

Cruz’s head whips up from the sink.

“What did you just call me?”

“You just blew your first chance with your fucking mark. Now she not only knows you were following her, she thinks you’re fucking nuts. Because you are.”

Cruz shakes her head and tries to step around her, but Lara refuses to let her pass.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” Cruz says through gritted teeth.

“Cruz Manuelos. You aren’t who the fuck they said you are.”

“And what’s that? Who am I supposed to be?”

Lara throws her head back in laughter.

“You’re supposed to be lethal. You know they keep your name there? In the record books, at the base in Quantico? What a waste.”

Lara circles her, like she’s about to feast on her. And Cruz knows exactly what she’s doing. She knows Lara is looking to incite her, get a rise out of her. Rile the monster within her.

But Cruz hasn’t been that monster, not in years. She doesn’t know how to get back to being what Lara is, a machine that operates without feeling.

“You’re not lethal at all. You’re a bitch. Only a bitch would run like that, would lose their composure like that. You’re not made for this.”

Cruz clenches her jaw. She won’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction.

Then Lara leans in. She’s taller than Cruz, something Cruz is not used to. She peers down her nose at her, derision marking the lines of her face.

“You’re gonna cry like a bitch when they kill her, aren’t you?”

Cruz sends one flying fist, then another, but Lara is prepared for them. She swats her arms away then kicks Cruz’s legs out from under her. Cruz crashes to the floor, and Lara stares down at her, jeering.

Cruz springs back up, but Lara is on her in an instant, holding her down in a chokehold. Cruz claws at Lara’s forearms as she lets her entire weight set into Cruz’s back, paralyzing her beneath the bulk that is her body.

“Cruz Manuelos. Look at you now. On your fucking ass.”

Lara is stronger. Lara is bigger.

But no one has Cruz’s will.

She yanks one elbow from Lara’s grip and sends it straight into her gut. It’s enough to shake her, and then she’s rolling, swinging up, catching Lara’s neck between her knees and squeezing. She kicks out, slams her down, hard enough that the back of Lara’s head cracks, then she frees herself.

Cruz sees nothing but red.

She pummels Lara relentlessly. She sends her boot straight into Lara’s gut. Lara makes it to her feet and ducks Cruz’s punches, but it’s no use. It’s no use, when Cruz sees red.

It takes only seconds for Cruz to back Lara into a wall, to wrap her hands around her throat, to start squeezing so hard that Lara’s eyes begin to pop.

“Go ahead,” Cruz seethes in her face. “Call me a pussy again. Go ahead.”

Lara wheezes. Tears roll down her face. There’s a split second when fear crosses into her eyes, fear that Cruz is going to hold on until the air leaves her body for good.

Then she sends her knee into Cruz’s stomach. Cruz bends over, the wind knocked out of her, and Lara gasps for breath when Cruz’s hands release her throat.

“Jesus,” Lara rasps, stunned. “About time you showed up.”

Cruz wipes blood from the side of her mouth.

“If you touch me again, I’ll kill you,” Cruz says through gritted teeth. “You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”

“Actually, I do. I know everything about you. And I know your weak points.”

“I don’t have any,” Cruz spits.

“No? You want to talk about the perfume again?”

Cruz glares.

Lara’s phone rings, and her eyes stay locked on Cruz as she brings it to her ear.

“No,” she says into it, to whoever is on the other line. “We didn’t make contact, not today. We had no issues, she just wasn’t there. Yeah, no. We’ll try again, next week.”

Then she hangs up.

They give each other a wide berth for hours, until Cruz finally bites.

“Why’d you lie earlier? To Joe, on the phone? Why didn’t you tell her what happened?”

Lara flips through the channels on the small television on the wall, and rests her head in her palm on the couch.

“She doesn’t need to know everything.”

“I’ll get it right, next time,” Cruz whispers.

Lara doesn’t meet her eyes.

“You won’t, unless you address your weakness.”

Cruz sighs.

“Ok, fine. What’s my weakness?”

Lara sits up.

“Her. Your heart. You need to take her out of this, out of you. You can’t do this if you let your feelings for her cloud your actions.”

“I can’t just not feel,” Cruz retorts. “And I’m supposed to use her. How do I use her and not feel?”

“Yes, you can. You need to detach. You need to get rid of it. Lock her away, push that shit down. Think of her only at night, when your head hits a pillow. But when your ass wakes up in the morning, you need to be in this. And you will never be in it if your mind is dwelling on her.”

“She’s my fucking wife. She’s the reason I’m here.”

Lara rips her phone from her pocket, scrolls, then brings up a photo. She tosses it to Cruz and Cruz catches it, looking down at the screen.

It’s a man and a little girl, smiling at each other on top of a slide. They look like they’re in a backyard. There’s a blue house behind them.

“My husband. My daughter,” Lara says, nodding toward her phone. “She’s four. Her birthday was today, actually. I planned her whole party, months ago. Barbie themed. Planned it knowing I wouldn’t be there.”

Cruz gapes at her.

“You think that I was dwelling on the fact that I wasn’t there for my daughter’s birthday when we were in that mall today?”

The question is rhetorical, and Cruz doesn’t answer.

“I wasn’t. I didn’t think of her once. I didn’t think of my husband once. Do you know when I thought of them? Ten minutes ago. I have an alarm. Set on my phone. When it goes off at night, I let myself think of them. Any other time, they don’t exist.”

She stands and rips her phone out of Cruz’s hands.

“You have to train this,” Lara says, pointing at her own head. “You have to train yourself to detach from the things that matter. Otherwise, you’ll never get home to them.”

--

Cruz takes a page from Lara’s book and sets an alarm on her phone each night. She tries to carve out discrete times at the end of the day to allow herself to think of her wife.

She fails, miserably.

The thoughts of her come, unbidden and relentless.

She hears her laugh, in her head. Her accent, the way it rolls over words and makes them sound exotic. Her eyes, those eyes, they are everywhere, and Cruz cannot escape them no matter how hard she tries.

Amira doesn’t resurface again for weeks, and Cruz is left to nothing but the gym in the basement to occupy herself. She throws her body into it, exhausts herself until her bones cannot be lifted. Still, Aaliyah plagues her, penetrates her, and Cruz cannot rid herself of anything she feels.

She walks into the small backyard behind the house one night. There’s a single swing-set. It’s beaten, worn down. Lara sits on a swing, looking at her phone. Cruz sits on the swing next to her, and can see from over her shoulder that she’s scrolling through pictures of her daughter.

“I’m nervous,” Lara says.

Lara doesn’t look capable of nerves. Lara looks like a fortress, immune from everything circulating in the pit of Cruz’s gut.

“I’m nervous I’m not going to get back to her,” she whispers, nodding at a photo of her daughter hugging a teddy bear.

“I thought you said you don’t think of those things, when you’re in it.”

“I said I do, when the alarm goes off. My alarm went off. I have another twenty minutes.”

Cruz stands.

“Sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll go.”

Lara stops her with a hand to her forearm.

“I’m nervous because I don’t know if you’re going to be in this, Cruz. And if you’re not in this, I’m compromised. If I’m compromised, I don’t get home to her.”

Cruz stares at her.

“Have the two of you thought about kids?”

“What?”

“Have you thought about having kids?”

Cruz sits on the swing. Her eyes focus on the grass beneath her feet. Then her mind goes back in time, reliving the answer to Lara’s question as though she’s experiencing it anew.

A week after they got home from Mexico, Cruz had to leave for a weekend for drill training.

They were both solemn and straight-faced as she packed a duffel bag on a Thursday morning, as though she was leaving to go to a faraway place she would never return from.

When they pulled up to the airport, Aaliyah watched the planes take off overhead wearily.

“I don’t know how to be without you,” she said quietly.

Cruz felt her words deep in her stomach, at the time. She hadn’t existed, until Aaliyah came into her life. She was terrified that taking even a step away from her would cause her to disintegrate.

But she took her hand and smiled through it anyway.

“Just two sleeps,” she said reassuringly.

They got out of the car and Aaliyah clung to her. Cruz detached her wrists from around her neck slowly, kissing her hands. Then she slung her bag over her back and walked into the airport with bile stampeding up her throat.

When she boarded the plane, Aaliyah texted her.

I’ve never felt this way, being away from someone. I don’t know if I can do it for two sleeps.

Cruz typed back quickly before she lost her Internet connection.

I haven’t either. But you can. I’ll be home soon. I love you.

She shifts uncomfortably on the swing, thinking of that moment when she sat on that tarmac apart from her wife for the first time in over a year. She laughs at their naivete, and the sound causes Lara to look at her curiously.

They were so woefully ignorant at the time in their understanding of what it would feel like to be truly severed.

On Sunday morning, Cruz’s flight home got canceled. Aaliyah had texted her nonstop with different flights she could take, but none would get her home before Monday.

I’m renting a car, she texted Aaliyah back.

The text bubbles appeared instantly on Cruz’s screen.

It’s an eight-hour drive, Aaliyah responded.

That’s quick, Cruz wrote.

Eight hours later, she pulled up to Kim’s restaurant just before midnight. The lights were on upstairs. When she got to the staircase, Aaliyah flew down it and jumped on her, wrapping her legs around her hips. Cruz fell backwards at the impact and threw a hand to the wall for balance.

“Missed me that much, huh?”

They kissed their way up each step. When they got inside, Aaliyah ripped her boots off her feet, unbuckled her pants with quick fingers, tore the shirt over Cruz’s head. They made it to the bed in record speed.

Aaliyah straddled her, and Cruz closed her eyes and breathed when Aaliyah’s hand found her. She existed, again, right where she was supposed to be. She relaxed into the pillows and lets the sensation sweep her up. Her breathing quickened, and she was there, on the cusp of it, when Aaliyah froze.

Cruz gritted her teeth.

“I was—I was just about to—”

Aaliyah leaned over her, worry on her face.

“Do you want kids?” she cut her off in a whisper.

Cruz stared at her.

“Do I—what?”

Aaliyah leaned back on her knees, one hand still between Cruz’s legs. She used the other to rake through her hair nervously.

“Do you want children?”

“Is this the best time to talk about this?” Cruz said in a hurry, looking pointedly at Aaliyah’s hand and back to Aaliyah’s face.

Aaliyah’s mouth settled into a straight line and her forehead creased.

“I just, I kept thinking about it, when you were gone, and then I thought we never talked about it, and was that wrong to not talk about it? Maybe we should’ve talked about it. So now I want to talk about it,” she rambled quickly.

Cruz’s body was still hammering, and she willed herself to come down.

“Ok, ok. We can talk about it,” she whispered, gripping Aaliyah’s thighs.

Aaliyah nodded frantically.

“Ok,” she squeaked out.

They stared at each other, unblinking.

“So do you want them?” Aaliyah pressed.

Cruz wiped sweat from the side of her neck.

“Yeah, yeah I want them.”

Aaliyah exhaled.

“Ok. With me?”

Cruz swallowed a laugh in an attempt to respect the seriousness of the moment.

“Who else would they be with?”

“Right. Ok. Ok,” Aaliyah nodded.

“But we don’t need to, if you don’t—”

“No, I do. I do. With you, obviously. I want them,” Aaliyah breathed.

Aaliyah trailed her free hand over her own stomach, fingers finding the scar between her hip bones, and her eyes glistened.

Cruz had never been able to feel them before, the things coursing through another person’s body, but she could do it with Aaliyah just by looking in her eyes. She was certain, as though it beat in her own chest, that Aaliyah was struggling with her admission that she desired a child after losing one.

Cruz wishes she could reach back and tell her that her child wasn’t gone. That her child was still here. That she needn’t mourn a loss that didn’t occur.

But Cruz didn’t know, at the time. Because they were still in the before. And in the before, Cruz had no reason to fear the after.

So Cruz had done the normal thing. She’d sat up and kissed her wife, giving her the reassurance she needed.

“It’s ok,” she said against her mouth. “You can want this.”

Aaliyah breathed deeply and smiled.

“But I want you to myself for awhile, before that. Is that ok?”

Cruz kissed her agreement into her lips.

“Manuelos? You there?”

Cruz blinks. Lara studies her just as she pushes her feet from the ground and propels her swing into the air.

Cruz clears her throat.

“Yeah, we thought about kids,” she whispers.

Lara nods.

“Well, when you have them, you’ll understand what it means to have a part of yourself exist in the world outside your body.”

“If.”

Lara casts her a sideways glance.

“You said when I have them. I think it’s an if I have them, for now.”

Lara jumps off the swing and sticks her landing.

“That’s the attitude that gets you killed,” she says smoothly.

She bends and stretches her legs.

“I don’t want to leave a part of myself behind. I want to go home to my daughter, Cruz. So wherever you are in your head, I need you to try to come out of it. If you don’t, you risk us both.”

Then she walks away.

--

A day later, Cruz approaches her as she pumps weights over her head.

“How do you do it?”

Lara spits sweat from her mouth and drops the weights.

“Do what?”

“Detach.”

She nods toward the bar and Cruz helps her lift it. She presses it over her head and groans in exertion, and when she’s done she collapses to the bench.

“It’s not healthy, my way.”

Cruz cracks her knuckles.

“None of this is healthy.”

Lara sighs.

“I think of the bad things,” she says quietly.

“What bad things?”

Lara looks up at her.

“From my past. That’s how Joe chooses us. Or didn’t you know? She picks the people who come from holes.”

She stands and starts doing pull-ups from a bar.

“My hole was foster care. Thirteen different homes. In six of them, I was abused. In the rest, I was ignored.”

She pants.

“By the second home, I was separated from my sister. I haven’t seen her since.”

Her tone is blank, as though this doesn’t phase her to speak of it.

“So I think of that time in my life. And it numbs me. When I’m numb, I can’t feel the other things.”

Cruz nods.

“Okay,” she says.

“I know what your bad things are, Cruz.”

Cruz starts walking away.

“Use them carefully,” Lara shouts after her.

Cruz turns when she reaches the door.

“Carefully?”

“If you’re not careful, they become you again.”

Cruz lays in the bed that night.

She closes her eyes.

She thinks of the bad things.

She’s not careful.

She lets them all in at once, and they weave around her like tentacles.

Her mother, passed out with vomit in her throat in Cruz’s bed after another near overdose incident. Cruz’s hands, scooping the contents of her stomach off her pillow, lifting her unmoving body and dragging her to a shower. Her brother, the way his face drained of color when life left him. The bee sting, swollen like a ball on his arm. A small prick with venom capable of murdering a child. Edgar, how he drilled into her body relentlessly, taking anything and everything he wanted. The Christmas lights, whipping into her back. How she screamed at the sting of them. The cigar, pressing into the underside of her arm. The rubber smell that exudes from skin when it’s burned. The shelters. The parks she slept in. The feeling of being alone, having nothing.

She lets it sweep her up. She lets it take hold of her. She does it until she becomes numb.

Then she stops thinking of her, all together. She doesn’t even set an alarm at night to allow time to consider her.

She erases her, as though Aaliyah were never there at all.

--

The days blend together. Time could be passing or standing still. Aaliyah isn’t aware, either way.

It’s surreal, to inhibit a body that doesn’t exist. She allows herself to leave the bathroom, eventually. She spends an hour or two outdoors. She even takes a swim.

But it’s not really her doing any of it. She isn’t sure who it is.

Aaliyah Amrohi loves the ocean. Yet when she dives into the water for the first time on this island, it feels like slime on her skin. The salt of the sea stings her, the seaweed slaps against her, and she despises it.

Aaliyah Amrohi loves the sunshine, too. But here, it only exposes her. It illuminates her new flaws. Her skin is cracked and grey, suddenly wrinkled in places it never was before.

She can only find it, the parts of herself buried beneath the shroud of grief, if she thinks of her. And it can’t just be passing thoughts. Those do nothing for her. The only way is if she steps into the past and experiences it again.

She’s sitting, shoulder-to-shoulder next to Todd, on top of the concrete wall that surrounds the house. She’d told him that night, when he crept into the bathroom unsolicited, that she felt these walls were closing her in. He took her hand and led her outside, found a ladder, and they climbed it, one after the other. They sat down at the top, and she felt a tiny sliver of freedom staring out at the trees beyond.

“You look tired,” he says.

“You were loud, last night,” she responds.

His neck turns quickly and he finds her eyes.

“I’m sorry, I—”

She waves him off.

“Don’t apologize for having sex with your husband.”

The room he and David share is next to the one she’s been sleeping in. David had insisted, from the start, to be close to her. The walls are paper thin, and she hears them at random hours in the night.

It only heightens her longing for her.

He splays his hands behind him and stares into the turpentined pine trees. Some of them are hacked in places. Todd points.

“See that? Some of these trees have been harvested. Probably forever ago. Hurricane damage, too.”

Aaliyah nods, as though she’s paying attention, when she isn’t.

He quiets, then takes her hand.

“I really am sorry, sweetheart. We’ll be quiet. I promise.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever have that again.”

He frowns.

“You don’t think you’re ever going to have sex again?”

She shakes her head.

“Not like that.”

His chin moves up and down in understanding.

“I get it. Sex isn’t sex until you have the right sex.”

There’s alliteration, repetition in the sentence, and he says it like a line of poetry.

He laughs suddenly, wiping his eyes.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing. I was just thinking of my first time. It was so horrible. Sometimes I can’t believe how far I’ve come.”

She watches him expectantly.

“It was with this girl. Her name was Helen. Gosh, I haven’t thought of her in so long,” he says.

His neck cranes to the sky.

“I was sure there was something wrong with me. Couldn’t quite get it up.” He winks. “She cried. What a nightmare.”

He takes her hand.

“What was yours like?” he asks.

She looks into his eyes.

“My what?”

“Your first time.”

Her first time.

She blinks. The humidity feels dewy on her skin. She closes her eyes, takes a breath, and then she leaves her body.

She enters the version of herself that existed in Miami, on the weekend she finally allowed them to become intimate again.

It was late in the afternoon, and they’d missed their flight home that morning. Aaliyah’s head was resting on Cruz’s stomach, and she was tracing aimless circles on Cruz’s chest.

She broke the silence.

“Are you attracted to men?”

Cruz burst out laughing.

“What? Where did that come from?”

“I’m just wondering.”

Cruz shifted beneath her.

“Why, are you?”

Aaliyah flashed her eyes up at her.

“I asked first.”

Cruz rolled her eyes.

“In the past, I have been. Nothing like this though.”

Aaliyah bit her lower lip.

“Me too.”

“I really don’t want to know this,” Cruz said.

Aaliyah laughed.

“Why? Are you jealous?”

“No, I’m not jealous. I just don’t want to think of you with anyone else. Spent enough time doing that, when you were with--”

Cruz stopped short of saying her name.

Aaliyah pressed her lips along Cruz’s sternum.

“I’ve never been with anyone else like this.”

Cruz released a breath.

“Although there are elements I suppose I enjoyed, with men,” Aaliyah continued.

Cruz clicked her tongue. “Wonder what those were.”

She flipped them over and trailed her hand down Aaliyah’s stomach, stopping at her hip bone.

“I can give that to you, if you want.”

Aaliyah narrowed her eyes and searched her face.

“I’ve spent enough time between your legs to know you don’t have that.”

Cruz smiled.

“Wait, you’ve never used one?”

Aaliyah raised her eyebrows.

“Used what?”

Cruz broke down. She laughed until there were tears in her eyes, and Aaliyah sat up in a huff and made to get out of the bed.

“No, no. Come back. I’m sorry.”

Aaliyah smacked her on her thigh.

“Explain what you meant.”

Cruz covered her eyes.

“Are you really going to make me do this?”

Aaliyah climbed on top of her and pinned Cruz’s hands to her sides.

“Tell me, or I won’t touch you again for a month.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

Cruz flexed her wrists and Aaliyah gripped them tighter.

“Ok, ok,” Cruz said. “I can wear one. A fake one. Women do that. Sometimes it feels good.”

Aaliyah stared down at her, expressionless. She’d understood on the periphery that this was something that existed, just never in her own experiences. She pushed the red lines in her past life, stopping short of their breaking point. Then there came the physical parts of her relationship with Sarah, but all of them were too polite for anything of the sort.

“You’ve done that before? With other women?”

Cruz raised her eyebrows.

“Now who’s jealous?”

Aaliyah tilted her chin in the air.

“I want to try it. Where do we get one?”

Cruz couldn’t stop smiling.

“Why don’t you let me take care of that?”

Aaliyah climbed off her and cast her hand out to the door of their hotel suite. Cruz looked from her to the door.

“You want me to go now? In Miami? To buy one?”

Aaliyah thrust her hand out further and set her jaw.

Cruz sighed, then got out of the bed. She put her clothes on and walked to the door, shaking her head.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered.

She was back an hour later, and Aaliyah was soaking in the jacuzzi. She walked in and sat next to her on the floor, bag in hand. Aaliyah smiled at her slyly.

“Are you armed with what I sent you for?”

Cruz laughed. She took it out of the bag and washed it in the sink. The water hit the sides of the tub when Aaliyah sat up.

“Let me see it.”

Cruz held it out, and Aaliyah immediately blushed and looked down.

Cruz squat down next to her and cupped her cheek.

“Hey, pretty girl. We don’t have to do this,” she said.

Aaliyah fidgeted with a bottle of shampoo. Sex was not something she’d ever been embarrassed about. She was confident, maybe overly so, in her body and the effect she knew it could have on the people around her at the time.

Yet she was thrown by the moment.

“I could never do that,” Aaliyah said, gesturing at it. “Seeing a woman was taboo, enough of a risk for me, in my past life. That would’ve been suicide.”

Cruz stared at her and started fidgeting herself.

“I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have joked about it. You just—you always seemed to know what you were doing, with us. More than I have, at least.”

Aaliyah dunked her hair back into the water.

“Well, I have no experience with this. And it’s silly, but—I just—” she cleared her throat. “I’ve never been able to, with a man before, with just that. You understand?”

Cruz let one hand sink into the tub. She ran her fingers through the water.

“I think I could make you, my love. If you want to try,” Cruz whispered.

Aaliyah looked at her. She nodded.

She got out of the bathtub and wrapped a towel around herself, then sat on the side of the bed. Cruz stripped quickly and sat down next to her.

“Lie back.”

Aaliyah reclined on the pillows. Cruz unwrapped her towel.

As she sits on this wall with a forest sprawled out before her, Aaliyah doesn’t remember it as explosive, mind-blowing sex. What she remembers, more than anything, is how slow Cruz went, how she lingered in places no one had before. How she had nourished her, like a flower that had never been watered.

She’d cradled her hands, kissing each finger. She kissed her open palms. She made her way up her arms, stopping at the inside of her elbow, just where it met her forearm.

“I love you,” she had breathed there, her voice heavy with the words and with her desire for Aaliyah to hear them. Aaliyah marveled at how she had never realized before that the inner elbow is the prime location for that type of declaration.

She’d moved down her. She tended to her knees, as though they were the most intimate part of her. Aaliyah recalls thinking at the time how no one had ever kissed her kneecaps before.

She traveled lower, down to her shins. She massaged them, breathed into them. Then, the soles of her feet. Back again, higher, to her thighs.

“I’m going to make sure you’re ready, ok?”

Aaliyah hadn’t understood, at the time. She didn’t know what she needed to be ready for.

Cruz disappeared, pouring into her there, too.

She sat up against the side of the bed again. She turned away, fiddling with something.

“What are you doing?” Aaliyah asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cruz answered.

Then she climbed on top of her. Aaliyah didn’t look down as Cruz tugged a pillow beneath her. She kept her eyes trained on Cruz’s face and willed her heart to slow.

Cruz bent down and kissed her softly, then parted her thighs.

“Spread these out more,” she murmured.

Aaliyah paused. Cruz pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Just trust me, ok? Let me make this feel good for you.”

Aaliyah scanned her face. Her dark eyes were tendered by that look. She let her knees fan all the way out, and then Cruz sunk into her.

Cruz took even more time, then. Aaliyah had never adjusted to it, the feeling of that fullness within her, with any man before. Everything was so quick, so perfunctory. But this was prolonged, seemingly endless.

Cruz moved above her in different ways. She asked her how each one felt. They laughed nervously through the angles their bodies traveled.

It wasn’t Aaliyah’s first time. Far from it. That had occurred years prior, with a boy who had fumbling hands and could never seem to find what he was looking for. But the way Cruz held her that day rearranged the sequence of her life, putting it first in line before all the others. She touched her like she was fragile, and it made Aaliyah shatterproof, everlasting.

Then Cruz found it, in a way that made it seem like she was reading Aaliyah’s body like a map all along. It was a place Aaliyah had never felt, one she didn’t know existed.

“There. There. There,” Aaliyah had gasped.

“I know,” Cruz had panted.

She knew.

Todd squeezes her hand, and it’s over. She opens her eyes.

“Where’d you just go in that pretty head of yours?”

She pulls her hand away and picks at her cuticles.

“Nowhere.”

“Aaliyah. Tell me.”

She’s still getting used to hearing her real name from his lips. She sighs.

“My first was with a boy. But there was one time, with her. In Miami. And it just felt like the first time.”

He wraps one arm around her and collapses his cheek to the top of her head.

“You should do it more often,” he whispers.

“Do what?”

“Think of her. You looked peaceful, for a minute.”

--

Four months pass until Cruz makes contact with Amira again. She stakes out at an outdoor market on a Monday in June, watching her from a distance.

Cruz snakes her way through the crowd, moving with purpose. She gets to her side just as Amira is picking up a piece of blue-green pottery. A small vase, big enough for a single stem.

There is a version of Cruz Manuelos that would look at that vase and see nothing but the colors of her wife’s eyes.

But this version, standing in this foreign market in a foreign country, sees just an empty vase and finds it unremarkable.

Amira’s eyes zero in on her. She appraises her carefully, as if she’s waiting to see if Cruz will unravel again before her eyes.

It’s there. The scent. Lavender, orange blossoms. It invades Cruz’s nose, and she inhales it. But it inspires no reaction this time, other than a passing understanding of why she smells it.

Aaliyah had told her, as they sat below the Brooklyn bridge in the sunset, in the before. A family member had gotten her hooked on that perfume, and she has worn it ever since.

Cruz knows, standing within arm’s reach of Amira, that she is the one who gave it to Aaliyah.

“Her perfume. It comes from you,” Cruz says randomly.

It’s a hail mary. An improvised line. One Cruz hadn’t prepared.

Amira bristles. She puts the vase down. She begins to walk away. Cruz follows on her heels. The bustling crowd encases them, shielding them from any prying eyes. Cruz takes advantage of the cover.

“She told me. Over a year ago, she told me she wears that perfume because a family member gave it to her. It was you.”

Amira spins and faces her. The dark lines of her face are moving, an expression overcoming her that Cruz cannot read.

Cruz lets the alarm ping in her head. She lets some of them out, the feelings that she’s locked away.

“That’s why I reacted the way I did, last time I came to talk to you. I smelled her on you. It made me sick.”

“Why?”

Her voice is timid, shy.

“Because I love her,” Cruz says simply.

She takes out her phone and opens a photo. Then she begins reciting the lines she memorized in her months of waiting for this moment.

“This is us. The day we got married,” she whispers, flashing a photo of the two of them on the beach. That dress. Cruz had almost forgotten what it did to her, that day. She’s somehow developed amnesia, in just four months’ time, when it comes to what her wife looks like, what it feels to be blinded by her beauty.

Amira stares at the photo. She reaches out and takes the phone from Cruz’s hands. She zooms in on Aaliyah’s face.

“I need your help, Amira,” Cruz says quietly. “She’s in danger. I need you to help me protect her.”

Amira scrolls through her photos, just as Cruz hoped she would.

There’s them, taking a selfie on the couch in Aaliyah’s apartment. In the next one, they’re wrapped together on an outdoor balcony overlooking skyscrapers in the city, the weekend after Cruz had gotten back from her drill training. It was their last weekend, before it all came undone.

Amira scrolls to the final photo, the only one on Cruz’s phone from the after. Aaliyah had asked a stranger to take a picture of them the night they met David and Todd at a bar. Amira zooms in again, this time over Cruz’s face. Cruz can see it, instantly, how hardened she looks. She wonders if Amira can see it too.

“She looks happy,” Amira says, in quiet contemplation.

“She was happy. We were happy. But he’s planning to hurt her, Amira. He’s planning to kill her.”

Amira looks at her.

“Who?”

“Kamal.”

Amira hands her back her phone. She switches to Arabic, and she sounds defensive this time.

“I cannot help you.”

She begins to walk away.

“I know, Amira,” Cruz calls after her. “I know about Ani.”

Amira stiffens. She hesitates for a fraction of a second, then disappears into the sea of bodies, never turning back.

--

It takes Cruz two more times before Amira slips the piece of paper into her hand.

“Push the angle on the girl first,” Joe instructs one night over the phone.

“I thought you said opportunity dictates that?”

“This is the opportunity. And you said you wanted her out first, didn’t you? Push it. See if she bites,” Joe says.

So Cruz pushes.

She trails her in the mall again. She follows her into a store that sells scented candles. She keeps her distance this time, for fear that one of the few other people in the store with them might be a threat.

She makes herself known, in the corner by a shelf, and Amira finds her.

Within minutes, she approaches Cruz and they both pretend to look at the shelf before them. This section smells like eucalyptus.

Cruz opens her phone, finds the photo she’s looking for, and places it on the shelf. She doesn’t want to hand it to her, not so directly when eyes could easily find them here. There isn’t a crowd to shield them from view this time.

Amira picks up her phone discretely.

“Zoom in on her stomach,” Cruz says from the side of her mouth.

Amira’s fingers move over the photo. It’s one of Aaliyah from Mexico, a close up of her lying in the sand. The scar is easily visible between her hip bones. Cruz waits for it to fill the screen.

“She was pregnant. That’s the scar, from when he made them cut into her. They told her the baby didn’t make it. Too early. Too premature.”

Amira’s hand shakes as she places the phone back on the shelf. Cruz lets it sit there.

“Has anyone ever taken care of her? Any family?”

Amira cringes, then shakes her head.

“I tried, but he stopped me from going, when she was two years old. Now it’s just hired help. No friends. No family. Just strangers,” she says, her voice wavering.

‘Who stopped you?”

“Nadir. Aaliyah’s brother. No one is supposed to know about her. We pretend as though she does not exist, as though she does not share his blood.”

There’s a flash of something on her face, and Cruz thinks it’s anger.

“She doesn’t belong here, Amira. She belongs with Aaliyah. You need to tell me where she is.”

Amira purses her lips.

“It’s too dangerous,” she says.

“Which part?”

She looks at her with eyes filled with sorrow, as though she feels sorry for Cruz’s predicament.

“All of it.”

Cruz nods.

“There’s a café, around the corner. It has an outdoor terrace. I’ll be there, tomorrow,” Amira says.

Cruz waits for her starting at sunrise the next day. She sits in a car on the street, watching as people filter in and out of the café all day. Then Amira appears, in sunglasses and a head scarf. She stares at the car pointedly, as if she knows Cruz is in it. She walks inside the door, and Cruz follows. They stand in line, feet apart. Amira orders herself a tea. She pays. She turns to leave, brushing Cruz’s shoulder, and Cruz reaches her hand out instinctively.

Amira slips a piece of paper into it wordlessly.

When she gets back to the car, Cruz unfolds it so quickly that it tears at the top.

“What’s it say?” Lara asks.

Cruz lays it flat on the armrest between them.

It has an address on it. Then words, scribbled beneath in Arabic.

This is where they keep her.

Go first thing in the morning, in the half hour before the sun rises. There’s less security then.

--

Two days later, they run, crouched down, through the backyard in the darkness before the sun rises.

A large villa towers over them. It’s grey, with pointed rooftops and a somber look. They passed through a neighboring property and scaled a black iron fence to get in. Lara and Cruz had studied the aerial for hours, choosing the spot on the fence least likely to have exposure to cameras.

Lara is ahead by feet, and Joe moves silently behind her. She’d appeared out of thin air the day before, walking into the house casually.

“What are you doing here?” Cruz had asked.

Joe set a bag down on the table and stretched her arms over her head.

“I gave you my word, didn’t I?”

They make it into the villa, through the patio door. They’ve estimated that there are three levels and a basement. 5,000 square feet sprawl out before them, and Cruz feels the sweat gather at the base of her neck.

This is the extent of it, their knowledge of what this place exists of. None of them know what lies behind the closed doors.

They split up, each moving in different directions.

Cruz’s feet go at lightning speed. She pokes her gun around corners, ducking to check that they’re clear before continuing around them. She opens doors, holds her breath each time, waiting to confront someone.

But the villa is empty. There are no signs of life as she goes from room to room. The walls are bare. The furniture, scarce. Not even dust lives on the surfaces.

It makes something stir in Cruz’s stomach, to know that they have kept her here, in this void of nothingness.

She makes it to the second floor and she watches Joe enter a room at the end of a long hallway. She takes the opposite side of the hall. There’s a bathroom, a sitting room with one chair, three empty rooms in a row with nothing in them.

Then she gets to a door that’s half ajar, and the skin tingles on her back.

She knows, instantly.

She opens it slowly.

The walls are a stark white, unadorned. There’s a single toy chest in a corner. One chair, pulled up to a small table.

Then there’s a bed, beneath a window. The first signs of morning light come through it.

Cruz can’t look at her yet.

She approaches the table in a trance. Crayons litter the surface, spread across child-like drawings. There’s one of a house, with a green lawn and a pink fence. A single person stands before it, a small stick figure. Then another, of something that looks like a beach. The same stick figure, scrawled in blue, stands in the corner. Then there’s a third, with scribbles of every color imaginable. In the center, the stick figure stands out in black, with lines of short black hair and enlarged eyes colored in a blueish green.

Cruz understands, suddenly, that this child has repeatedly drawn herself alone, because that’s the state she exists in.

She turns and approaches the bed, taking her in.

She’s sleeping, her thumb in her mouth. Her black hair is splayed out on all sides, ending just below her chin.

A sensation slams into Cruz’s gut, so hard that it forces her into a squatting position. At first it feels like déjà vu, a certainty that she has lived this hundreds of times before. As though she has known that she would always eventually wind up here, before this child’s bed. As though she were put here, on this earth, just to exist in this moment.

She’s part of me, Cruz thinks. The randomness of the thought startles her, and she has no explanation for where it comes from. But she believes it as she stares down at her sleeping face.

Then her eyes open, and Cruz throws her hand to her mouth to hold back her cry.

Aaliyah’s eyes.

It only takes a second for them to widen in alarm. Then her lips part, and a screech comes out of them.

It snaps Cruz out of her reverie, and she seals her palm across her mouth, bringing one finger to her own lips.

“Shhh,” she pleads. “It’s ok.”

She tries to make her voice soft, but it’s no use. Ani’s small limbs flail, and Cruz brings her into her chest and holds her tight.

“I promise I won’t hurt you,” she whispers in Arabic. “I promise. It’s ok.”

She can feel Ani’s hot breath begin to still against her palm, her small body relaxing slowly in her arms.

Cruz pulls away. She removes her hand from Ani’s mouth, and her small lips begin to quiver. Snot and tears drip down her nose, and Cruz wipes them away.

“I’m going to take you home now, ok? But you have to be very quiet. Can you do that for me?”

Ani stares at her, eyes growing to a size that is disproportionate on her tiny face.

She scans Cruz up and down, surveying the camouflage gear on her body, the bullet proof vest, the helmet around her head.

“Soldier,” she says quietly.

She speaks in English, like she can sense that Cruz is not from this world.

“Yeah,” Cruz whispers back. “That’s right, I am. You’re safe with me.”

Then there’s movement behind them, footsteps. Cruz whips around and Joe raises her hands instantly.

“Me,” Joe says in a rush. “Just me. Let’s go. We need to move.”

Cruz turns back to Ani and brings her finger to her lips again.

“Quiet, ok? Stay quiet.”

She lifts her into her arms, and Ani doesn’t make a sound. She goes willingly, as if she has been waiting for Cruz all along.

She collapses her head onto Cruz’s shoulder and Cruz pauses, holding her there. She closes her eyes, breathing her in.

“Not the time for that, Cruz. We need to move.”

Joe yanks her arm and then they fly down the hallway. Cruz cradles her to her chest the entire way. They make it to the staircase, then an alarm blares. It’s deafening, and they drop to the floor instantly behind an end table.

“Fuck,” Joe hisses, raising her gun. “Fuck.”

“We have company,” Lara says urgently through the earpiece in Cruz’s ear. “Four of them.”

There’s a gunshot.

“Now three,” Lara says, panting.

“No, there’s more than that,” Joe says lowly, and Cruz follows her eyes. They peer over the rail, and Cruz can see shoulders, shoes. At least two more men, gesturing wildly.

“I saw them on the cameras,” one says to the other. “They’re here. They’re here.”

“How the fuck is that possible? Where’s the caretaker?”

Joe fires, two quick shots, but she only hits one. The other whirls on them and Cruz pulls the trigger, missing again. He disappears, and Joe grabs her arm.

“Let’s go,” she shouts, because there’s no need to stay quiet now. Not when they’ve been found.

They race down the stairs, into another hallway. A door opens on Cruz’s right, a leg flies out, and a shoe connects with her stomach. She keels over, and Ani begins to struggle.

There’s another gunshot in her ear, and then Lara’s voice, somewhere behind her.

“To your left!” she screams, and when Cruz looks up she sees the barrel of a gun. She grabs the knife from her belt and flicks it, and it lands perfectly, just where she intended it. He crumbles, and then she climbs to her feet again. She holds Ani with one arm this time as she makes her way down the hall behind Joe. Lara is by her side now, and they move in tandem.

They pass through a kitchen, a dining room with nothing in it but a chandelier.

Then it all explodes. There’s a bright flash, a decibel level that blows her eardrums. A grenade. She wonders why they’ve done it, why they’ve gone to these lengths to try to blow them to pieces just because they’re taking this child away from a prison masquerading as a palatial villa.

She can feel Ani’s body next to hers, and she rolls on top of her, covering her with her chest. She aches, and her ears ring. Blood trickles down the side of her head.

Her eyes come into focus, and somehow Joe is hovering above her looking perfectly fine, her body unbothered by the bomb that has just gone off.

“Are you hurt?” She pushes into Cruz’s side.

Cruz stares down at Ani. She runs her hands along her arms, and Ani stares at her in terror.

“She’s fine,” Joe says. “She’s fine. Move. We need to keep moving.”

Cruz tries to stand, and her ankle ignites in pain. She looks down at it, ripping her pant leg up. It’s swelling.

“Sprain,” she croaks. “Just a sprain.” She can’t hear her own voice, the ringing in her ears too great.

She climbs to her feet and lifts Ani up, but her ankle refuses her weight. She limps forward and groans.

“Take her,” she pants. “Take her.”

There are voices coming behind them. More gunshots. Lara, tearing up the hall, firing over her shoulder.

“Take her,” Cruz pleads, offering her wife’s child to Joe. “You’ll run quicker. I’ll cover you.”

Joe reaches out and accepts her, cradling her into her chest.

Cruz rips the necklace from her head frantically. She places it over Ani’s neck, and the black diamond ring falls beneath her shirt.

She has no explanation for why she does this, other than something within her compels her to.

“Go. Go.”

Joe takes off in a sprint, and Cruz turns around.

She fires. One down. She fires again. Two down. Lara passes by her.

“Move, Manuelos. Move now, there’s too many of them.”

Cruz keeps shooting.

Three down. Four down.

She picks them off, one by one, and eventually they stop coming. She finally turns and limps after Joe and Lara. Lara has already disappeared around the next corner.

Then there’s something stabbing into the side of her neck. Her hand reaches for it instantly. She pulls it out, expecting a knife. But it’s only a needle. She sways for a moment, confusion muddling her brain.

Her tongue goes numb. Her fingers go stiff.

Then it all goes black.

--

Aaliyah stares emptily at a book in her hands. She hasn’t read a word, but she reminds herself to flip the page every now and again to avoid her mother’s intrusive gaze.

It’s noon. She hasn’t eaten today. She hasn’t showered.

It’s been months, and Cruz is still gone.

She checks the clock and looks down at the book.

She sees a black SUV pull up through the window. David gets out with Todd. They’ve been gone for three days, but she’s barely registered their absence. She’s been vaguely aware of Asif lingering outside of her bedroom door every night, filling David’s role of hovering over her at all times.

David goes to the trunk and Todd opens the door behind the passenger’s seat. He lifts a child out.

Odd, is the only thought Aaliyah’s mind is capable of procuring.

She turns back to the book and flips another unread page. She hears the front door open. Her mother stands from the couch and walks to her. She bends down in front of her and grabs Aaliyah’s face in her hands.

“You need to get up now, Habibi.”

Aaliyah looks at her. Her face is greasy from sunscreen.

“You need to be strong.” Her mother grips her cheeks harder.

She hears Todd walking down the hall. David’s voice is whispering something to him.

“Maybe we should give her time,” David says.

“No time like the present,” Todd replies.

Aaliyah investigates her mother’s face and nudges her away. She senses something coming, in her gut.

Then Todd is standing in the doorframe. He’s holding a child in his hands with black hair. A little girl, with red buckled shoes.

“Here we go, darling. Say hello.”

He sets her down. She’s clutching a doll.

Aaliyah looks at her.

She has her eyes.

She stands abruptly and the book falls to the ground. She shoves her mother’s hands away and takes a step forward.

“What is this?” she breathes.

She looks from her mother to Todd frantically. They say nothing.

Aaliyah looks down at the girl. It’s her face, staring up at her. Her eyes and her lips and her cheeks and her hair.

She can’t breathe. She grabs at her throat and a noise comes out, something inhuman.

“What,” she whimpers, “is this?”

Her mother grabs her by the shoulders. Aaliyah focuses on her red lipstick, the way her lips quiver.

“You know what this is, darling. You know what this is.”

She pushes her toward the girl and Aaliyah takes two more steps, then drops to her knees.

Todd kneels and nudges the girl forward, and she looks at Aaliyah with alarm in her eyes.

Aaliyah feels the tears coming down her cheeks. She scans every detail of her face.

She knows what this is.

This is her daughter.

She’s beautiful. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyelashes are long and black. There’s a small beauty mark on her neck. Every hair on her head is perfect, shining.

Then she sees it, around her neck.

A black diamond ring, hanging from a necklace. She recognizes the chain.

Aaliyah’s hand trembles as she reaches out and fingers it.

“Where did you get this?” she whispers.

The girl looks down and tugs it out of Aaliyah’s hand.

“She gave it to me. The soldier.”

Her voice is timid, childlike. She speaks English. Aaliyah stares at her. Her daughter from another country speaks English. Aaliyah tries to do the math in her head, calculating her age.

Aaliyah reaches for the necklace again and the girl shrugs away. The black diamond bangs against her neck, and she descends instantly into wet, hiccupping sobs.

The soldier.

Aaliyah collapses on the ground next to her in a heap.

Chapter Text

Cruz awakens to buzzing in her ears. She blinks. There’s a flashing light overhead. She tries to move her hands, but something digs into her flesh. Zip ties.

She’s in a chair. Her feet are tied to the legs, her hands to the back.

Ani.

Cruz tries to think back. She remembers handing her off to Joe, then firing her gun repeatedly.

The panic flares in her chest as she frantically looks around. She doesn’t know if they got her out. She doesn’t know if she’s ok.

Her eyes dart around the room. A bed is in the corner with a sheet and pillow. There are no windows. There’s a single door with a dead bolt.

There’s blood on her lips. She looks down. Her pants are wet, and she knows from the smell that it’s her own urine.

She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes, then the bolt on the door slides back and he walks in.

He’s in a black suit, tailored to perfection.

He claps once when he sees her.

“Ah, finally awake,” he says. His voice is sinister.

She wonders how long she’s been out.

He pulls a chair across the room and sits in front of her, crossing his legs. He folds his hands over one knee and looks her up and down.

“What a mess you are. Are you going to shit yourself next?”

She doesn’t blink.

He shakes his head and smiles.

“You American women. All the same. So defiant.”

He strokes his goatee, manicured down to every stubble, and considers her.

“If you tell me where she is, where they’ve taken the girl, this will be much easier for you.”

Ani.

Cruz breathes in relief. They took her. They got her out. He’s already given her a clue.

She tries to keep a straight face.

“Just tell me, Marine. Then we’ll be done. I’ll end your sad life, and I’ll show them mercy.”

Cruz flexes her hands behind the chair.

“Does that hurt?” He gestures to her hands, a look of concern on his face.

He’s handsome, undeniably so. Full black hair, dark and suave features. But his eyes hold all the ugliness in the world.

“Not going to crack?”

He bounces his knee up and down and throws his hands back, cupping the crown of his head. He puffs his chest out.

“Can’t believe she preferred you to me,” he says with a wink. “Though I suppose you must look nice, when you’re put together.”

His eyes rake over her body.

“You know I do remember you, from that one weekend on the beach. You were nice to look at, then.”

The exchange is one-sided, but his tone is conversational. He smiles widely.

“Did she tell you about it? Our one time?”

He props his elbows on his knees and leans forward, resting his face in his hands.

“She was easier than I thought. Just had to offer to let her out, with the rest of the dogs. She couldn’t spread her legs quick enough.”

Cruz bites down on her lip. She tastes blood in her mouth. She wills herself not to react.

“Then there she was beneath me.” He shakes his head and smacks his lips. “What a goddess. Absolute goddess.”

Cruz bites down harder.

“And you know, don’t you? How tight she is? How good she feels?”

Cruz reflexively spits in his face. Her saliva is mixed with blood, and it hits him in the chin.

He laughs hysterically, wiping it away.

“You want more? I’ll tell you. I fucked her like she was nothing. She cried, the whole time.”

Vibrations pass through Cruz’s body.

“Then I locked her back in like she was nothing. Because that’s all she is. A stupid girl who ruined her family and tried to ruin mine.”

Cruz spits at him again, and this time it hits him in the cheek.

He doesn’t react. He doesn’t lay a hand on her. Her muscles spasm with her desire to eliminate him.

He leans forward, and their noses touch.

“You tell me where the fuck they are,” he screams in her face. The veins around his eyes bulge.

Cruz laughs.

“I have no fucking idea,” she says hoarsely. And it’s the truth. She doesn’t.

He stands and circles her.

“We’ll do it the hard way, then.”

She braces herself for a hit, a punch, a kick. But nothing comes.

He walks out, leaving her untouched.

And that’s when she knows that this will not be physical. That this man is far too clever to try that on her. That he already knows beating her will do nothing for his end goal.

She breathes and closes her eyes.

She will not be scared. She will not be scared. She’s survived worse than this.

Minutes, hours, maybe days pass. Then the door opens again.

He walks inside, this time in a tank top and shorts. He looks freshly shaved.

An iPad is in his hands. He flips it open and swipes across the screen, then holds it to Cruz’s face.

“It’s just surveillance footage, so it’s not very clear. But have a look.”

It’s a video, and he presses play. It’s grainy, but Cruz sees her instantly. Aaliyah is sitting on a bed, clutching her stomach. Kamal stands before her.

“How long have you known you’re pregnant?” he shouts in the video.

Cruz can see Aaliyah flinch. “A month and a half,” she whispers.

Cruz watches as he smacks her on the screen, and her nostrils flare. Aaliyah brings her hand to her face.

“He wasn’t much, but he was still better than you. Ehsan. You’ve spent your whole life trying to outdo him.” Aaliyah looks up at him, her resistance evident in the upward slant of her chin. “He even hit harder. How unfortunate to always come up short.”

He roars at her in the video. He throws her to the ground and starts kicking her in the stomach.

“No, stop! Please stop,” Aaliyah begs, shielding her stomach with her hands. “Please stop.”

Cruz’s ears ring. The room tilts. She tries to pull her hands up to cover her ears, then remembers they’re restrained.

Aaliyah lets out guttural noises as his shoe keeps connecting with her body. She screeches and moans and crawls away from him, but it keeps going, and going, and going, and eventually her body stills on the video. Even then, he keeps kicking her, and Cruz finally snaps.

“Stop!” she yells. “I don’t fucking know where she is. I don’t know where either of them are.”

He presses pause and peers at her over the screen.

“No? I find that hard to believe.”

He plays it again and Cruz closes her eyes. She starts humming loud enough that she can’t hear it anymore.

“Ah ah, it won’t be that easy.”

He reaches out and puts earphones over her head. She twists in the chair and bites down on his wrist. He yanks it back and grabs her chin, holding her steady. Then he puts the earbuds in her ears. He clicks something and she knows they’re affixed, fastened enough that no amount of shaking will make them fall off. He presses play again, sets the iPad on the ground, and walks out.

Then she listens to her wife being beaten for hours.

She does everything she can think of to drown it out. She recites the alphabet in her head. She counts down from a thousand. She sings songs that she remembers her mother singing, before life went to shit. She replays conversations she’s had with Aaliyah, the ones she cherishes the most.

None of it is loud enough. None of it makes it stop.

She begins to sob. Then she screams. Her own sounds mix with the ones she hears in her ear.

A day passes, and when the door opens again, the only thing she can think is how grateful she is that she does not know wherever Aaliyah has been taken. She isn’t sure, at this point, how much resolve she has left.

He slips the earphones down and Cruz winces.

“Enjoy the music?” he sneers.

Her legs are trembling. She can still hear it in her ears, fainter now.

“Congratulations,” she says through clenched teeth. “That was creative. But I don’t fucking know where they are.”

“Then give me names,” he says. “Who did you leave her with? She hasn’t been in New York in months.”

Another clue. In all this time, he hasn’t tracked her down.

“Why are you doing this?”

He sits back and appraises her. He reaches one hand out, moving like a serpent. His fingers brush her cheek, and she jerks violently.

“Because I can,” he says simply. “Because she’s responsible for his death. Because her money belongs to me.”

“None of that is her fault. And you aren’t entitled to anything she has.”

“I’m entitled to all of it. We bought her, my family. Ehsan did. Why do you think he did that? Why do you think he stayed with her? He knew all along who she was. What she preferred.”

He scoffs and turns his lips down.

“You weren’t the first woman, you know. My brother swallowed his shame, because her father had enough money to run countries. And now what? That money sits with two foolish women? No. That’s not how this ends.”

“Fine, you want her money. But why take her daughter? Why do that to her?”

He smiles nastily.

“I was only doing her a favor. Why let her have the girl, if I only plan to kill her? Better for the girl, don’t you think? To not have to lose a mother?”

Cruz bristles.

“They would pay you, if you left them alone. You know her mother would pay you any amount you ask for.”

He shifts in his chair, and Cruz can tell that her probing has unsettled him.

“She’s already paid us, when she took Aaliyah back. But she lied. She lied about her worth, how much she had at the time.”

He takes a pocketknife off his belt. He flicks the blade in and out, runs his pointer finger along the edge.

“Besides, money won’t be enough. Aaliyah has to answer for Ehsan.”

“No, I’m the one who has to answer for Ehsan. I’m the one who killed him.”

She smiles, toying with him.

“It was easy. Couple stabs. I was aiming for his aorta. Lethal, if you penetrate there. Down he went. He didn’t even get a hit in.”

She pauses. The vein in his neck pumps visibly beneath his skin.

“Such a small man he was, Ehsan,” she says nonchalantly. “In life and in death. You’re the same, aren’t you?”

He crosses his legs and glares at her, and she notices his knuckles growing white as he grips the knife.

“I told Aaliyah once that if I could go back to when I first met you at that house in Chesapeake, I’d kill you.”

She flexes her wrists, tries to hide the severity of the stiffness in her limbs.

“But she said there was nothing to kill, because you’re already dead inside. And you are, aren’t you?”

She throws her head back and starts laughing. She laughs so hard that tears come.

He sits motionless.

She stares him dead in the eye, smiling wickedly.

“The thing is, I’m going to kill you anyway.”

His hand spasms. She knows how badly he wants to strike her, to drive that knife into her body. He doesn’t bother. He’s too smart, to use small things on her. No, he’s already figured out the buttons to press.

But there’s a hint of doubt in his eyes, as though he is suddenly unsure of whether his plan is going to work. Whether he will succeed in breaking her.

It gives her immense satisfaction.

He rips the earphones from her neck and dangles them in front of her face.

“Enough of this. Give me the fucking names. Tell me who you left her with, other than her bitch of a mother. Tell me where they planned to take the girl.”

Cruz glares at him.

“Not in this lifetime, you prick.”

He shoves the earphones back over her head and walks out again.

Hours pass. The sound she makes, when his foot connects with her gut in the place she was growing a child. The gasp. The way her air leaves her body in a rush. The way she pleads with him.

I can’t, Cruz thinks repeatedly. I can’t do this.

She can’t listen to it anymore. She isn’t strong enough. No one is made for this. No one is made to endure the sounds of their loved one screaming in pain on an endless loop.

She’s only human.

Her vision is fuzzy. Her tongue is numb. Lights explode behind her eyelids when she closes them. Aaliyah is screaming in her ear. She’s yelling for someone to help her. But Cruz can’t help her. She can’t make it stop.

The tears drip down her face and fall to her lips. She drinks them in, lets them wet her tongue.

She’s in a haze, and everything is moving slow.

This is what it feels like, then, to break. She has never felt it so acutely before, in all the times that she’s been tested.

This is it, her limit.

She tries desperately to reach for something in her mind to take her away from this place.

Then she finds it.

There she is, in the shower in Cruz’s studio. She sees her through the fogged-up glass. The sun cuts through the skylight and lights up her back. She’s humming, singing a tune. Cruz can’t make out the words. Her voice gets louder, and it’s beautiful. She looks at her and smiles, and Cruz sees the colors in her eyes. She smiles with her.

Aaliyah opens the shower door. Her lips move.

What was it she had said at the time?

Cruz squeezes her eyes shut tighter, reaching for the memory.

There it is.

“Join me, my love.”

Then Cruz climbs into the shower behind her. The sun beams down on them. She hums into Cruz’s neck.

She holds onto it, the sound of her singing in that shower, until it overtakes the screams. She drifts away with the sound of Aaliyah’s voice.

Someone is smacking her face. She keeps her eyes closed. She needs to stay here, listening to her singing. She’s smacked again and she opens her eyes. Someone dressed in gear squats in front of her. A gun is in their hands. A mask rips off and it’s Bobby. She’s saying something to her urgently, and Cruz tries to read her lips. She can’t hear her. She’s at the part in the video when Aaliyah tells him he’s nothing compared to his brother.

Bobby looks down at the iPad and sees the video, watches for a moment, then rips the earphones from her head.

“Can you walk? Are you injured?” she’s talking hurriedly, but Cruz can’t process her words.

“Turn—turn it off,” she pants. “Off. Turn it fucking off.”

Bobby looks to her then the iPad. She presses a button and there’s finally silence.

“Have you killed him?” Cruz whispers.

Bobby shakes her head and moves to her zip ties, cutting them lose.

“He’s not here,” she says from behind Cruz’s back. “We think he left, an hour before we came. He knew we were coming.”

When her hands and feet are free Cruz stands, but her knees immediately buckle. Bobby tugs her up with one hand.

“We need to go. Now.”

But Cruz resists, pulling away. She reaches down and grabs the iPad, then smashes it into pieces on the ground and screams.

Bobby grabs her arm and yanks.

Then she’s out the door. Someone thrusts a gun into her hands, and she grips it loosely. There is shouting, gun shots. Her feet move, and her sprained ankle burns. She doesn’t recognize the building they are in. It looks industrial, nothing like the villa she remembers.

A man flies around a corner and she fires. Bobby’s hand presses her forward until they’re outside.

She’s in a van. An oxygen mask is pressed to her face, an IV in her arm.

“Is she ok?” she wheezes as the van flies down a road in the night.

Bobby looks down at her.

“Aaliyah? She’s fine. The girl got to her yesterday.”

Cruz nods.

She’s fine.

She closes her eyes and sleep takes her instantly.

—
Cruz thought she was numb before.

As it turns out, she didn’t know what numbness felt like.

She stares, unseeing, at the television in the house. Lara tapes her ankle. It’s still swollen from the sprain, but she can’t feel it.

She can’t feel anything.

She can only hear. It’s in her ears, the sound of Aaliyah screaming, like white noise.

“I tried to go back for you,” Lara says, winding the tape around her foot. “But you were gone. That house was so big. I’m so sorry. I thought you were right behind me.”

“How did you find me?”

Lara smiles.

“Amira. She gave us three locations, the places she thought they might bring you to. She was right, on the first one.”

Lara finishes the tape and squats in front of her.

She takes Cruz’s hand.

“Bobby told me.”

Cruz looks down at her blankly.

“She told me about the earphones. The video.”

Cruz’s lips tremble. She feels helpless. She wonders if this is what it is like, to be very young or very old. To be entirely incapacitated.

“You didn’t give him anything, did you?”

Cruz shakes her head.

Lara lets out a breath.

“You’re exactly who the fuck they say you are, Cruz Manuelos.”

Lara stands and goes to the kitchen. She opens a beer, then brings it back to Cruz. She refuses it.

Lara squats in front of her again.

“Anyone else would have broken. I would’ve been done, in an hour, with that in my ear.”

“I did break,” Cruz whispers.

“No, you didn’t. You’re right here,” Lara says, pounding her fist into Cruz’s chest to remind her of her own vitality. “You gave him nothing.”

--

Aaliyah disappears into her bedroom for two weeks and doesn’t come out after her daughter arrives.

Her mother storms in.

“Did you know of this too?” Aaliyah asks, her voice accusatory.

She has never seen her mother look so tired.

“I only learned of her just before Cruz left,” she whispers.

“You all knew? And no one told me?”

Her mother shakes her head.

“We didn’t know that she was coming until a few days ago, darling. And we didn’t know how you would—how you would—”

“How I would what, Mama? How I would what?”

“How you would take it, Aaliyah. You haven’t been well.”

She hasn’t been well.

She paces across the bedroom. She thinks of it, what Cruz asked her in the final week before she left.

“How do you know she was--she was dead?” She had whispered the question just as they were falling asleep, out of nowhere. Aaliyah knew who she was referring to.

“The nurse. She told me, when I woke up. I saw the scar on my stomach. They told me she was too premature.”

Cruz had known then. Aaliyah is sure of it. But she’d said nothing. She left and sent her daughter home to her months later.

But she’s still gone.

“Cruz knew?”

Her mother nods.

“And this is part of the reason she left? To bring her home?”

“That’s what she said, yes. She told me she’d do what she could, to get her back to you.”

Aaliyah grabs aimlessly at a blanket on the bed and tugs it taut between her hands.

“How did this happen to me, Mama? How?”

Her mother frowns.

“I don’t know, Aaliyah. Sometimes life is cruel. And it has been very cruel to you.”

Aaliyah pulls the blanket even tighter, and she feels something within herself come apart.

“Mama.”

Her mother looks at her, a question in her eyes.

“I—I—”

Aaliyah can’t get the words out. She can barely breathe. Her mother grabs her and pushes her down onto the bed, holding her hands.

“I left her there, Mama. In that hospital. I walked out. I left her there.”

Her mother squeezes her fingers and shakes her head furiously.

“You didn’t know, Aaliyah. You had no way of knowing.”

Aaliyah dips her head into her mother’s chest and sobs.

“I left her. I left her behind. I should have known. I should have known she was there.”

The days pass.

She sits on the tiles in the bathroom with her head against the wall. The window is open. She can hear her daughter outside, as David tries to coax her into the water.

Cruz is gone and Aaliyah’s daughter is on the beach, feet away.

She’s alive. She’s been here all along, for four years.

Four years, all of which Aaliyah has missed.

She missed her first laugh.

She missed her first steps.

She missed her first words.

She missed the beginning of her daughter’s life, because she never knew she existed.

Aaliyah hunches over the toilet and vomits.

Her daughter isn’t sleeping. She’s crying, night in and night out. Aaliyah hears footsteps in the early morning, feet dragging tiredly across the floor. The sound of her cries sends her into a frenzy. Aaliyah should do something. She should help.

But she lies curled in a ball by the toilet instead. Her hair is knotted. Her tongue is like sandpaper.

Her daughter isn’t eating, either.

She hears Todd arguing with her mother downstairs.

“She isn’t eating anything. I don’t know what kids eat. I don’t know how to make her eat,” Todd shouts in a rush.

“She’ll eat when she’s hungry. She’s stubborn, clearly. Send David into the Village for chocolate,” her mother says.

“Chocolate? She needs food.”

Still, Aaliyah stays hidden in the bedroom.

On the fifteenth day, she lets herself out. She observes her daughter from a distance.

Her small body is constantly preoccupied. Todd tries to set up blocks with her on the carpet, but she doesn’t pay attention long enough to engage. Her mother sits her down to watch an animated movie, but she fidgets and jumps off the couch. Her eyes are dodgy, unfocused.

Aaliyah doesn’t approach her. She doesn’t hold her. She doesn’t touch her.

The truth is that she doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know how to be a mother to this child. She isn’t ready to be. She isn’t prepared for this, for any of it.

Aaliyah feels her body rip in two as she watches her daughter descend into constant fits of hysteria, because she is in a foreign place with strangers.

Todd and David begin to argue at all hours of the day. Her mother’s stress is evident in the way her shoulders hunch over.

“She said to call her,” David’s voice booms from the other side of the wall.

“We can figure this out. This shouldn’t be this hard. Taking care of a child shouldn’t be this hard,” Todd snaps back.

The entire house becomes the hole that Aaliyah has dropped into, and the rest of them get sucked into it.

Aaliyah sits with her forehead on the toilet, staring into the bowl, on the sixteenth day.

Her wife has been gone for nearly five months.

She’s been heaving all morning, but nothing is coming out of her anymore.

The door opens. There are footsteps on the tile. Someone kneels next to her.

Aaliyah smells her before she sees her. Citrus and rose. She looks up into her honey brown eyes.

“Hello, love,” Sarah says.

She rubs her shoulder and Aaliyah stares at her, trying to discern whether she’s a dream, an illusion her mind has conjured.

“The floor doesn’t suit you. Up you go.”

Sarah pulls her up by the arm and sits her down on the side of the tub. She turns on the faucet, digs through the cabinet, and pours lavender bath salt into the water. The room smells fresh, instantly.

She kneels before her, and Aaliyah blinks. She can’t believe she’s here.

“She’s gone,” Aaliyah rasps, her voice still unaccustomed to being used.

Sarah frowns.

“I know, love. But she wouldn’t want you here, by the toilet. So we’re going to get you cleaned up. Then we’re going to go sit in the sunshine with that angel girl downstairs and listen to her play in the sea.”

She points to the bathtub, then turns toward the door.

“I’m not looking, I promise. Get in.”

Aaliyah pulls off her clothes. They’re wrinkled, worn. She can’t remember the last time she changed. She sinks into the soap and suds, closing her eyes. When she opens them again, Sarah is leaning against the side of the tub, facing away from her.

“How are you here?” Aaliyah rubs soap out of her eyes.

“Toddie called me, in a bit of a state.”

Aaliyah stares at her in shock.

“Why did you come?”

“She asked me to be here if you needed help.”

Aaliyah sits up straighter. She covers her chest with her hands.

“What do you mean, she asked you?”

“She paid me a visit. We’re old mates after all, she and I. Told me she had to go. That you were in danger. Asked me to be there for you if you needed it.”

“When? When was this?”

“Months ago. And she was right. Your hair is in desperate need. Glad I took a holiday to come here.”

Aaliyah stares at the back of Sarah’s head, unblinking.

Sarah rummages through the vanity and pulls out a brush.

“Let me try to get out the knots. Turn around. Here, put this over yourself,” she says, handing her a towel.

Aaliyah doesn’t move. Sarah is here, in this ungodly house, on this ungodly island, because Cruz asked her to be.

She cannot fathom it.

“Don’t worry. She still told me she’d kill me if I touched you.”

Sarah laughs, and for the first time in weeks Aaliyah smiles.

“The funny part is, I don’t think she was joking,” Sarah says quietly.

Aaliyah smiles for a second longer, and then the muscles around her mouth grow tired instantly. Her lips drop back to a straight line.

Sarah is here, and Cruz is gone.

She kneels next to the tub and nudges Aaliyah’s shoulders, pulling the towel around them to cover the parts of her that Sarah has already seen.

Then she pulls the brush through her hair, strands at a time, untangling the dead ends. Her fingers inadvertently brush against the back of her neck, and Aaliyah shivers.

Sarah undoes every knot. She stands and grabs another towel, handing it to her. She turns and faces the wall when Aaliyah wraps it around herself. Then she holds out her palm.

“Shall we? I think she’s been waiting for you, love.”

Aaliyah looks up at her. She could stay here on the floor. But her daughter has her eyes, and she’s downstairs.

She takes Sarah’s hand.

—

Sarah leads her outside and immediately brings her hand to her eyes.

“It’s bloody bright here, isn’t it?”

The sunshine reflects off the water. Aaliyah hasn’t been outside to the beach in months. The sea is different here, clearer. She can see straight to the bottom. Fish zip across the ocean floor, and there are seashells in the depths.

She sits on a beach chair and stares at her.

She has a pink bathing suit on and a floppy white hat with flowers. Todd is bouncing her on the surface of the water.

Her daughter is here.

Aaliyah leans forward in the chair and watches her every move. How her mouth forms into an “o” when Todd lifts her legs out of the water. How she grabs her hat with her hand continuously, readjusting it on her head. How her nose wrinkles when she smiles.

There’s a movement out of the corner of her eye, and Aaliyah sees her mother standing at the shore, staring up at her in the beach chair. One hand is over her mouth, and even though she has sunglasses over her face, Aaliyah can tell she’s crying.

Sarah takes her shirt off and walks straight into the water in her bra. She pries the girl from Todd’s hands and spins her around, and she shouts in glee. Todd walks out of the shallows and tousles his hair.

He drops into the chair next to Aaliyah. His blue eyes shine.

“Adorable, isn’t she?”

Aaliyah’s head moves up and down.

“You called Sarah?”

“I did.”

“I don’t want her here, Todd.”

Todd takes her hand.

“Can you look at me for a second, sweetheart?”

She eyes his face wearily.

“I know you’re heartbroken. I can’t imagine how hard it is. But you understand at this point, don’t you, that whatever she’s left to do, she risked her life so you could have this?”

He points to the water and Aaliyah follows his hand. She watches the girl smack the water with her palms.

“She’s given you the greatest gift. It’s an insult to her if you don’t take it.”

Aaliyah’s eyes fill with tears. Her stomach aches.

Cruz is gone.

Her daughter is here.

“What’s her name?” she asks.

Todd shakes water from his hair.

“Ani.”

Ani.

Her daughter’s name is Ani.

“Is that her real name?”

He nods. “Her papers here say Anne. Anne Abadi.”

Aaliyah stands from the chair and walks down to the water. She sits in the sand where the tide ends.

Sarah looks at her from the water and says something to Ani, then points to the shore. She carries her out and sits on the sand next to Aaliyah.

Ani looks at her.

“What’s your name?”

Her voice is angelic. Aaliyah wants to hear more of it.

“Aaliyah.”

Ani smiles and points to the sand.

“Let’s build a sea castle, Aaliyah.”

She smiles back.

--

Sarah breathes life into the house for the first time in months.

Aaliyah wakes up every morning to her melodic voice. She cooks, she cleans, she finds endless ways to entertain Ani. She bosses Todd around. She even makes her mother laugh.

Her presence is familiar in a way that unsettles Aaliyah. Cruz asked her to come. Aaliyah wonders if this is it, the sign that Cruz isn’t coming back. She wonders if this is Cruz’s way to tell her to move on, and the thought festers in Aaliyah’s stomach. She wants to tell Sarah to leave.

So she does, repeatedly. Her first attempt is two days after Sarah arrives. She paces in her bedroom with the door open, listening to Sarah read Ani a book downstairs. It’s pouring rain outside, and Aaliyah’s hair is larger than life with the humidity.

She takes off down the stairs and glares at Sarah on the couch.

“Can I talk to you? Outside?”

Sarah looks up at her. Ani rips through the pages of the book in rapid fire fashion, pointing to something on each one. It’s the first time Aaliyah has seen her engaged in something.

“It’s pouring out.”

“I don’t care,” Aaliyah says.

She shoves through the door and stands on the deck. The rain soaks her skin. It’s sweltering out, but a chill goes down her spine. She hears the door close behind her, Sarah’s feet walking toward her.

“I want you to go,” Aaliyah demands, without turning to look at her.

Sarah says nothing. Aaliyah looks out to the concrete walls surrounding the property. She swears that they’re moving closer, boxing her in tighter, with each day that passes.

“Did you hear me?” she insists, folding her arms. “Go, Sarah. You don’t belong here.”

She spins around and glares at her. Sarah is drenched, her honey brown hair stuck to her forehead, her white tank top entirely translucent. Aaliyah takes her in. The reminiscence of how sensationally good-looking Sarah is hits her suddenly, like the explosion of a taste one hasn’t experienced in years.

It drove Aaliyah mad throughout the course of their relationship that Sarah’s physical appeal never quite moved her in the way it should have. She admired it, liked to look at it. Yet her body, her hands, never yearned for her in the way they have with Cruz. In the beginning, she thought it was just something wrong with her, a hormonal imbalance that would soon be righted. Surely it was impossible, not to be attracted to the most attractive person in existence. But that’s how it remained.

Aaliyah remembers all of it, her desire to desire this flawless creature, as she stares her down.

Sarah is here, and Cruz is gone.

“I heard you, Al,” Sarah says softly.

“That’s not my name. Why are you calling me that?” Aaliyah bites back.

“Because that’s who you were, to me.”

Sarah walks to the railing of the deck and leans her hands against it, collapsing her head. The rain drips from the ends of her hair.

“She asked me to be here. I promised her I would be.”

“You could never be her,” Aaliyah says coldly, and Sarah winces.

Aaliyah has a transient thought that these words must hit Sarah with brutal force. Sarah, who Aaliyah betrayed. But Aaliyah doesn’t have the capacity to feel beyond her own grief. The rain stings her skin, and she thinks that maybe it will clean her of all the muck that lies beneath.

Sarah smiles sadly at her.

“Of course not, love.”

“Then why are you here?”

Aaliyah is screaming now, because she needs answers. Someone must have them. Someone must know them.

“Because she asked me to be!” Sarah screams back. Then she storms up to her and seizes her by the shoulders.

“Look at yourself,” she shouts, shaking Aaliyah. “You can’t function. You’ve been lying on a floor, apparently for months. You have a daughter in that house who isn’t being cared for. Your mother can’t do it. Todd and David are trying but they haven’t the slightest clue. So maybe the love of your life – who you are so quick to remind me is not, in fact, me – suspected that this might happen. Maybe she suspected you’d need someone to help you because you’d be in pieces.”

Aaliyah’s mouth falls open. The rain pours into it, down her chin. She shoves Sarah away and marches back inside.

Aaliyah implores her to leave, three more times. On the third and final time Sarah breaks down in tears, and Aaliyah feels something, a pin pricking, in her chest when it happens.

“Fine,” Sarah cries. “Fine, I’ll go.”

She flies up the stairs, and Todd stares at Aaliyah, his eyes impassive. He runs his hands through his hair.

“Where’s Sarah going?” Ani asks quietly from the top of the stairs.

Aaliyah looks up to her. She’s sucking her thumb, eyes wide at the shouting, and Aaliyah’s fingers dig into the sides of her eyes.

“Why did you ask her to come?” Aaliyah snaps at Todd. “This is your fault. You shouldn’t have done that.”

His shoulders fall.

“Because I didn’t know what else to do,” he says, running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. I knew she would come. I knew she would help. We needed help.”

She detects it then, the hint of fear in Todd’s eyes. He thinks they can’t do it without her. He thinks they can’t handle this, the conundrum of nurturing a four-year-old child who was abandoned up until this point in her life.

Aaliyah isn’t sure if they can either.

She climbs the stairs and lets herself into the room Sarah has been staying in. She’s bent over her suitcase and doesn’t turn around when Aaliyah sits on her bed.

“You broke my heart, Al,” she whispers, shaking her head. “Do you know how hard it was for me to let that go and be here for you?”

Aaliyah blinks. She broke Sarah’s heart. And then suddenly Aaliyah sees her, for the first time since Sarah arrived. She was in love with this person, once. She still is, to some degree. Not her attractiveness, never her exterior beauty. Just who she was, the way Sarah cared for her, the way she put her back together years before when she needed it the most.

She’s still trying to do it, only Aaliyah doesn’t want her to.

She wants her wife, who is gone.

“I can’t be with you, Sarah. If that’s why you’re here, if that’s why you came, I can never be with you.”

Sarah wipes at her eyes and turns to face her.

“You don’t think I know that? I’ve always known, Al. Even when you were still with me, I knew. That’s not why I’m here.”

Aaliyah pushes further.

“You think I believe you’re here just because Cruz asked you to be?”

Sarah laughs.

“No. You know better than that. I’m here because I care for you,” she says, tapping her own stomach as if to show that that’s where it sits, the feeling she’s referring to. “I care for you. I want to help you. I’m here because she knows I care. And she wanted someone to help you.”

But the woman Sarah is describing is so unlike the one Aaliyah knows. Cruz is possessive, dominating, overprotective. Aaliyah cannot make sense of a world in which she would hand her over to another woman willingly.

The doubt is visceral, the fear that maybe Cruz left knowing that she’d never return.

Maybe Cruz has let her go.

Sarah tosses more clothes into her suitcase.

“Don’t you remember any of it, Al? Don’t you remember any part of us? How much we cared about each other?”

She chokes back tears, folds a t-shirt endlessly in her hands.

“You came to my mother’s funeral. We barely knew each other. We had just gotten together.” Sarah’s voice is laced with desperation, as though she is trying to pull the wool from Aaliyah’s eyes to make her see again. “But you got on a plane and flew to a nowhere town in the English countryside. You sat in the back of the church. You weren’t even going to tell me you were there, unless I spotted you.”

She wipes her nose.

“And when I asked you why you went through all that trouble, you said it was because you cared. You did things for me that no one else ever did, because you cared.”

Aaliyah stares at her.

She had done that.

She had sat in the back of a church, on her own, because she had cared about this person. Immensely.

But she has never cared for anyone in the way she cares for her wife. Her wife, who is missing. Her wife, who still hasn’t come home. Her wife, who had her heart long before Sarah ever did.

“I’m not a bloody fool, Al. I know where your heart is. I’m not here to try to steal you away. I’m here because that’s what you do, when you care for someone. You lift them up when they fall.”

Aaliyah knows that Sarah does not just care for her. She loves her. It’s still in Sarah’s eyes, in the way she looks at her.

Sarah walks up to her tentatively. She reaches one hand out and brings it to Aaliyah’s stomach. It’s warm, steady, and Aaliyah remembers it all.

She remembers holding Sarah’s hand when she got home from the airport, her eyes red and tired after burying her mother. She remembers Sarah’s hand on her stomach, grounding her in place after she exited one life and entered another.

Sarah was her sun, for years.

And yet Cruz overshadowed her, in all ways. Cruz wasn’t just the sun. She was the moon, the stars, the entire solar system. Everything incandescent, all at once.

But Sarah is here, and Cruz is gone.

“Are you going to let me lift you up, or are you going to push me away?”

Aaliyah sobs involuntarily.

“I miss her so much,” she whimpers.

Her body leans, unwillingly, into her. Sarah’s arms wrap around her instantly. They’re familiar, welcoming. Aaliyah can’t remember the last time she’s been held this way.

“I know you do. It’s okay to need help, Al. Let us help you.”

Aaliyah cries harder, because there they are, the words on Cruz’s page, as if they were written with knowledge that this very moment would occur.

Let them help you.

All of them.

“Ok,” Aaliyah says through short breaths. “Stay.”

--

Sarah stays, and Ani adores her. Because Sarah’s true calling, if not for the art, would have been nurture. Aaliyah had loved that about her, when they first met. Sarah understood children in a way Aaliyah never had. Sarah could speak to children in a way Aaliyah never could.

Sarah tends to Ani in a way she hasn’t been tended, and Ani’s demeanor changes. She cries less. She laughs more. Aaliyah doesn’t hear Todd’s tired footsteps going in and out of her room each night.

Aaliyah gets herself up each morning. She sits at the table and watches Ani eat cereal. She smiles at her.

She doesn’t make it through a whole day. She tags along at intervals. Sarah pulls her out the door for a walk and coaxes her to hold Ani’s hand. Todd makes her sit on the dock when he shows Ani how to hold a fishing pole for the first time.

Aaliyah doesn’t participate, but she observes everything quietly.

One night Aaliyah sits on the tub as Ani brushes her teeth with Sarah at the sink.

“Darling, I want to show you something,” Sarah says. “Look here.”

She points to Ani’s eye in the mirror.

“What’s this?” Sarah asks Ani.

She stares at Sarah.

“My eye!”

Sarah nods enthusiastically.

“That’s right. Now look here.”

She squats down next to Aaliyah and brings one finger to the crow’s feet next to Aaliyah’s eye.

“What do you see?”

Ani steps down from the stool at the sink and runs to them. She places her hands on Aaliyah’s knees and hoists herself into Aaliyah’s face, until their noses touch. Then she backs away.

“My eye!” she says again.

Sarah smiles.

“Very good. You have the same eyes.”

Aaliyah brings her hand gingerly to Ani’s face and touches her tiny nose. Ani laughs and mirrors the movement, bringing her hand to Aaliyah’s nose.

“Do you want to put her to bed?” Sarah whispers.

Aaliyah shakes her head. She can’t handle that yet.

“Not tonight.”

Then she stands up and walks out. She bumps into Todd. He hugs her, and she exhales into his chest.

“You’re doing fabulous, sweetheart,” he says.

He walks with her downstairs and mixes her a drink, then slides it across the counter to her hands.

She takes a sip. Tequila, lime. They taste too sharp on her tongue.

“If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?” he asks.

He’s been doing this, repeatedly. Trying to get her to talk. Motivating her to engage. But words still evade her.

“Fine, I’ll go first. Bali. I’ve been wanting to go, forever. David hasn’t wanted to plan the trip.”

He looks at her expectantly.

“Home,” she says. “I’d go home.”

He frowns.

“Is Sarah here because she isn’t coming back? Because she wants me to move on?”

Todd says nothing.

Aaliyah takes a long gulp of her drink. The ice clinks in the sides of her glass.

“Why did you call her, Todd?”

“Cruz told us to. She knew how good Sarah is with kids. She knew we’d need help, that you would need help,” Todd offers, scratching the stubble on his chin.

His face reveals that even he is uncertain of Cruz’s true intentions. But he tries to deflect it all the same.

“I didn’t want to call her, sweetheart. But we were overwhelmed. Your mother was at her wit’s end, and David and I had no idea what we were doing. We needed help, and—”

He pauses.

Aaliyah knows what he was going to say. They needed help, and Aaliyah didn’t offer it. Aaliyah was incapable of providing it.

She goes to bed.

--
Two weeks pass with Sarah present.

Something begins to stir in Aaliyah’s stomach when she looks at Ani. She’s the most jovial she’s been. They’re sitting on the dock watching the sunset. Her toothy grin shines as she sucks on a lollipop and talks excitingly about jellyfish she saw in the water that day.

What is it? Aaliyah thinks. What is it that I feel?

Ani laughs. Aaliyah sees the lines of her own mouth, her own mannerisms, dance across her daughter’s face. And Aaliyah knows.

She feels joy. Joy, because this child is hers, because she spent years grieving the loss of her and yet she is here.

It fills her slowly, and she wants to dump it back out quickly.

She can’t feel joy, because her wife is gone.

She stands on the deck that night. The door opens behind her. Sarah, Todd and David walk out with two bottles of wine. Sarah looks at Aaliyah with a silent request for permission to share this space with her. She has kept her distance since she arrived, never getting too close unless Aaliyah invites her in. Aaliyah meets her eyes and nods her head.

Sarah pours out glasses and they sit on the outdoor couches. Todd and Sarah fall instantly into conversation, as they always have. It hits Aaliyah like a distant memory, how much time they all used to spend together as a group.

Todd and David tire eventually and head up the stairs. Sarah refills Aaliyah’s glass and hands it back to her, then sits down next to her.

She cranes her neck back to look at the stars.

“No artificial light here,” Sarah says quietly. “Reminds me of Nantucket.”

The wine draws an involuntary smile from Aaliyah’s lips.

“You hate artificial light. How do you still live in Manhattan?”

Sarah chuckles.

“I’ve no idea. I’ve been looking for a flat, in London.”

Aaliyah raises her eyebrows.

“London?”

Sarah blushes suddenly, looks down.

“I met someone there, on holiday to visit my father.”

Aaliyah adjusts herself on the couch and takes a sip of wine, settling in. She’d forgotten how easy it is to talk to Sarah, how her warmth is like a magnet.

“Tell me about her.”

Sarah lets out a nervous laugh and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“She’s spectacular,” she says after a minute. “Truly. It’s like we’ve been together for years, but it’s only been a few months.”

“Does she know you’re here?”

Sarah nods slowly.

“Yeah. Wasn’t an easy conversation, explaining that I needed to spend some time with my ex-fiancé. But you know what she said? Go take care of what you need to take care of.”

Sarah laughs shakes her head in disbelief. They sit together in silence.

“Where did you get married?” she asks.

“Mexico.”

Sarah turns to face her, smiling.

“I screwed that up royally, didn’t I? The city hall idea? Wasn’t quite your scene, I gather.”

Aaliyah shrugs, and then a deep laugh escapes her throat at the memory of Cruz shouting at her in the middle of city hall, imploring her to see that getting married there didn’t fit who she was. It had rocked Aaliyah to her core at the time how well Cruz knew her, even when they’d barely cracked the surface of their relationship.

The sound of her own laughter stuns her into quietness once again. She hasn’t laughed like that in months.

“No, it wasn’t. But I know you meant well,” Aaliyah whispers.

They finish a bottle, and when Sarah opens another, she starts chuckling again.

“Do you remember that wedding we crashed, that one time in London? After you met my father?”

Aaliyah rolls her eyes and pours herself another glass.

“At that pub? How could I forget?”

They both descend into fits of laughter.

“That band,” Sarah says through tears.

“The groom, his dance moves,” Aaliyah laughs, clutching her stomach.

“What was that mess? And then the mother of the bride, offering me a blunt?”

Aaliyah laughs harder.

There were moments with Sarah when it was light, fun, even enchanting.

When they quiet, the guilt bangs in the pit of Aaliyah’s stomach.

She broke this woman’s heart, and yet she is here in Aaliyah’s darkest time, taking care of her child because she can’t climb out of her own hole.

“Thank you, Sarah. For being here. For helping with Ani. I’m sorry for how awful I was, when you came.”

“Can I ask you something?”

Aaliyah swallows. She suspects the question, and nods tentatively.

“Do you still love me?”

Their legs are brushing. Sarah turns her head, and her honey brown eyes gaze into her.

Aaliyah owes her the truth, so she opens her mouth to provide it.

“I’ll always love you—"

It’s enough for Sarah to close the distance between them and kiss her.

Sarah’s lips are soft, overly familiar. The citrus and rose floods Aaliyah’s nose, overpowers her senses.

Aaliyah jerks back immediately and stands, one hand pressed to her mouth.

This is not what she wants.

This is not who she wants.

“Bloody hell,” Sarah says under her breath, covering her face in her hands. “I’ve no idea why I just did that. I’m so sorry.”

Her face is beat red, humiliated, and Aaliyah takes another step back.

“I love the memory of us, Sarah. I love you like a friend, like I love Todd. That’s what I was going to say. But I don’t love you, not in that way. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.”

Sarah waves her off and takes a swig straight from the bottle.

“No, no. I knew what you meant. The thing is,” she stands, places the bottle on the table, then corks it. “I don’t know if we ever loved each other in that way.”

Sarah breathes the truth into the air, the one Aaliyah had already discovered long before.

“I think in all probability we were supposed to be friends, maybe best friends, when our paths crossed and—” Sarah pauses, winds her long brown hair through one hand. “And I think we meant well, but we made it something more because that’s what we both needed, at the time.”

Aaliyah’s eyes are suddenly wet.

“I needed you, after I lost my mother. And you’ve never told me. You’ve never really told me why you needed me, Al. But I knew you did.”

Sarah takes a deep breath.

“Don’t get me wrong, there were times when I was absolutely mad for you. Especially after you chose her. But do you remember what you said? She lights you on fire? We never lit each other, not like that. This person I met, in London. Her name is Elizabeth.”

She smiles then, taking out her phone. She brings up a photo and holds it out, and Aaliyah catches a glimpse of red hair, light green eyes, pale skin.

“I think she lights me, in that way. So I get it. All of it, why you chose her. Why you still do. It’s mad, that feeling. To be lit by someone.”

She plops back onto the couch and blows out a puff of air.

“I truly think she’ll kill me over this.”

At first Aaliyah thinks she means Elizabeth, this woman with fire-red hair who has lit Sarah in a way that Aaliyah never could.

“It was in her eyes, like a threat,” Sarah whispers. “Like she really meant it.”

Aaliyah understands, then, that Sarah is not concerned that her girlfriend will be upset that she has kissed another woman. She’s worried about Cruz’s reaction.

“She might never be here to know,” Aaliyah says. It’s the first time she’s released it outside of her own head, the doubt that plagues her.
Sarah’s head snaps up.

“Don’t say that.”

Aaliyah sits down next to her and rests her head on Sarah’s shoulder, closing her eyes. She chooses to push her grief to the side. She chooses to let something else in, for once.

She takes Sarah’s hand.

“You have no idea how happy I am that you’ve found that person, Sarah. Hold on to her.”

--

Two nights later, Sarah reads Ani a book before she falls asleep. Aaliyah sits at the end of the bed with her hands wrapped around her knees.

She watches Ani’s eyes as they fixate on each page that Sarah turns.

The story is about a young girl who loses her family at the zoo. She travels through different exhibits as she looks for them. Apes, hippos, elephants, even lions. The animals take her in as one of their own, until her mother finds her sitting with penguins.

The final page shows a picture of the mother scooping the girl into her hands and waving goodbye to all the animals.

Ani raises her hand and waves, and Sarah laughs. Ani points to the page.

“She found her mommy,” she says.

Sarah nods. “That’s right.” She hugs her closer. “You’ve found yours too.”

Ani looks up into Sarah’s face and shakes her head furiously.

“No, I have no mommy.”

Aaliyah clutches her throat and swallows.

“Nonsense darling, she’s right there.” Sarah points to Aaliyah, and Ani follows her finger.

Her eyes move back and forth, surveying Aaliyah’s face.

Aaliyah jumps up and a pillow drops off the bed as she goes. Sarah frowns.

“Al, don’t. Come back.”

She rushes out of the room. Her feet pound against the hardwood floor until she bursts through her bedroom door. She shuts it behind her and sinks to the floor.

She can’t do this.

Cruz is gone.

She doesn’t know if her wife is alive. She doesn’t know where her wife is. She’s been sitting here for five months. She’s done nothing, this entire time.

She launches to her feet and storms into her mother’s room.

“Why haven’t we tried anything? Why haven’t we done anything?”

Her mother slips her glasses off and sighs.

“You don’t think I’ve already tried?”

Aaliyah folds her arms across her chest.

“All of this money, Mama. Why haven’t we used it? Why haven’t we tried to put an end to him?”

“Because money only goes so far, Aaliyah. Your father’s influence died with him. No one answers to the Amrohi name in that world anymore. We’re blackballed, you and I. No one would dare lift a finger for us.”

“Fine, then the authorities. Why haven’t we tried that? Why haven’t we called them?”

Her mother laughs.

“Do you think your wife would have left you like this if it was as simple as that? Calling the police?”

She stands from her bed and grabs a sweater from the closet.

“The Al Rashdi family owns the police there, Aaliyah, or have you forgotten how this works? Your father owned every politician. Every judge. The police. The businessmen. All of it. Now they do.”

Aaliyah feels her mind spinning aimlessly in a circle, trying to locate the way out of this nightmare.

She walks back to her bedroom.

She can’t do this anymore.

She has to go. She has to find her. She has to try.

She grabs the bag she packed weeks before, the one with bills rubber banded together that she took from her mother’s drawer and enough clothes to last for a week.

She waits until everyone has gone to bed, and then she peers out her window and watches Asif. She knows his routine by now. She’s been watching for weeks. He sits by the dock with a cigar. He smokes it for fifteen minutes.

He walks the entire property.

He makes a call.

He walks it a second time.

He makes another call.

Then he disappears into a guest house. He turns on a light and sits by the window. She can see his silhouette. She waits for it, and exhales when she sees his body recline backward in a chair. She knows he’s asleep.

She leaves.

She enters the pool house. There’s a surveillance system. She’d asked David to show it to her, weeks after they first arrived. He explained the entire thing to her, the areas where all of the cameras point.

She avoids all of them.

She finds the wires, the ones he had pointed to as the source of the power.

She cuts them all. She doesn’t know who else is watching, and she needs to delay them when they come looking. She hurries to the garage. She finds the keys to the convertible, the one her mother insisted on buying to take Ani for drives.

She’s in the driver’s seat. Her hands grip the wheel. She reverses. She drives slowly down the gravel road, waiting to see if anyone follows.

No one does.

She slips away in the night, unseen.

—

She finds a bus station hours later. She buys a ticket. She pulls a hat and hood over her head and puts sunglasses on.

She settles back into a seat and closes her eyes.

Cruz had taken her on a bus once, in the City. They stumbled out of a restaurant late one night after two bottles of wine and endless conversation.

Cruz was wearing a leather jacket and jeans. Heeled boots. She had hoop earrings in, small ones. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

Aaliyah raised her phone to her ear to call for a driver as they stood outside the restaurant, but Cruz had pointed to a bus.

“I dare you to get on that with me,” she said. Her swagger was on full display, her boldness. She leaned against a lamppost and the dare seeped into her grin.

“What do I get if I do?” Aaliyah replied, brushing against her. She stared pointedly into her dark eyes.

“What do you want?”

Aaliyah tapped her chin, looked up to the sky in contemplation. Then she leaned in, lips brushing Cruz’s mouth.

“For you to do whatever I tell you to, when we get home.”

Cruz held her gaze. There was a time when she would shy away from Aaliyah’s forwardness. But by this point, they were well past that.

“Mmmm but you could barely handle that, last time,” she whispered back.

Aaliyah smirked and walked off to the bus. She climbed the steps and tried to make her way down the aisle, only to get stopped by the driver.

He was an overweight man with a mustache and unamused eyes.

“Fare,” he’d demanded.

She’d looked at him.

“Fair? What’s fair?”

She didn’t understand.

He looked at her like she was a lunatic, and Cruz’s hand slid around her, tapping her credit card against a meter.

“Sorry, she doesn’t get out much,” Cruz joked to the bus driver. She tickled her sides and Aaliyah smacked her hands away.

Cruz wrapped around her from behind and pushed her down the aisle.

“You think you’re so funny,” Aaliyah muttered. Cruz kissed her neck and steered her deeper into the back of the bus.

“You have no idea how much I’m enjoying your first time on public transportation.”

She pulled Aaliyah down onto her lap and Aaliyah wrapped one arm around her shoulders.

“So what’s my prize for riding?” Aaliyah asked.

Cruz rubbed her knee.

“I can think of a few you might like.”

Aaliyah wipes her nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and rests her head against the window of the bus, blinking away the memory.

She changes buses three times. She sleeps on and off.

20 hours later, she’s in Brooklyn.

She goes to the alley behind Kim’s restaurant. She finds the brick on the ground that Cruz had shown her once. She picks it up and reaches into a hole, prying the key out from within.

She lets herself in through the back door.

It’s dark in the dining area, past midnight. The sound of the dishwasher fills the room. It smells as it always has, and Aaliyah sucks it in like she hasn’t breathed in months.

Her chest is on fire. She has held onto it, her hope, every hour of the journey that it took to get here. She eyes the door at the top of the staircase.

She tiptoes up and unlocks it. She turns on the light and walks into Cruz’s studio.

Everything is exactly as it was. The bed is made. Aaliyah’s slippers are outside the bathroom, her robe hung on a towel rack inside.

Mr. Beans’ water bowl is full. There is kibble out. Cruz’s laptop is opened on the desk.

She runs her hands over the furniture. There’s not a spot of dust on it.

Could it be? Could she have been here all along?

Something brushes past her legs and she jumps, letting out a yelp. She looks down. Mr. Beans’ blue eyes stare up at her.

She sinks to the floor and hugs him to her chest, crying into his fur. She stays there and rocks back and forth with him.

“Alex?”

Her head whips around.

Sammie is standing in the doorway in a nightgown, clutching a teddy bear. He’s wiping sleep from his eyes.

“Oh, Sammie.”

She holds her arms out and he stumbles into them. She carries him to the bed and collapses with him on the pillows.

She feels his breathing even out immediately, and she knows he’s already fallen back to sleep. She buries her head into his hair.

She’s missed him. She’s missed her home.

He brings his thumb to his mouth and she thinks of how Ani does the same.

It hits her suddenly.

She left her daughter behind.

Her skins goes clammy and she slams her eyes shut.

Then there are footsteps climbing up the stairs. They come slowly.

Please, she begs silently. Please let it be her.

She stares at the door, until Kim appears in a robe. The flashlight shines from her phone. She brings her hands to her mouth and a sound comes out of her when she sees Aaliyah.

She crosses the room and turns on a lamp. She sits on the side of the bed.

“Has she been here?” Aaliyah whispers desperately.

Kim brushes Aaliyah’s hair back from her forehead. Her eyes fill with tears.

“No, sweet girl. No.”

“But it’s clean,” Aaliyah insists.

“I clean for the day she comes back.”

She coaxes Sammie out of her arms and takes Aaliyah by the hand. She directs her down the stairs and Aaliyah follows, in a trance.

They go through the kitchen, a door, and keep going until they reach the apartment on the other side of the restaurant where Kim and Sammie live.

Kim tucks Sammie into his bed then takes Aaliyah by the hand again.

“Come,” she repeats.

She brings Aaliyah to her bathroom. It’s lit by candles. It smells like jasmine, like lilies.

Kim pushes Aaliyah down, and she sits on the toilet seat. She takes Aaliyah’s chin in her hands and tilts her head up. She peers down at her, and her lips tremble.

“What have you done to yourself, nguoi dep?”

She releases her chin and runs the water from the sink. She turns it to the hottest setting, and steam fills the air.

“It means beautiful one,” she says over her shoulder. “In case you were wondering.”

She takes a washcloth and gently presses it over Aaliyah’s face. Aaliyah closes her eyes and sighs.

She washes her forehead, her cheeks, her neck. Then she grips her head and brings it into her stomach, and Aaliyah falls into her.

“Your beauty hides under your pain. We bring it back.”

She tuts around the bathroom. She lights more candles. She turns the shower on, then leaves the room.

When she comes back, she has a silk nightgown in her hands, fuzzy socks and a cotton road.

“Go,” she says, pointing toward the shower.

And Aaliyah does. She washes her hair and scrubs her skin with soap that smells like tea. She climbs out of the shower and towel dries.

She slips into the clothing Kim gave her, and she feels clean for the first time in months.

The door opens.

“Come,” Kim insists.

She leads her back to the kitchen and puts a kettle on the stove. She goes to work with a pot. The room fills with the aroma of soup. She pours Aaliyah a cup of tea, squeezes honey into it, and puts it in front of her.

“Drink,” she says. “All of it.”

And Aaliyah does. It opens her throat, gets rid of the lump she’s been swallowing for months.

Then she hands her a bowl of soup, and the heat of it filters through Aaliyah’s nose, clearing it instantly.

“Eat,” Kim instructs, and Aaliyah does.

Kim pulls her back up and leads her to her bedroom. She fluffs the pillows.

Aaliyah walks around her bedroom, in a dreamlike state. She runs her hands over an end table, a dresser. She peers at herself in an antique mirror, and for the first time in months her skin looks bright again.

Then she sees it, an envelope sitting on top of a chest with her name on it. She recognizes Cruz’s handwriting on it instantly.

She picks it up, as though it is something dangerous.

And she knows, without opening it, that it is.

“No,” Kim says urgently. “Give that to me.”

She rips it out of Aaliyah’s hands.

“What is that, Kim?” Aaliyah whispers.

“Not something you will ever read.”

She points to the bed, but Aaliyah plants her feet. Kim’s eyes challenge her, and she points even more insistently.

Aaliyah climbs into the bed.

Kim shuts the lights and leaves. She takes the envelope with her.

Aaliyah sleeps for the rest of the night.

—

Aaliyah wakes to the sound of a phone ringing. She isn’t sure what day it is. Sun is pouring through the curtains in Kim’s bedroom.

She knows the sound of that ring. It’s the phone on the wall in the kitchen.

“Why do you have that?” Cruz had asked one night when they were eating dinner at the table in the corner with Sammie. Aaliyah was playing cards with him, and he was beating her at a made up game.

“Emergencies,” Kim had said with her head in the refrigerator.

Cruz had crinkled her nose.

“Does anyone even have that number? It never rings.”

Kim closed the fridge and looked at her. Her sunken eyes were solemn.

“My daughter,” she said softly. “Sammie’s mother.”

Then she walked to the counter and scribbled something on a piece of paper, handing it to Cruz.

“And now you.”

Aaliyah remembers that scrap of paper. She remembers Cruz clutching it in her hand. She remembers Cruz looking down at the numbers scrawled across it.

She remembers Cruz picking up her cell phone and dialing it, to test it out.

She remembers hearing it ring on the kitchen wall.

She flies out of the bed.

She flings open the door and rushes into the kitchen.

She enters just as Kim’s hand reaches for the phone on the wall.

Kim brings it to her ear.

“Yes?”

Her eyes look to the floor, then they find Aaliyah standing in the door.

Aaliyah cups both hands over her mouth. She can’t breathe.

The jowls on Kim’s face shake. She nods her head.

“Yes,” she says again.

She puts her hand over the speaker, then holds the phone out to Aaliyah.

“It’s for you,” she whispers.

Aaliyah blinks. Her legs move robotically. Her arm reaches out, floats through the air.

Her fingers close around the phone.

She brings it to her ear.

A low sob comes erupts from her chest, and she closes her eyes.

And then, and then.

“You scared me, baby girl.”

—

The call came in the middle of the night. Lara had woken her.

“Cruz,” she’d said. “Get up.”

Cruz had turned and shoved the pillow over her head. She has kept that pillow there for weeks now, crushed over her ears, with the hope that it will stifle the sounds she hears.

It plays like a broken record in her mind, that video. She can’t rid herself of it.

“You have to get up. They can’t find her.”

She rips the pillow off.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“She’s been missing since last night. David called Joe, on a satellite phone. They’ve searched the whole property.”

Cruz trips out of the room and yanks a shirt over her head. Her entire body trembles.

“What about the cameras? The house should have them. Joe said the house had them.”

Lara shakes her head slowly.

“Someone cut the lines.”

Cruz grits her teeth. She claws her fingers through her hair.

She hasn’t been fast enough. It’s been five months, and she hasn’t gotten the job done.

Her wife is missing, because she’s failed.

She tears out of the room. She grabs the nearest computer monitor and launches it into the wall. She screams.

“How the fuck could this happen? How the fuck could they lose her?”

Lara circles around her, picking up the pieces of the monitor.

“They said the car is missing.”

Cruz shoves the faucet on in the kitchen and dunks her head under it.

“What are you talking about? What car?”

“I don’t know, there must’ve been a car on the property. It’s gone.”

Cruz tears at her face. She paces.

“So she must’ve taken it,” Cruz deduces. “She must’ve left.”

Her chest is vibrating. She yanks at her clothes, expecting to find her phone. But it’s not her phone. It’s just her skin, something beneath it buzzing and rippling and she pants.

“She took the car,” Cruz repeats. Because that’s what happened. That must be what happened. There can be no other explanation.

Lara sinks into a chair in the corner.

“Doesn’t explain the cut wires on the camera system,” Lara says absently.

Cruz’s head snaps in her direction. She grabs a water glass and chucks it at her, and Lara swats it away at the last second.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she shouts. She springs off the chair and is in Cruz’s face instantly.

“She took the fucking car,” Cruz screams back.

Lara comes to a halt. She looks into her eyes.

“Where on earth would she go?”

Cruz steps back and blinks.

“Home. She’d go home. I need a phone, one that isn’t traceable.”

Lara shrugs.

“We don’t have one. We’re not supposed to have one. We’re not supposed to make contact. You know that.”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

She grabs keys to the jeep from the nearest counter and sprints out the door. She hears Lara following her from behind.

She gets into the car and shoves the key into the ignition, and Lara yanks open the passenger door.

“What are you doing?” Cruz asks.

“Coming with you. Making sure you don’t drive yourself off a cliff.”

Cruz slams the gas and the tires kick up dust as they pull away.

She drives like a bandit from the outskirts of Riyadh. They hit the backroads, where there are no lights. Her eyes scan the sides of the roads frantically, looking for a store. A gas station. A post. Anything with a pay phone.

She is driving over 100 miles per hour. She can feel Lara gripping the side of her seat. The car tosses them back and forth and up and down.

“You’re never going to find her if you kill us first,” she snaps.

But Cruz doesn’t let up.

They come upon a gas station and Cruz turns the wheel, but Lara grabs it just as she does.

“No way. Too close. We need to go further out. There’s one an hour away.”

Cruz doesn’t see the road for the next hour. She drives blindly.

Her wife is gone.

Then they’re there, at a convenience store. She slams the brakes. She opens the door but Lara yanks her back.

“Hold on, you have to put this on. You’re not thinking clearly.”

She throws a hijab at her and Cruz rips it over her head.

Lara clutches her hand.

“You need to be prepared, Cruz. You need to be prepared if—if—"

“Fuck you,” Cruz snarls.

Because her wife is not gone. Her wife cut the wires. Her wife took the car.

She knows exactly where she is.

She stumbles out of the jeep. Her hands rummage through her pockets. She tugs out coins, and they fall into the dirt.

She shoves a few into the phone. She dials the number she memorized months before. She’s sobbing, and she’s only just now realizing it.

It rings, and she can’t breathe.

Kim answers on the fourth ring.

“Is she there? Is she there?” Cruz asks breathlessly.

Silence.

“Kim? Answer me. Tell me she’s there.”

Another beat, and then.

“Yes,” she whispers. Something rustles on the phone. Cruz hears Kim speaking to someone.

“It’s for you,” her voice says distantly.

Then a low sob comes through the other line, and Cruz exhales instantly.

“You scared me, baby girl,” she chokes out.

Aaliyah explodes through the line. She’s screaming her name. She’s crying hysterically. She’s begging her.

“Cruz? Cruz, where are you? Please. Please come home. Please come back.”

Cruz can’t speak. Her voice, her voice, her voice. How she missed the sound of it.

Aaliyah cries harder.

“Please. I’m begging you. Please,” she screams.

Cruz takes a deep breath and rests her forehead against the phone stand.

“I’m trying,” she whispers. “I promise you, I’m trying.”

Aaliyah’s cries slow down.

“I miss you so much,” Cruz says.

“I love you,” Aaliyah weeps. “Just come home. It’ll be fine. Please.”

“You have to go back, my love,” Cruz says softly. “I can’t come home unless you go back. You’re not safe.”

Aaliyah goes silent. Cruz can hear her breathing.

“No, I won’t. I won’t go back. I don’t care. I won’t go back unless you come home.”

She starts screeching again frantically. She switches back and forth from Arabic to English.

Cruz erupts. She yells. She begs her back.

“You. Have. To. Listen. To. Me,” she shouts through clenched teeth. “You need to go back. Do you understand? They will kill you. You need to go back, where you’re safe. You need to go back.”

There is silence again.

“Aaliyah, please. Please tell me you will. I can’t—" she stops speaking and heaves. She clutches the phone desperately and closes her eyes. “I can’t survive this unless you’re safe. Please.”

Her voice is barely there when she answers.

“Ok,” Aaliyah says.

Then there’s a hand on Cruz’s shoulder, and she whips around. Lara is behind her.

“We have to go, we’re getting clocked.”

Cruz’s eyes scan the area beyond Lara and sees a group of men leaning against the wall to the store, eyeing them.

Aaliyah is begging in her ear again.

“Will you call me? Will you call me at least, when I go back? Please just do that. Let me hear your voice. Let me know you’re okay.”

“I have to go now,” Cruz murmurs. “Give the phone back to Kim.”

She’s back to sobbing, and each sound rips across the line and sucks the air from Cruz’s lungs.

“Let‘s go, Marine. This is too long,” Lara says urgently from behind her.

“I love you. Ok? I love you so much, Aaliyah. Go back.”

“No, don’t go. Don’t go yet. Just stay, stay another minute.”

Cruz grips the side of her head with her hand.

Then Lara’s hand yanks her back, and Cruz drops the phone like it’s a grenade. She sinks to the ground, muffling her sobs with her hands. The phone swings behind her and she can hear Aaliyah calling out for her.

Lara bends, picks it up, and slams it back on the receiver.

She pulls her to her feet and shoves her into the passenger seat of the jeep.

They take off in the direction they came, and Cruz shudders the entire way. All she can hear is the sound of Aaliyah’s voice, the way she’d said her name like a plea.

“I’m sorry I doubted you,” Lara mumbles from the driver’s seat. “I’m glad she’s okay.”

—

David comes to Brooklyn to collect Aaliyah. His stress is evident on his face when he sees her. She sits beside him in the car, feeling guilty the entire ride.

When they get back to Florida, she’s drained. Every ounce of emotion has left her body from the trip.

She walks up to the house unconsciously, and when she gets inside Ani runs up to her immediately.

“You’re back,” she screams in glee.

Aaliyah stares down at her vacantly. Her chest hurts. She walks by her, up the stairs, and closes herself into the bedroom.

She sleeps until the early hours of the morning. When she wakes, she peers out the window to the deck below and sees her mother sitting in the dark on a lounge chair. She grabs a cardigan and heads down the stairs.

She sits next to her wordlessly and looks up at the sky. Her mother says nothing. She reaches out and fills her wine glass with a bottle of wine on the table between them. Her mother’s red lipstick lines the rim, and Aaliyah knows this is not her first glass of the evening.

Aaliyah chances a sideways glance at her, and her mouth is set in a crooked line.

She stands suddenly and sits at the end of Aaliyah’s chair, facing her.

“How could you do this?” she asks, her voice trembling.

Aaliyah stares at her blankly.

“Do what, Mama?”

“Leave your child.”

Aaliyah wrings her hands. She avoid her gaze.

“I came back,” she whispers.

Her mother puffs out air and her eyes fill with fury.

“Came back? You’ve never been here.”

Aaliyah tightens her cardigan across her chest and glares.

“What do you want from me, Mama? My wife is gone. The person I love is gone. You’ve never loved, you wouldn’t know.”

Her mother explodes like a rocket from the end of the chair. She throws her hands over her head.

“No, my dear daughter, you’ve got it all wrong. I’ve loved. I’ve loved you. The only thing I never had was someone who loved me, not the other way around.”

She jabs her fingers into her own chest and the veins pop out of the side of her head.

“I loved you, even when I was alone. Even when I had no one. Even when he whittled me down to nothing, your prick of a father. I loved you. You have walked this earth every day with someone loving you. You have someone out there right now sacrificing her life because she loves you too.”

She brings her hands to her mouth and gasps, then points in Aaliyah’s face. Her fingers are slender, harrowing, weapons unto themselves.

“But I’ve got news for you,” she whispers, shaking her head sadly. “That child,” she gestures wildly toward the house, “has gone four years with no one loving her. She has never been loved. How dare you disappear on her? She needs you. She deserves you.”

Aaliyah blinks. Her lips tremble.

“You’ve all been here. She’s had you. Todd. Now Sarah,” Aaliyah sputters.

Her mother laughs sarcastically.

“Sure she has. But Sarah isn’t her mother. You are. And it’s about time you acted like it.”

She grabs her wine glass, gulps the rest down, and storms off.

Aaliyah’s body quakes and shivers until the sunrises.

She gets up slowly and walks back to the house. She goes to Ani’s room and pushes the door open.

The first rays of sun peek in through the blinds. They shine on her sleeping face, and Aaliyah climbs into the warmth of the bed next to her. She fingers the black diamond ring on Ani’s neck. Then she wraps her arms around her.

When Ani wakes, she doesn’t startle. She doesn’t question Aaliyah’s presence. She looks into Aaliyah’s eyes with recognition, like she’s always known her.

Aaliyah carries her downstairs and rummages through the cabinets. She pulls out ingredients to make pancakes, in the way she learned in her first life. She finds the flour, the cornflower, the honey. She whisks it together. Ani takes out a stool and stands on it, peering into the bowl as Aaliyah mixes in water.

“Can you make them shaped like fish?” she asks quietly.

Aaliyah smiles, kneading the sticky dough.

“Yes, baby. I can do that.”

The wood floor creaks behind them, and Aaliyah looks over her shoulder.

Her mother opens a magazine at the table, flipping through pages.

Ani sits down and drowns her pancakes in honey. Aaliyah slides a plate in front of her mother and kisses her on top of the head.

“You were wrong,” she says.

The magazine page flips.

“Hmmm?”

“You said you’ve never had someone love you. But I do, Mama. Endlessly.”

Her mother sets the magazine down and swirls a pancake through honey on Ani’s plate. Ani gasps as she does, and she sticks her tongue out at her.

“Jida! Stop it. Al, make her stop taking my honey.”

Aaliyah’s mother takes the fork out of Ani’s hand and puts a stern finger in her face.

“You call her Mami. Or Umi.”

Ani reaches desperately for her fork and whines, but Aaliyah’s mother pulls it further away.

“Say it, and I’ll give it back to you."

Aaliyah sighs. “She doesn’t have to.”

Then Ani picks up a piece of honey-drenched pancake with her hands and thrusts it in Aaliyah’s face.

“I need a fork, Mami!” she wails.

Her mother smiles in satisfaction.

Aaliyah feels it for the first time in months, her heart thumping with life.

--

Days later, Aaliyah balances Ani on her hip when she sees a black sedan pull through the gate. David walks up to the driver’s side and the window rolls down. A woman with dark hair and sunglasses peers out.

“Todd,” she says urgently. “Take her. Take her now, go down to the beach with Sarah. Get on the boat.”

“What?”

“Do it. Now,” she insists.

He takes Ani from her arms and goes.

Aaliyah’s mother stands over her shoulder, peering out the window.

“Ah,” she says. “It’s her.”

Aaliyah nods, because she knows exactly who it is.

“Sit down, at the table. I’ll be back in a minute.”

She leaves. Quick feet take her outside, to the shed where David has stored cases of them. Guns. She opens the nearest one, takes one out gingerly.

She closes her eyes and hears him instantly. Her father’s voice, from years before.

“You hold it this way,” he had said. “You have to unlock it. Make sure it’s unlocked, if you think you need it.”

She had held a gun for the first time at the age of thirteen. She remembers the look on his face as he tried to teach her how to keep it steady.

“No, your fingers here,” he’d said. “Right here. That’s it. Good girl.”

He’d looked down at her with smiling eyes. She has his eyes. Her daughter has his eyes. They’ve been passed down through generations now. She shivers at the memory of who she thought he was.

She walks back inside and pulls up a seat at the kitchen table next to her mother. She rests the gun in her lap.

The door opens. There are footsteps. Then David appears, with her by his side. She’s in a dark suit. She moves elegantly, like a predator hunting its prey.

“Aaliyah, this is—”

“Joe McNamara,” Aaliyah interrupts. “I know who you are.”

She’s known for years. She’d been in the folder that Asif had handed to her, when she became Alexandra Abadi.

Joe smiles and takes off her sunglasses. Her eyes are even darker than Cruz’s. 

“Aaliyah,” she says, nodding in her direction. “And Fatima,” she turns to Aaliyah’s mother. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Sit,” David says, gesturing to the table.

Joe sits on the opposite end of the table. Aaliyah fingers the gun in her lap.

David pours water into glasses and spreads them out. Joe takes a sip.

“I assume you know by now that I work with Cruz,” she begins.

Aaliyah throws her head back in laughter.

“That’s a funny way to put it,” she snaps, and there is poison in her tone.

Joe’s brow sets in an amused line.

“Oh? Then how would you put it?”

“You’re vile,” Aaliyah says. “You’ve used her. You’ve hurt her.”

“I’ve taken nothing she hasn’t been willing to give me,” Joe says simply, one hand curling around her water glass.

David clears hia throat.

“Aaliyah, please,” he says softly. “Just listen.”

But Aaliyah isn’t in the mood for listening. Not anymore.

“Why are you here?”

Joe shifts in her chair.

“Because as you might imagine, you taking a bus to Brooklyn poses some problems for me. It poses some problems for my work.”

She folds up her sunglasses and slips them into the pocket of her blazer.

“Cruz Manuelos is a CIA asset. You knew that, when you married her. She’s my asset. And my assets need to be focused on the task at hand. But when you disappear in the dead of night, it causes some distractions.”

Aaliyah swallows.

“And I can’t have her distracted, do you understand? She can’t be worrying about you, when she’s working for me. That’s why you’re here,” she says, spreading her hands out. “You’re in this nice, beautiful seaside home. I put you here, to keep you safe. And you’re going to stay here, until I’m done with her.”

Aaliyah stands quickly. She holds the gun, just as her father taught her. She points it at her head.

Joe springs to her feet, and in the corner she sees Asif. He has been there watching from a distance, all along. Their eyes meet and Aaliyah nods at him.

Just as Joe reaches for the gun in the holster on her hip, Asif snatches it.

Then David is on his feet, too.

“Aaliyah—”

“Sit down, David,” Aaliyah’s mother yells.

He drops slowly back into his chair.

Aaliyah holds the gun steady.

“You’re wrong,” she whispers. She steps forward. Left foot, right foot. Joe’s eyes narrow as she approaches.

She cocks one dark eyebrow.

“What are you going to do, shoot me?” she smirks.

Aaliyah unlocks the gun. She points it at Joe’s head.

“She’s not your asset. She doesn’t belong to you. She belongs to me,” Aaliyah seethes, her entire body trembling with rage. “I will kill you, if you don’t bring her back to me. Do you understand?”

Joe smiles, tosses her hair. She is unflappable in the face of a gun, and it makes the rage boil in Aaliyah's stomach.

“I think we should sit down and talk about this in a more civilized way.”

“Civilized?” Aaliyah screams. “Civilized? You took my wife from me.”

Joe laughs.

“I didn’t take her anywhere. She came willingly. It was her choice.”

“You live in Maryland. You have two daughters. They go to a private school, ten minutes from your house. Your husband is a surgeon. On Saturday’s, he takes them out to breakfast.”

Joe’s face straightens.

“Your daughter swims. She’s good at it. Your other daughter is too young to know what she’s good at yet.”

She tightens her grip on the gun.

“I know everything there is to know about you. And if you don’t bring her back to me, I will find you. I will take you away from them, forever.”

“No you won’t,” her mother says distractedly, looking out the window. She stands slowly from her seat.

“Lower that now, Aaliyah,” she directs, her eyes trained on the gun.

“Mama—”

“I said lower it,” she bites.

Her mother’s eyes sharpen, and Aaliyah folds instantly. Her arm lowers to her side, and she sets the gun on the table.

“Sit down,” her mother says sternly, her eyes swinging between Joe and Aaliyah. They both slide instantly into chairs.

Her mother sits and folds her arms across the table, as though she is commencing a business meeting.

She looks to Joe.

“My daughter is not her father,” she says. “Evil doesn’t run in her. You’re not fooled by her act. Neither am I.”

Then she grins.

“But you know, don’t you Ms. McNamara, that I have always been steps ahead of you?”

Joe’s jaw clenches.

“No? You didn’t know? Let me lay it all out for you, then. On the day my daughter went shopping in Kuwait, I was aware that she was trailed. On the day Ms. Manuelos bumped into her in that jewelry store, I was told within minutes. I knew, all along, what you had planned.”

Aaliyah’s mouth drops open.

“Mama—”

“Silence!” her mother booms, pounding her fist on the table.

“You got as far as you did because I let you. I pulled those strings. I controlled Aaliyah’s whereabouts, not her father. And I allowed Ms. Manuelos constant access to her. I gave my husband to you, on a platter. And I did it to keep her safe,” she says, pointing to Aaliyah.

Joe blinks, and Aaliyah can tell in the set of her jaw that she was just as unaware of this as Aaliyah is.

Aaliyah’s mother straightens a diamond bracelet on her wrist.

“The part of it that I didn’t anticipate was this,” she says, gesturing again to Aaliyah. “I didn’t plan for my daughter to fall in love.”

She sighs.

“So now I have a problem, you see? I have a daughter with a broken heart. I have a granddaughter who has been abandoned her entire life. I have a family ripping apart at the seams.”

She stands then, approaches Joe’s chair. She leans down over her.

“My daughter is not her father. But I will clue you in to something you clearly never anticipated,” she bends down even further, and tendrils of her hair swipe against Joe’s face. “I am worse than him. I will destroy you. I will use his money to wreak havoc on all you’ve worked for, if you do not bring that woman back here in one piece. Do you understand me?”

Joe stares up at her, unblinking.

She slams the table again and points a finger in Joe’s face.

“Answer me when I speak to you!” she shouts.

It’s as if the entire house rocks with the volume of her voice.

“I understand you loud and clear,” Joe whispers. “Why do you think I’m here? I can’t keep her safe, if she isn’t safe,” she says, nodding to Aaliyah.

Aaliyah sees it instantly in Joe’s eyes, the honesty behind this admission.

Joe straightens her jacket and stands. She looks to Aaliyah and sets her mouth in a straight line.

“She’s beautiful.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your daughter. She’s beautiful.”

She walks up to Asif, yanks her gun from his hands, and leaves.

--

The next time Cruz finds Amira she’s in a library, hidden behind shelves of books.

When she reaches her side, Amira slips a piece of paper out of her pocket and offers it to Cruz.

“This has dates,” she whispers. “Everything I was able to gather, for when Nadir is set to see Kamal. I wrote the locations. They’re spread throughout the country, over the next month.”

Cruz nods. When Amira moves to withdraw her hand, Cruz grabs at it. She squeezes her fingers.

“Thank you, Amira. Thank you for helping me. For helping her.”

Amira runs her hands over the spines of books on the shelf.

“She told me about you, once,” Amira says absently.

Cruz watches as her fingers brush against another shelf of books.

“After you killed them, in Mallorca. She said she thought you were the love of her life. And you are, aren’t you?”

Cruz stills. Something knocks against her chest, begging to be let in. It’s the thought of her wife, the one she has evicted from her body for months.

“It knows no bounds, the avarice of men. They cannot cope with things they cannot control. Things they cannot covet,” Amira continues.

Her eyes shine with tears.

“Aaliyah was one of those things. She resisted them, never let them have her in the way they wanted. She fought for it, tooth and nail. Her freedom.”

Amira takes a book from the shelf and flips through it.

“She’s unbreakable,” she whispers. “Always has been. To live through what she’s lived through. To come out, on the other side of that.”

Amira smiles, and Cruz smiles with her. She unclenches her fists. Amira’s words give Cruz solace. They speak into existence what Cruz has always known. That of the two of them, Aaliyah is the one with the spirit that can never be broken. They tell her that if she meets a violent end, Aaliyah will manage to come out on the other side of this, too.

Cruz lets out a breath.

Amira begins to step away.

“Tell her for me, when you see her again.”

“Tell her what?”

“That I’m happy she’s finally free.”

Then she walks away. Cruz wishes she could thank her again, but she’s already gone.

--

“It’s on the Persian Gulf,” Bobby says. “The resort. I think it’s the easiest one.”

They surround a table, staring down at a map. Joe has marked in red six different locations where Kamal is expected to be throughout the country over the next month, based on the schedule Amira slipped them.

“We don’t do large cities,” Kaitlyn says from a chair in the corner. She’d appeared a day before, and her presence tells Cruz that they are near the end of this, the final leg. “It’s in Kuwait. Too many eyes. Too many risks for it to go wrong.”

“I disagree,” Joe responds, tapping the spot on the map that indicates the location of a seaside resort that the Al Rashdi family owns. “He won’t see us coming, if we choose a populated place. They’ll be expecting something in the remote areas,” she says, pointing to the other spots on the map.

Kaitlyn raises her eyebrows. “So what? We go in by boat? Air?”

Lara clicks her tongue, a nervous habit Cruz has picked up on over the months.

“No, I think we should drive into the tunnel, here. There’s an underground garage, beneath the resort. We go in from the ground and work our way up.”

“What about pedestrians?” Cruz asks.

“None,” Joe says. “We’ve had eyes on the resort for days. It’s empty. It’s only used by his family.”

“That whole fucking thing?” Bobby’s eyes widen. “Who the fuck needs a resort to themselves?”

Kaitlyn smiles.

“People with that kind of money, that’s who.”

Cruz leans back in her chair and tugs at her ear. It’s there again, the sound.

“I don’t care which place we choose,” she says. “But when we get there, he’s mine.”

Joe looks at her.

“You’re staying behind, in the car. Watch for anything incoming.”

“I didn’t come all this way to stay behind.”

She stands and grabs air-pods off the table, slotting them into her ears. She turns the volume all the way up. Rap music blares in her ears, drowning out the other noises she hears.

Joe tugs at her arm, and Cruz lowers the volume.

“This is business, Marine. You don’t seem right. You don’t seem focused. You drive the car, stay behind.”

Cruz rips her arm away.

“This isn’t business,” she says, turning the volume up again. “It’s personal.”

--

Two days later, on a Wednesday in August, they span the entire resort with two teams.

Cruz doesn’t stay behind. She goes in first. She goes in quick. She ignores Joe when she orders her to slow down.

She’s studied the floorplan of the resort for hours straight. She knows exactly where she’s going. Up fourteen flights of stairs. Right turn, left turn. Up another three flights. Then the penthouse. 3,000 square feet.

She doesn’t lose her breath as she climbs step after step, flight after flight. She’s aware of Lara and Bobby behind her, at times. She’s aware of the muffled sounds of gunfire as they pick off men in their path. She’s even aware of her own fingers pulling the trigger, every now and then.

But she has tunnel vision. It leads to only one place, and then she’s there.

The penthouse is massive. Windows are open, and she can hear the waves of the Persian Gulf in the distance. She kills three men as she makes her way through. She doesn’t care how loud she is now. Because even if he runs, she will find him. She is certain of this, more than she has been certain of anything in her life.

When she enters the study, he’s sitting at a desk, smoking a cigar. Floor to ceiling bookshelves surround the desk. There’s a globe on a table in a corner. There are only photos of him, posing in front of landmarks, buildings. None of family. None of Ani.

Her heart races with rage.

There is opera music playing loudly behind him from a record player, and it occurs to her that he has no idea that blood has been shed throughout his resort. He has no idea, as he sits here smoking a cigar, that he has been found.

“Get up,” she snarls.

His head snaps up, and the cigar drops from his mouth. She rips the helmet from her head, and the sweat that has puddled on her forehead drains into her eyes.

“I said get up, now.”

He brings both hands over his head and stands. She keeps her gun trained on him as she ejects her empty cartridge and loads new ammunition.

“I didn’t know we’d see each other again so soon.”

“Stand in front of the desk,” she orders.

He walks slowly around the desk. He’s wearing a blue suit and a pressed white shirt. There are gold cuff links in his wrist.

He smiles.

“How’d you find me?”

She holds the gun steady.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says quietly. “I’ve decided to leave her alone. All of you. She can have Ani. I’ll pay her support.”

Cruz laughs.

“You think she needs your money?”

“No, but I thought it would be the right thing.”

Cruz raises her eyebrows.

“The right thing? You found your moral compass after you cut her baby out of her body?”

He puts one finger up, as though he’s about to make a point.

“What was I supposed to do? We weren’t married. It was for the best. The procedure was done the right way, in the hospital.”

Cruz snorts.

“Kneel.”

He doesn’t move.

“Get on the fucking ground!” she screams.

He drops down immediately.

“Hands behind your head.”

He obeys.

“You people killed my brother. Isn’t it time to call it even?”

“Even? You came for her. There is no even.”

He sneers. “I should’ve killed you.”

“You absolutely should’ve.”

She walks up to him and looks down. His eyes are beady and wet. There is sweat on his upper lip.

“What was it you did first?”

He raises his eyebrows at her.

“In the video? You slapped her, right?”

Then she cracks him across the face. He shakes his head and laughs, and she slaps him again. She hears a pop, and she knows she’s broken his nose. The blood pours down his chin, onto his white shirt.

“What was next? Tell me. You remember, don’t you?”

“Which part? Before or after I fucked her like the dog she is?”

Cruz’s boot slams into his stomach, and he immediately keels over.

“You kicked her,” she says.

Her boot flies into his gut relentlessly, and the sound floods her ears is a mad rush. She hears her wife, being beaten by this man. It never ends. It never stops.

“And you kept kicking, didn’t you?” she grunts. “She passed out, but you kept going.”

Her foot collides with his stomach endlessly, and he spits blood and cowers on the ground. He places one hand to the floor in an attempt to stand, but she stomps it with her boot and he screams.

“You bitch,” he seethes.

“Stand up, you coward.”

He climbs to his feet and tries to run instantly, and Cruz punches him square in the face. He flies backward, clutching the desk for support. She punches him again, and then he crumbles to the floor. She puts her heel over his neck.

He looks up at her helplessly.

“You’re going to kill another father?” He coughs. “You’re going to leave her without a father?”

Cruz stares down at him.

“You’re no father to her.”

Blood gushes from his nose, mixing with his snot and tears.

“Have mercy,” he begs.

She removes her boot from his neck and takes a step back. He exhales, and there’s a moment of relief on his face.

“You think I’m merciful, motherfucker?”

His eyes widen, and she puts the bullet straight between them.

--

She drops to her knees over his body for minutes. She trembles from head to toe, staring at his vacant eyes. They’re opened, permanently suspended in a look of shock.

A hand is on her shoulder, and she screams. Then, Laura’s voice.

“Cruz! Cruz, it’s me. We’ve got to go now. It’s over. We’ve got to get out of here.”

It’s over.

She’s done it.

She’s going home.

Lara slides one hand under Cruz’s arm and hoists her to her feet.

The adrenaline comes back. It takes over as they run, silently, through rooms, down halls. They pause at entryways. They motion with their hands to each other to show it’s clear.

They keep going. They step over bodies, and Cruz remembers the one’s she shot. She remembers the one’s Lara shot. There’s a man hunched against a wall, groaning, clutching his shoulder. That one was Joe. Lara fires one at him for good measure as they pass, and he falls to the ground with a thud, motionless.

Then they’re in a courtyard, and the sea rolls beyond them. Lara is feet ahead of her, and then he appears.

A bearded man with wild eyes. Cruz recognizes him from the folder she’d studied for months. The third brother, someone with a name she cannot recall.

I should know his name, she thinks, because he’s holding a semiautomatic rifle and aiming it at Lara’s head.

Lara fires, but nothing comes. She’s out of ammo. She moves frantically to refill her cartridge.

Lara, who has a four-year old at home. Lara, who told Cruz how much she wanted to get back to her.

Cruz does it automatically, without thinking. She dips one shoulder and shoves Lara out of the way. Lara stumbles, ducking to the ground behind a bush. She reaches to tug Cruz down with her.

One pop. Two pops. A third. Four.

Cruz counts them. She feels them. They pound into her vest, spraying across her chest. It’s like a bludgeoning, an iron block slamming into her. She sinks to the ground.

Then five, six.

These hit in a different way.

They enter her, side by side, right where the vest ends on her waist, above her hip.

The odds of this happening are slim. He knew where to aim. He knew how to aim. He found the spot the vest doesn’t cover, the deadliest one other than the kill shot.

She wishes she could remember the name of this man who has put two bullets in her abdomen, but she can’t.

Then there is blood splattering from his head, and he’s on the ground, dead. She looks up. Lara lowers her gun.

Doesn’t matter what his name is now, she thinks.

Lara squats down in front of her.

“Why the fuck did you do that?”

Cruz clutches her waist. She feels nothing. Maybe they didn’t hit, after all.

Cruz looks into Lara’s hazel eyes. They’re fixed on her stomach.

She knows, then, that they did.

“We have to get you out of here,” Lara whispers.

Cruz chooses to look down then, too. She’s dripping. Her hands are covered in red. That’s her blood.

She didn’t expect there to be so much.

She knows what happens when there’s this much. She’s seen it before.

She has this routine memorized, the amount of time a human has left when this much blood leaves the body.

“There’s not enough time,” she says, her voice a monotone. “It’s too much.”

“No. We’re getting you out.”

Lara hauls her up and drags her. Cruz tries to move her feet, but it’s useless. Lara shouts into her earpiece. Cruz doesn’t understand what she’s saying. Her ears aren’t ringing, but there’s a sound in them. Something like static.

Then Joe is there, grabbing the other side of her. They’re both lifting her at once, and there’s an SUV before them. Someone climbs out, throws the backdoors open. Her vision blurs. She can’t tell who it is.

She’s in a reclined seat. Joe rips her vest off, then takes out a knife.

Just kill me now, she thinks.

She slices off her shirt, tears everything away from her chest.

Someone presses gauze into her.

The adrenaline wears off, just at that moment. It leaves, and in its place, pain. Excruciating. Violent. Something she can’t possibly endure.

She screams, and Joe’s head snaps up.

The static leaves, and suddenly Cruz can hear again.

“Fucking GIVE ME SOMETHING Bobby. SOMETHING.”

“I’m TRYING.”

It enters her arm. A prick. She looks down at it. An IV.

“Take this, take this,” Bobby says frantically, shoving something into Joe’s hand.

Lara is in the driver’s seat.

“I need to know where we are taking her. Someone give me coordinates. Where are we going?”

Cruz can see her eyes, the desperation of them, in the rearview mirror.

“How many, Joe?”

Tuck’s voice, from the front passenger seat.

“Two, lower right abdomen. The rest got stopped by the vest. But she’s swelling, around her chest. Punctured lung, maybe.”

“Did they pass through?”

She’s being lifted onto her side. Hands are on her bare back. She screams again.

“No.”

Joe has a phone pressed to her ear. She’s cursing under her breath. She squirts something out of a needle, then stabs it straight into Cruz’s thigh. She flinches. There are tears coming down her cheeks.

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Lara screams from the front.

“We can’t take her anywhere here. We need a chopper. We’ll get a chopper. Just drive to the outskirts. Get us out of this fucking city.”

“Roger that, ma’am.”

Bobby hovers close over Cruz’s face. Her breath smells rancid, and Cruz laughs.

“Something funny about this?” Bobby says with a smirk.

“Yeah. Your breath smells like dick.”

Bobby shakes her head.

“You’re a fuck, you know that?”

Joe’s got someone on the phone.

“I need a bird. I needed it fucking yesterday. I am thirteen minutes out. It better be there, we’re coming in hot. I need a medic on it.”

She hangs up and shouts an address at Lara. The SUV makes a sharp turn, and Cruz groans.

The pain is white. Hot. A flash of it. Dullness, in her stomach.

Then she coughs, and she tastes it instantly in her mouth.

“Bobby.”

She looks down at her. Her eyes immediately narrow.

“What?”

She coughs again, this time bringing one hand to her mouth to cover it. Her palm comes away red. Bobby follows it, and every line in her face drops.

It’s internal, then. The bleeding. Cruz knows this part of the routine, too.

“Bobby.”

She grabs Cruz’s hand.

“No. Don’t you ‘Bobby’ me. Shuttup. Just breathe.”

When she coughs again, the air leaves her lungs and doesn’t come back. The blood is metallic in her mouth, and she heaves.

“Give me air, NOW!” Joe screams.

Then there’s a mask over her face. It gives her an instant of reprieve, enough for her to find her words again. She rips it off.

“You have to call her, Bobby.”

Bobby’s face falls.

“No. We’re not doing that. We’re ten minutes out. You’re fine. Just breathe.”

Her vision is a circle. The sides begin to blur, and it gets smaller and smaller.

“Bobby, please,” she croaks. “I have to hear her voice.”

Her entire body starts shaking. She knows this part of the routine too. Shock. Organ failure.

Not long, now.

Bobby’s face is wet over her, and she’s arguing with Joe.

“Give me your fucking phone,” Bobby spews.

“No. Nine minutes.”

“Joe, give it to me. We don’t know if—”

“Yes we do. I know. Trust me, we’re fine. She’s fine.”

Then Bobby punches her right in the face. Joe flails backwards, and Cruz wants to laugh but she can’t. Bobby grabs the phone from her and dials.

“What the fuck is going on back there?” Lara screeches. Tuck looks over his shoulder wearily, cursing under his breath.

Joe starts kicking the driver’s seat relentlessly, and Lara rocks back and forth as she does.

“Fuck,” kick, “fuck,” kick, “fuck.”

Then Bobby gives Cruz a thumbs up sign and points to the phone.

“David? I don’t have a lot of time. Can you get her to the phone? I don’t know how much time we have.”

Cruz watches her mouth move, barely makes out her words.

“What do you mean she’s on a boat? Like, in the fucking ocean?”

Everything in Bobby’s eyes drains at once. She puts the phone to her chest.

“She’s not there, kid.”

“Are you fucking with me?” Her voice is dangerously low. The blood is on her lips now. It’s hot, hardening by the minute.

“Fuck,” Bobby says under her breath. “Here.”

She brings the phone to Cruz’s ear.

“Marine?”

David’s voice. Smooth. Southern. She hasn’t heard it in months.

“Where is she?” she whispers.

“On the water. I just texted them to come in. It’ll be ten minutes. Can you hold on for that?”

Ten minutes.

No, she can’t hold on for that. She tries to scream, but her body can’t produce that sound.

“Is she with her?”

A pause. Cruz prays he understands the question, because she isn’t sure if her breath can form more words.

“Ani is with her, yes. They’re together.”

They’re together.

Cruz closes her eyes.

Bobby yanks the phone back.

“Take down this number. Take it down, now. Call us back. Call us back, when you have her.”

Then there’s a hand on her face. It’s rough, clutching her jaw. Shaking her.

“Keep those fucking eyes open. Look at me, Cruz. Look at me now.”

She finds Joe’s eyes. Snake eyes. Snake voice.

“I hate you. Fuck you,” she pushes out. She’s gargling it, now, the blood.

“Fuck you right back. Keep your eyes open. You aren’t fucking doing this. I promised her I would bring you back. I saw her. Seven days ago, I saw her.”

Suddenly, there’s a window in the circle of her vision. She can see through it. She stares up at Joe, her throat overflowing with blood.

“That’s right. I went there. I told her she needed to stay put. No more running away in the dead of night. She pulled a gun on me.”

Joe starts laughing. There are tears in her eyes. Joe is crying, and Cruz has never seen her cry. Joe is crying, because she cares for her. And this, Cruz has always known.

“Your crazy fucking mother-in-law threatened to destroy me if I didn’t bring you home. Wanna know something? I think she meant it. And I would prefer to keep my life. So you’re going home. Do you understand? You’re going home.”

It’s fading again, her sight. Her eyes are closing. Joe shakes her by the jaw viciously.

“She looked like a shell of herself. She looked like she’d been through hell. She needs you. Are you going to leave her like that? Are you going to give up?”

She doesn’t want to give up.

She doesn’t want to leave her like that.

Lara slams on the brakes.

They come to a screeching halt.

The door flings open.

A phone rings.

That’s her, she thinks.

If she could just hold on, she might hear it, her voice.

But her line of sight is darkening now. Dots, more dots. Fuzziness.

There’s a commotion, and she feels hands on her. She’s being lifted.

They’re together.

Aaliyah is with her daughter.

Then Cruz lets it all in. Every thought of her wife, every image she can muster. Everything she banished months before.

She imagines it, the sound of Aaliyah’s voice. She imagines that it tells her to rest now, because she finally can.

It creeps in like sleep. Gently, unknowingly, a suspension of all there is when the lids of her eyes shut.

--

David stands on the edge of the dock as Todd drops the anchor.

“What’s the rush, skipper?” he shouts to David.

Ani is asleep in Aaliyah’s arms, her thumb in her mouth.

David climbs aboard. He squats in front her. There is sweat on his forehead.

“Sarah, take Ani,” he says urgently.

“I’m just about to—”

“Take her, now,” he snaps.

Aaliyah’s grip around her daughter tightens. She hasn’t let go of her in days. She’s attached herself to her, clung to her, and Ani has done the same.

“Why does she need to take her?” she says defensively.

No, she thinks. It’s there, that feeling again. Something is coming. No.

Sarah lifts her out of her arms and Ani goes willingly, without a peep.

David takes her hands.

“Bobby called. She asked for you. She put Cruz on the phone. She wanted to talk to you. We need to call them back, now.”

“What? Bobby? What are you talking about?”

He holds her arm and dials on a phone. It’s large, a satellite phone. She hasn’t seen him use it before.

“What are you talking about? David? What are you talking about?”

She hears the phone ringing.

Her heart pounds.

It rings, and rings, and rings.

No one answers.

He curses, re-dials. Still, nothing.

He stands and paces, re-dialing every few seconds. Her eyes follow him back and forth.

No one answers on the other side.

She sees Sarah climbing out of the boat, Ani still asleep in her arms, from the corner of her eye.

“What exactly did they say, David?”

David tears at his hair, looks out at the water.

“Just asked for you.”

“No, I want the exact words. What did they say?”

He recites it, word for word.

The part about Bobby saying she didn’t know how much time they had.

The part about Cruz asking where Aaliyah was.

The part about Cruz asking if Ani was with her.

“That’s all Cruz said? Nothing else?”

He nods.

“And what did she sound like?”

He won’t meet her eyes.

“It’s hard to say. The reception wasn’t good.”

“David. What did she sound like?”

She invades his space, until he can’t avoid her anymore. She sees it instantly, in the clench of his jaw.

It’s like a burst of heavy wind, ripping through her body. It’s cold. Slicing. Unforgiving.

“Tell me what she sounded like, David. I deserve to know. After all this time, someone needs to tell me the truth.”

His face falls.

“She sounded like she was struggling to breathe.”

Her wife was struggling to breathe.

She missed the phone call.

“Call them again. Try again, now. Give it to me, I’ll try.”

She lunges for the phone. He tells her the number. She dials.

“The number you have reached is no longer in service.”

“What is this?” she yells frantically. “Is that the right number?”

She shoves it back into his hands and tells him to try again, and he does. They get the same message.

They do it for an hour.

“There’s no other number? You have no other way of reaching them?”

David shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, Aaliyah. I should have kept them on the phone. It happened fast.”

She stares out at the sea.

“Why were they calling, David?”

He avoids her eyes, again.

“She was dying. They were calling me because she was dying, weren’t they?”

Her voice is flat, the sound of something unliving.

“I don’t know, Aaliyah. I don’t know. Maybe they’ll call back.”

He doesn’t know, and his meager assurance falls shy of its mark.

She climbs off the boat. Her feet take her down the dock. Then she’s on the sand. She walks into the surf and collapses right where the waves break.

--

Aaliyah goes back to the floor for ten days.

She makes David come in each day with the phone.

They try the same number, over and over again.

They get the same message, every time.

Out of service.

Her wife might be dead.

Out of service.

Her wife might be dead.

It’s a never-ending broken record, a torture unlike anything she’s ever known.

“Call Kim.”

David takes the phone away.

“We shouldn’t be doing this, Aaliyah. It can still be traceable.”

“David. Call Kim, now.”

He does it. When she answers, he hands it to her. She waves him out of the bathroom, and he leaves.

“I need you to read the letter to me, Kim.”

Silence.

“Kim?”

Silence.

“Please.”

“No. No, it’s not time for that.”

“It is, Kim. They called me. I missed the call. Please, just read it. I need to know what it says.”

She’s crying. More tears. Endless tears. She thinks that this might be it, what her life will be reduced to. Watery eyes, immovable sorrow.

She hears paper rustling. She hears Kim take a breath. Then she recites it, word for word, the letter her wife left her in the event of her death. Her voice is unwavering, steady. Aaliyah wonders as she listens how Kim finds the strength to speak Cruz’s words so clearly.

The message is short, to the point, like all the other things Cruz has ever written for her.

If you’re reading this, I guess I’m gone. I hate writing this.

But if you’re seeing these words, then you’re not gone. And that means I am okay. I need you to know that. I need you to know that the only thing I needed in this world was for you to be safe. So I’m okay, my love.

Do you remember when we watched that awful movie? The Notebook? I said it was heartbreaking, but you said that at least they knew love. This is heartbreaking. I know it is. But we knew love.

When we got married you made me choose three things. I’m making you do the same. Choose to live. Choose to love. Choose to laugh. If you do these three things, you’ll be okay too.

I love you. I feel it everywhere. I would do it all again, to feel that for you.

And I love that she has your eyes.

Kim falls silent, and Aaliyah knows it’s over. There are no more words that Cruz left behind. She hangs up. She slams the phone into the floor, repeatedly. She does it until it’s in pieces, until her hand is shaking from pain.

Hours later, Ani tip toes into the bathroom. She has come in every day, sitting next to Aaliyah with a different toy in hand.

She sits cross-legged on the floor, and Aaliyah looks up into her eyes.

“Don’t cry anymore, Mami,” she says. “Can we go look at the fish?”

Aaliyah nods. She changes robotically. Then she lifts her daughter up. She carries her out of the house, to the ocean. She sets her down, and they stand ankle deep in the water. It takes seconds for the fish to come. Minnows crisscross their feet with whispering touches, darting in and out as the tide ebbs and flows.

Ani laughs hysterically, a sound filled with childish glee.

Gravity has left Aaliyah. She’s no longer held to the surface of this earth, and she doesn’t expect any prior version of herself to ever return to it.

But Aaliyah makes the choice anyway.

She chooses to do what Cruz has asked of her.

She won’t live again for herself. But she’ll live for this child. She’ll love her, endlessly.

The next time Ani laughs, Aaliyah chooses to laugh with her.

Aaliyah watches the water and her eyes settle on a shadow. Something off to the side, blocking the sun. It’s small, at first. Aaliyah stares as it extends. It casts into the sea, looming over the surface.

Ani looks at it for an instant, then her eyes swing up. There’s a hint of recognition on her face.

Aaliyah’s body pings with another feeling that something is coming.

And then, and then.

“Aaliyah.”

Chapter Text

She stands in a room of nothingness. The walls are grey and empty. The floor, the same. There’s a chill in the air, and she searches for a thermostat but finds none.

When she walks her footsteps echo, but physics should not allow for this. The room is not large enough to produce this sound, and yet it somehow does.

She approaches the door and looks around again.

She hates this place. It isn’t grey at all, and she doesn’t know why she ever thought it was. A trick of the mind, a sleight of hand caused by the light. It’s yellow in here. Chipped paint. Peeling wallpaper.

She walks to the desk and picks up the photo. Her brother in a red baseball cap, his toothless smile. She’d taken it a month before his death, on a trip to the zoo.

“Pick me up,” he had pleaded, because he could not see over the side of the wall at an exhibit containing animals within it. Penguins, maybe. No, the monkeys.

She can’t remember. She should remember.

God, how she misses him.

Then there are footsteps and she spins around. The hall outside the door continues endlessly. It could go for miles. A figure approaches and she wants to run.

There are no good things in this house.

There are no good people in this house.

The hall is too dark for her to see who it is, but as the person approaches the echoes get louder. Then there is an instant of light, a flash caused by lightning. She only realizes then where the grey initially came from. A storm, outside the window. It thunders. Another flash, and then she sees them.

Her eyes.

God, how she missed those too.

“Come in,” she says.

"I’m coming,” she replies.

Her voice reverberates over the hard surfaces. There is something off about it. A hitch, a vocal cord that has somehow changed.

“Aaliyah, please.”

Then she’s inside the door and the echoes stop. She walks closer, and Cruz notices the differences. They are subtle, easy enough to miss if she were to blink.

“It’s me,” she says, smiling.

She approaches her and they stand eye-to-eye.

Cruz had thought once that she had witnessed the most beautiful thing, when her wife walked across that hotel lobby in that dress.

But she sees now that she was mistaken. She sees now that there was always going to be this, someone crafted by a celestial hand.

“I’m going to be late,” she says.

“For what?” Cruz whispers.

“Promise me you’re coming?”

She doesn’t know where she’s going, but she agrees to go anyway.

“Of course I’m coming.”

She smiles again.

“Shake on it.”

She extends her palm and Cruz slaps hers into it, and their hands fit together as though they were made for this. She tugs her closer.

“It’s me,” she says again. “Ani.”

--
“You have a hero complex.”

It’s the first thing she hears when her eyelids manage to open long enough to see. She doesn’t know how she’s here, when she was just somewhere else. She doesn’t know how she’s here, when she was just standing in a room with her.

Where is she, she thinks. Where has she gone?

“That is the type of shit that gets you killed, you know.”

Her eyes come into focus and find Joe, sitting next to the bed, with a face aged by years.

Oh, she thinks. Oh.

But she doesn’t know what she’s oh-ing. She doesn’t know what this is.

Her eyes zero in on Joe’s fat lip, and suddenly the image of Bobby punching her replays in her mind. She coughs. Her throat is drier than it’s ever been. She coughs again, and then she laughs when the air fills her lungs.

“Glad your humor didn’t leave with the bullets when they took them out of you,” Joe says sharply.

Cruz keeps laughing, because all of this is absurd. Because she is here now, in another room, and the line between dream and reality is gone. She doesn’t know which is which, anymore.

“Care to share what’s so funny?”

Their eyes connect.

“I didn’t know you were so soft,” she says, her voice muffled by drowsiness and whatever medications are being pumped into her body. She can feel them, now. Something pinching her, in the ribs. Wires, on her arm.

Joe cocks an eyebrow.

“Soft?”

“You cried, because you thought I was dying.”

Joe shifts uncomfortably on her seat.

“I knew you’d be fine. I said so. And I was right.”

“Where are we?”

“On a naval base. They’re not pleased that we’re here, so you can’t take your time in that bed,” Joe says, nodding toward her.

“What’s the damage?”

Joe shrugs.

“You’ll be fine, eventually. I didn’t ask for details. I just asked that they bring you out alive, and they did.”

“What the fuck is this,” Cruz grunts, clawing at her ribs.

“Chest tube. Leave it alone.”

A pause.

“She called back. But I broke my phone.”

Cruz fights to keep her eyes open.

“Why’d you break your phone?”

“Threw it at Bobby’s head.”

Then something rustles on the other side of the room, and Bobby comes into focus.

“She missed,” Bobby says through a yawn. “Do you want us to call her back?”

“No, don’t tell her I’m here,” Cruz mutters. “She’ll panic.”

“When is this?”

Joe stares at her, unblinking.

“What?”

“When? When is this? What year is it?”

Bobby looks at her strangely.

“What year?” Then her eyes find Joe. “I’m not fucking dealing with amnesia. No ma’am, no sir. Fix her,” she says, pointing down to Cruz. “Fix her now, Joe.”

Joe stays impassive.

“It’s August. 2023.”

Cruz blinks. Then she can’t exist, in the way Cruz saw her. She’s too young.

Ani, she thinks.

She looks to Bobby’s arm, surveying the sling it hangs in.

“What’s that from?”

Bobby smirks.

“Took a stray. Not as bad as yours, though. Did they tell you that you got shot between the legs?” She grimaces. “Yeah, turns out you can’t get off anymore. Such a shame.”

She smiles widely and winks, and Cruz glares.

“Relax, I’m joking,” she says before hitting her in the shoulder. “But at least that’s something that would suck more than this, right?” She points to Cruz’s body, the machines she is hooked to.

Cruz tries to think of a clever comeback.

She looks to Joe again, because she realizes that she will always find the answers in her eyes. Snake eyes.

“Am I—”

“You’re fine.”

She drifts off again.

Lara comes. Cruz doesn’t know the day she arrives. She sits at the end of the bed and grabs Cruz’s foot.

“I’m leaving,” she says. “Going home.”

Cruz nods. She is sitting up for the first time, and her stomach is on fire with pain. The tube is out of her ribs, but she still feels it, like a stick poking her relentlessly.

“I’m going home because of you, Cruz.”

Cruz looks away. She has never known how to make her way through these types of moments with anyone but Aaliyah. She can’t take praise. She can’t take gratitude. She can’t take anyone being good to her. She’d never been used to it, before her wife.

“I have to tell you something,” Lara says quietly. “I probably should have said it in the beginning, but I think I was preoccupied with trying to make you see how tough I was.”

Cruz stares at her.

“I came because of you. Because Joe told me this was for you, when she called.”

Lara starts fidgeting with a keychain in her hand. Her fingers trace a key. Probably the one to her home. Because she’s going there.

I want to go home, Cruz thinks suddenly.

“What are you talking about?”

“Years ago. Your story trickled down the ranks, to all of us. How you quit everything. How you chased after her. Married her. Started a life.”
Lara smiles.

“We all come from holes, remember? What you did made me feel like I could do it. Like I could love someone, have a life. So I finally said yes to a first date, and that was with my husband. I felt I owed you. The only reason I said yes this time was because Joe said you’d be involved.”

She stands and taps the side of the bed with her fists.

“She knows how to work us, doesn’t she? Pulls our strings. Gets us to do what she needs, then figures out how to give us something back in return?”

She sighs and eyes the door to the room nervously, as though she is concerned with what is on the other side of it.

“You should know that it’s hard,” she whispers.

“What is?”

“Re-attaching. Just stick it out.”

Then she disappears.

On the sixth day, Joe is still there. Her constant presence is unsettling. It makes it harder to hate her.

“I cried because you’re the best of us,” she says quietly. “Because you’re better than I am.”

Cruz opens one eye and appraises her through the fog.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

On the seventh day, she refuses the painkillers and climbs out of the bed. She rolls the machines behind her as she starts to pace, gritting her teeth at the burning in her stomach.

“Was it internal?” she asks Bobby.

“Trauma to the chest, from the vest. You had a hairball. Except the hairball was blood.”

“Why does it feel like I’m on fire?”

“Because that mess,” she says, pointing to the gauze covering Cruz’s stomach, “was infected for two days. Go the fuck to bed.”

On the eighth day, she tries to resume her travels across the room.

“Lay the fuck down,” Bobby snaps.

Joe approaches the bed, and Cruz looks up at her helplessly.

“Please get me out of here,” she whispers.

“The nurses said you can’t be discharged yet. They’re waiting to make sure that infection doesn’t come back,” Joe answers. Then she fishes for something in her pocket and pulls out an orange pill bottle. She shakes it and the pills hit the side of the bottle like tic-tacs. “Snatched these, off the table out there. This is what they’ve been giving you.”

She throws the bottle back and forth between her hands.

“Then I asked what would happen, if we left now.”

“What did they say?”

“That it would hurt like a bitch. As far as I’m concerned, it’s your choice if you can take the pain.”

Cruz sits up, wincing.

“I want to go. Now.”

Joe’s lips curl into a smile.

“Of course you do.”

She yanks the IV out of Cruz’s arm in one swift movement.

“What the fuck are you doing? Put that back in!” Bobby yells, grabbing the needle. Joe shoves her away.

“She hasn’t slept in two days. Being here isn’t going to do shit for her at this point.”

“How the fuck would you know? You’re not a doctor.”

Joe rolls her eyes.

“Gosh, I don’t know. Let’s see.” Then she started pointing to marks on her body, one’s Cruz has never noticed before. “This one, this one, this one, this one, and oh, I forgot about this one too,” she’d said. “All bullets. Only made it to a hospital for two of them, and yet I’m still standing.”

Cruz gets to her feet and stares at Bobby.

“If you get in my way, I’m going to do more than throw a phone at you,” she says lowly. It draws the loudest laugh from Bobby’s lips.

“Whatever, kid.”

“I have a plane for you. It’ll take you to where she is,” Joe says, tossing Cruz the pill bottle. Then she throws a backpack on the bed. “Clothes, in there,” she says, pointing to it. “Let’s go.”

Cruz pulls the rest of the wires off and shrugs a sweatshirt over her head.

Then Joe opens the door and walks out, and Cruz limps, one foot at a time, after her. The nurses shout at them as they pass, and Joe throws up her middle finger.

They pile into a car and the world races by through the window. It occurs to her that she doesn’t know what part of it she’s in. What country, what state, what place. She isn’t sure which one is a dream, still. That room she stood in, with their palms connected, or this place that might not be a place at all.

Before she gets on the plane, Cruz investigates her face.

She’d always thought she had snake eyes. She avoids looking into them when she says it.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “You helped me, in your own fucked up way.”

Joe pushes her away.

“It’s just business.”

Then she leaves her, on the tarmac.

--

She gets out of the car. The sun is blinding, and she casts a hand over her eyes.

She can’t remember the last time she slept.

She limps up the path, her legs stiff and weak. Her stomach feels like a boulder.

The door flies open, and there are hands gripping her.

“The return of the queen.” It’s Todd’s voice.

He hugs her desperately, and there are tears in his eyes.

“Todd, thank you—” but he cuts her off and shoves her forward.

“We can do this later. She’s been waiting.”

He pulls her along, and she lets him guide her to the place she wants so desperately to go to.

The place where her wife is.

He walks her down to a beach. Her heart pounds in her chest, and her hands shake.

The sun is setting, and everything is blood red. The water is the clearest she’s ever seen.

She finds her instantly. She’s standing at the shore. The girl is jumping in the surf feet away.

She’s wearing a white cover up. It billows behind her in the wind. Her hair is tossed into a messy bun on the back of her head.

She looks thinner.

Her legs are mechanical. They carry her across the sand, and then she’s just feet behind her.

She hears her laugh as Ani splashes. It’s the best sound she’s heard in months.

Ani looks at her with those eyes, and they hit her like a jolt. She can tell that she recognizes her. She should not be this young, when Cruz just witnessed an older version of her with her own eyes.

“Aaliyah.”

Her back stiffens. She doesn’t turn around, not at first.

“Aaliyah.”

Then she twists slowly. She immediately takes a step back and shakes her head. Her hands go to her mouth.

“No,” she says.

She looks like she’s seen a ghost.

Todd swoops into the water and grabs Ani. Aaliyah watches him jog up the beach, then turns back to her.

“Please come here,” she whispers.

She shakes her head again, but steps forward this time. When she’s close enough, she reaches one hand out to her cheek. She can feel her fingers tremble on her face.

Then a sob escapes from her lips and she flings herself into her arms.

Cruz has kept herself standing on her two feet for months, but she can’t stand for this. She crumbles and Aaliyah comes down with her.

Cruz’s back is pressed into the sand, and Aaliyah is on top of her. Her weight is on her stomach, and the pain is blistering and sharp. But she doesn’t care. She clutches Aaliyah’s head with both hands, pulls her in closer.

Aaliyah’s lips are a torrent on her face, and Cruz can’t tell if she’s trying to talk or kiss or cry.

She sees the sky overhead and it blurs with her tears. Then the ocean water comes up around them. It pours into Cruz’s ears, over their faces.

Aaliyah is sobbing loudly into Cruz’s neck. She’s trying to say something, but her words aren’t clear. Cruz anchors herself on one palm and tries to sit up as she holds her, and then her lips start moving across Aaliyah’s face.

She kisses her everywhere. She kisses every inch of her.

“I love you,” Cruz pants. “I love you.”

Aaliyah sobs even louder, and then her words finally come.

“I can’t. I can’t breathe,” she cries. “You were gone.”

Her lips find Cruz’s mouth and Cruz can’t breathe either. Aaliyah pushes her back into the sand and she’s a nonstop force against Cruz’s skin.
The tide comes up again and splashes into their faces and Aaliyah doesn’t stop. They’re drenched, and there is sand in Aaliyah’s eyelashes, in Cruz’s nose.

“Don’t ever leave me again. I don’t care what happens. Don’t leave,” Aaliyah says into her ear.

Cruz sits up fully, and Aaliyah winds her legs around her back and buries her head into her neck. The ocean swells around them and they cry into each other.

Aaliyah pulls back. Her hair is wet and stuck to her forehead. Cruz brushes it away.

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” Aaliyah asks.

Cruz smiles.

“I think I do, yeah.”

They hold each other until her eyes start to sting with the saltwater. She taps Aaliyah on her lower back.

“Can we move out of the water?”

Aaliyah leans back and studies her face, as though it’s the first time she’s seen it in months. Because it is.

“You look sick,” she whispers. “What’s wrong?”

Cruz pulls away and half stands, half crawls, up the beach until she finds dry sand. She collapses into it, and Aaliyah curls into her side instantly.

“Cruz?”

“Nothing, I’m just tired. And I haven’t eaten, in like two days.”

Aaliyah trails one finger over her brow.

“Where were you, Cruz? What happened? Why did they call me?”

The questions take up the space between them with their magnitude. She doesn’t know where to begin, and she doesn’t bother trying.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I’m here now.”

Aaliyah finds the crook of her neck and slots her face into it.

“Is it over?” She mumbles the words against Cruz’s skin, and the feeling of them vibrates in Cruz’s throat.

“Yes.”

“Is he gone?”

“Yes.”

“You—”

“Yes, I did.”

Her lips connect with the spot just below her ear, and Cruz shivers.

Aaliyah stands and extends her hand.

“Come inside with me. You need to eat.”

Cruz stares into her outstretched palm. She doesn’t know if she can climb to her feet. Her body is weighed down, so heavy that she doesn’t know how she hasn’t sunk through the sand to the core of the earth.

I’m broken, she wants to tell her. I can’t get up.

But she doesn’t.

“Ok,” she says.

--

It’s dark when they make their way back inside. Sand is embedded in their hair and skin. They drag it into the kitchen.

There are amber lights strung on the ceiling over a long wooden table. Everyone is sitting at it eating, and they go quiet when they walk in.

Cruz stares at them, these people who have been here all this time because she asked them to, and she doesn’t know how to thank them.

Aaliyah clutches her hand and squeezes it.

Then Ani runs across the room and wraps her arms around Aaliyah’s legs.

“Mami,” she yelps.

Cruz blinks.

Aaliyah has a daughter. She calls her Mami now. Cruz missed when this started to happen.

Aaliyah picks her up. There is a look in her eyes, a softness, that Cruz isn’t sure she’s seen before. It must’ve come at some point, when she was gone.

Aaliyah bounces her and kisses her nose, and she squeals in glee.

Then her eyes find Cruz, and her face scrunches up.

“Soldier,” she says quietly, pointing at her.

Aaliyah looks to Cruz and back to Ani.

“This is Cruz, baby. Can you say hi?”

The girl stares but says nothing. Then her eyes well with tears and she starts to cry.

Aaliyah gets flushed.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Cruz. “She gets fussy sometimes at night.”

Aaliyah has a daughter. She gets fussy sometimes at night. Cruz hasn’t been around for that, either.

Aaliyah’s mother stands from the table and takes Ani from her arms.

“Let’s go, darling. Time for a bath. I suppose I will do it, tonight.”

When she passes Cruz, she kisses her on the cheek.

“Welcome back, Cruz,” she says.”

She’s never once called her by her first name before, and Cruz brings her hand to her face in shock.

“Sit, sit,” Todd says from the table. “Here, have a plate, Marine. You must be famished.”

Cruz’s head is throbbing. She hasn’t laid in a comfortable bed in six months. Her hair is standing on end, because her skin isn’t used to air conditioning.

Todd pushes a plate across the table and Aaliyah pulls her by the hand. Cruz’s knees are stiff as she sits down.

A throat clears from across the table.

Cruz’s eyes swing up and find her. Something is off about her. She can’t tell what it is, at first. She looks her up and down, then realizes it. She’s wearing one of Aaliyah’s sweatshirts. It’s pink, and there are holes in the sleeves by the wrist, because Aaliyah cuts her sweatshirts to slot her thumbs into them.

Sarah is wearing her wife’s sweatshirt. Cruz wasn’t here to see how that happened, either.

She swallows and chews the food in front of her. It tastes bland.

“I should get going,” Sarah mutters.

Cruz picks up a glass tumbler on the table. She isn’t sure whose it is, but she drinks from it anyway. She’s aware of music playing in the background for the first time. She can’t make out the words.

Aaliyah reaches across the table and grabs Sarah’s hand.

“No, Sarah. It’s late. You don’t need to leave.”

Cruz stares at the way Aaliyah’s fingers slot between Sarah’s. The way she puts pressure on Sarah’s thumb. The music seems louder now in her ears. But it’s not just music. She hears it. Aaliyah is screaming for help. There’s a boot kicking her in the stomach. She grabs at her ear with one hand to tear the headphones off, but they aren’t there.

Sarah smiles at Aaliyah, and the glass tumbler shatters in Cruz’s hand. She stands so quickly that her knees bang into the table, sending her plate flying to the floor.

There’s a piece of glass stuck in her palm. She can’t feel it.

She stares daggers at Sarah across the table.

She’s wearing her wife’s sweatshirt.

Aaliyah jumps up and gasps. Blood is dripping down Cruz’s hand, but it’s numb. Cruz pulls the piece of glass from her skin and tosses it onto the table, then brushes the blood away with a napkin.

Sarah stares back at her, and Cruz can see her throat moving.

“What are you doing in my wife’s sweatshirt?” Cruz whispers.

She sees Aaliyah’s head whip back and forth between her and Sarah.

“Cruz,” Aaliyah says. There is alarm in her voice.

Sarah stands and pulls the sweatshirt over her head. Now she’s only wearing a bikini top. She sets it on the chair and takes a step back.

“Answer my question,” Cruz growls.

She takes two quick steps toward her and then there’s an arm around her neck. She claws at it immediately. She’s been attacked. She’s being attacked again. She’s going to launch whoever it is over her shoulder. But she’s restrained to the point she can’t move.

“You need to go clear your head, Marine.” It’s David’s voice, silky smooth.

“I want her to answer my question.” Her chest is heaving.

“I gave it to her on the beach earlier,” Aaliyah says softly. “It was cold. She was in the water with Ani all day.”

Cruz gapes at her.

Her wife gave her sweatshirt to Sarah, because Sarah was in the water all day with her wife’s daughter.

She looks around at everyone’s faces. They’re all tan.

They’ve been on a beach, together. Cruz has been alone, with a gun in her hand, for months.

The second David’s grip lightens, she rips out of it. She grabs a knife from the table. She slams Sarah into a wall. She puts it to her throat. She’s screaming.

“Did you fucking touch her?”

She’s seeing red. She doesn’t see Sarah’s face, has no idea how she’s reacting. Aaliyah screams, but it’s distant. She could be a million miles away.

She sees a dark shape coming toward her and knows it’s David. She rips the gun from the elastic of her pants, because she still has it. It’s part of her now, an extension of her limbs. She points it at him.

“Don’t,” she warns.

“Put it down, Marine. You’re not thinking. You’re not here right now. You know you’re not here. You have to bring yourself down.” David’s voice is low. He’s talking to her like she has a bomb in her hand.

Then she feels Sarah’s breath on her face. There are tears in her eyes. Aaliyah is screaming at her, and she’s not distant now. She’s feet away.

Cruz doesn’t look at her. She searches Sarah’s face.

“I only did what you asked, mate. I’m only here because you asked me to be.”

Cruz blinks. Sarah is here because she asked her to be. She did what Cruz asked of her.

She lowers the knife, and Sarah exhales. David takes the gun from her hand.

She looks to Aaliyah. Her eyes are wide in horror.

“I—I didn’t—” but Cruz can’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t know what she didn’t do. She doesn’t know what she might’ve done. She doesn’t know what she wants to say. Then David nudges her with the butt of the gun.

“Walk,” he commands. “Outside, with me. Now.”

“David—” Aaliyah says, but he brings his palm up, silencing her.

Cruz obeys. Her feet take her outside. He steers her with the butt of the gun to a bench, then pushes her down to it.

He squats and gets in her face.

She withdraws and closes her eyes.

“Look at me, Marine.”

His voice is assertive, commanding, and she looks at him.

“Sit down, with me.”

He pulls her off the bench, onto the gravel, and they sit cross-legged next to each other. Their knees knock together.

“Put your hands on the ground,” he says.

She does it.

“You’re here. Do you understand? You aren’t at war. You aren’t where you’ve been. You’re here now. You don’t need a gun. It’s over. You’re here because it’s over.”

She looks into his eyes. She’s always thought they looked like chocolate.

He picks up the gravel in his hands and drops the rocks back to the earth. She watches them fall.

“Ok,” she whispers.

He sighs.

“I’ve lived what you’re feeling right now,” he says. His voice is shaking, and she’s never heard anything less than an even keel from him. “It’s easy to forget, when you come back to your life, the people you’ve left behind have been through it too.”

Cruz looks to the house. She can see Todd watching them through a window.

“You have to understand what it took to keep her on her feet. Sarah played a part in that. We all did, because you asked us to.”

Cruz looks at him.

They kept her wife on her feet. She wasn’t here for that, either.

He puts a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re here,” he insists.

She nods her head.

“I know I am.”

Her words sound inconclusive, like there’s a “but” coming after them. He climbs to his feet anyway. It’s only then that she sees Aaliyah standing feet away, listening to every word.

She walks up to her slowly and bends over, taking Cruz’s face in her hands.

“Come upstairs with me, habibi.”

She pulls her up, and Cruz follows her. When they get back inside, everyone else has disappeared.

Aaliyah guides her upstairs, into a bedroom. She shuts and locks the door behind them. She pushes her forward with a gentle hand to the back. Then they’re in a bathroom. She turns the shower on and grabs towels from a cabinet.

She walks up to Cruz and wipes sand from her brow. Then she fingers the bottom of her shirt, and Cruz pulls away immediately.

“Hold on,” she says, tugging her shirt back down.

Aaliyah gazes up at her strangely.

“I’ve been holding on for too long.”

She reaches for her shirt again, and Cruz recoils. Her back collides with a wall, and she places both hands up, motioning for her to stop.

“Why don’t you go to bed? I’ll come out, once I’m finished.”

Aaliyah freezes. She studies her face intently, and Cruz sees the moment she understands.

“Let me see, my love,” Aaliyah whispers.

Her fingers reach for her again, and this time Cruz doesn’t stop her. She begins to lift it, and her eyes dilate in alarm as they take in every inch of what lies beneath.

She pulls it over Cruz’s head then steps back, surveying the gruesome mess that has become her body.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Cruz whispers in a rush.

Except it is. She can see herself, in the mirror behind Aaliyah. Her entire torso is overlapped with purple and black bruises from the impact of the bullets hitting her vest. Her abdomen is bright red, still ignited with the infection that blazed through her insides. The stitches are grizzled, haphazard. She wasn’t sure if they’d hold her together when she first saw them, and she’s even more uncertain now.

Aaliyah brings both hands to her mouth. The sound she releases is wretched, despondent.

“I promise, it doesn’t hurt.”

“We have to get this checked,” Aaliyah says, shaking her head.

“It’s been checked, I was in a hospital. I’m fine.”

“Hospital? You were in a hospital?”

Cruz nods.

“I’m—I’m fine, I promise.”

“No, you are not fine.”

Aaliyah clutches the sides of her own head in disbelief.

“Why didn’t anyone call me back? You were in a hospital, with this,” she says, motioning to her stomach, “and I didn’t know?”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” Cruz whispers.

“Did they even give you medicine?”

“It’s in my bag.”

She spins and rushes out of the room, and Cruz watches as items fly out of her backpack as she searches for it. Then she comes back with the pill bottle.

“Take these,” she says, handing Cruz two pills and a cup of water.

Cruz knocks them both back as Aaliyah turns around to the sink. She bends over it and breathes deeply. Her eyes find Cruz in the mirror, and she shakes her head again.

“Come here,” she says lowly, tugging Cruz closer.

Then she bends and slides down Cruz’s body. She grips Cruz’s hips delicately.

“What did they do to you?” she whimpers.

She drops her forehead to Cruz’s stomach and weeps.

Cruz holds her by the crown of her head.

“Nothing, Aaliyah. I’m fi—”

“Don’t say it again. Don’t.”

Aaliyah wipes away her tears and sniffs.

“Can you shower? Can the stitches get wet?

Cruz nods, and then Aaliyah climbs to her feet. She removes the clothing from Cruz’s body, piece by piece. She pushes her backwards, into the shower. Then she takes off her clothes and steps in after her.

She hugs her from behind and presses her lips into her shoulder.

Cruz closes her eyes as Aaliyah washes her hair. Her fingers trace the bruises on her chest, and she drags her lips over them.

Cruz is here, and her wife is washing her in a shower. She’s kissing her skin.

She breathes.

“I’m sorry, Aaliyah. I didn’t mean to do that, downstairs. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. None of us know what you’ve been through.”

When they get out of the shower, Aaliyah dries her off. She walks her to the bed. She makes her get into it, then disappears for minutes. She comes back with ice and presses it against the angry spots on Cruz’s skin. Cruz winces at the cold.

“I know, my love,” Aaliyah whispers. “But it will make it feel better. Go to sleep. I’ll ice it on and off tonight. Just try to sleep.”

Cruz wants to say more. She wants to tell her everything. But she falls into a dreamless slumber. She feels it, the ice sliding onto her skin every couple of hours, Aaliyah’s lips brushing against her forehead.

“I’ve got you now,” she says, and Cruz tries to believe it.

--

She wakes up early the next morning. Aaliyah is sound asleep next to her, an ice pack clenched in her hand. Cruz pries it away gently. She gets out of the bed and stretches. The soreness is reduced, less agonizing, in her chest.

She tip toes across the floor and goes downstairs.

Sarah is sitting on the kitchen counter drinking coffee. Ani is on a couch, eyes glued to a television with a bowl of cereal in her hand.

Sarah coughs when she sees Cruz and jumps off the counter.

Cruz puts both hands up.

“I’m sorry,” she says immediately. “I was out of line. Really out of line. I’m not going to do anything.”

Sarah looks her up and down and scoots back onto the counter.

“I can throw a proper punch, if you’ve forgotten,” she quips. “Not that it matters, I think you can probably snap me in half.”

Cruz laughs. She sits on the counter next to her and watches the cartoon on the television.

Sarah clears her throat.

“I suppose I should tell you the truth. If you want to punch me, you have to do it outside. Kid and all,” she says, pointing to Ani.

Cruz looks at her. Her skin prickles.

“I did try to kiss her,” Sarah says quietly. “Once. Got right and good drunk. Suppose I was feeling sorry for myself. Didn’t quite see it, until I was here, how much more she loves you than she ever did me.”

Cruz grips the counter with her hands, and her knuckles turn white.

“But it was over before it began. She pushed me right away. And that’s the truth. I’m sorry. The part about kissing her obviously wasn’t in the job description.”

Cruz says nothing. Sarah kissed her wife while she was gone. Sarah has told her the truth instantly. Sarah, who didn’t know that Cruz and Aaliyah kissed and touched for months behind her back.

Sarah slides away from her.

“Are you going to kill me?”

Cruz gulps.

“No. Thank you, Sarah. For everything. For being here, when I couldn’t be.”

She can feel Sarah staring at her from the corner of her eye.

Aaliyah walks down the stairs. She runs her hands through her hair and her eyebrows climb to the top of her forehead when she sees Sarah and Cruz sitting on the counter together.

She goes to the couch.

“Are you done with that, baby?”

Ani nods, and hands her the bowl without looking away from the screen.

Cruz jumps off the counter. She opens up cabinets, trying to find coffee mugs.

“In the one over the coffee machine,” Aaliyah says from behind her. “I moved them there, months ago.”

Cruz turns and looks at her. There are tears swimming in Aaliyah’s eyes. She walks to the cabinet over the coffee machine, takes out a mug, and hands it to Cruz. Then she kisses her on the side of her mouth.

“Good morning, my love.”

--

Cruz was gone, and now she’s here.

Aaliyah flies to the moon with relief.

Her heart soars.

Then it plummets.

Because Cruz’s body is here. Her legs and arms and hands and feet, but Aaliyah discovers quickly that it’s only an imposter.

This island is foreboding. It’s the keeper of Aaliyah’s grief, and she wants to break free of it. She tells Cruz that they should go home. But Cruz brushes her off.

“Can we take some time? I’m just—I’m so tired. A week, maybe?”

Aaliyah nods.

“Of course. Whatever you need, my love. That’s what we’ll do.”

On the first morning Aaliyah wakes up with her wife back, she’s not there beside her. Aaliyah feels across the sheets, and she’s gone. They always sleep wrapped together, but the middle pillow in the king-sized bed is uncreased. There are marks in the sheets on the other side of the bed, an imprint of a head on the pillow.

Cruz pulled away from her in the middle of the night, slid to the other side out of her reach.

Aaliyah watches as Cruz moves lethargically. Her skin is grey. Her exhaustion radiates from her, and Aaliyah can see that it isn’t just physical trauma that causes it. She’s been beaten down by something more.

On the third night, Aaliyah wraps herself around Cruz from behind and squeezes her tightly.

“Stay close to me, tonight,” she whispers in her ear.

Cruz nods.

They fall asleep strung together, and hours later Cruz screams.

“What? What?” Aaliyah gasps. She turns on the lamp next to the bed. Cruz is sitting up, her legs dangling off the side of the bed, and Ani is standing with her hands on the end of the bed.

Cruz eyes her and rubs her hands across her face, and Ani cries.

Aaliyah scrambles to the end of the bed and lifts her up, pulling her in. She hugs her close and reaches out her hand to touch Cruz’s back.

“She comes in sometimes. When she can’t sleep.”

Cruz doesn’t turn around.

“I’m sorry. I just felt something jumping on the bed.”

Aaliyah rocks Ani in her arms and tries to pull Cruz back down.

“Go back to sleep, my love.”

But Cruz doesn’t lie down. She stands up and goes into the bathroom. She splashes water on her face. She avoids looking at the bed when she walks to the door.

“I’m going to go grab something to drink.”

She steps out of the room and closes the door. She doesn’t come back for the rest of the night.

When Aaliyah walks downstairs in the morning to make breakfast for Ani, Cruz is sleeping on the couch with a blanket over her shoulders.

David brushes by her from behind.

“Give her time,” he says, squeezing Aaliyah’s shoulder.

But Aaliyah isn’t sure what she has left to give. She’s been hanging from the precipice of it all from months. To have her back, but not really here, is a new pain she hasn’t felt yet.

On the fifth day Aaliyah packs a bag in the morning.

“We’re taking out the boat this morning, you and me. We’ll come back after lunch,” she says to Cruz as she’s brushing her teeth. “Wear this.” She tosses her a bikini.

They walk down the dock. Cruz unties the boat from the and takes a seat when they climb aboard.

“You mean you’re not going to insist on driving?” Aaliyah asks teasingly, shaking the keys in her hand.

Cruz smiles and pushes her aviators onto her face.

“All you,” she says.

Aaliyah takes them out into the water, until they can’t see the house anymore. They’re alone for the first time in months, and Aaliyah’s skin buzzes in anticipation.

She rubs sunscreen onto Cruz’s back, pausing at her waist. She slips the tips of her fingers into the backside of her bikini bottoms and kisses her neck.

Cruz takes a step forward and dives into the ocean in one fluid movement. She swims away from the boat and alternates between diving into the depths and surfacing.

She wants to get away from me, Aaliyah thinks.

“Do you really think that’s a good idea? Those stitches. I don’t think you should swim.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cruz calls back. “I’ve had stitches before.”

Aaliyah tries to pull her back in.

“Come have lunch.”

Cruz climbs a ladder and squeezes her hair out. Aaliyah takes her in. Her muscles are more defined than they were when she left, her shoulders somehow broader. Aaliyah had forgotten how her legs extend for miles, how she is able-bodied and elegant all at once.

She’s flawless, even in the face of the contusions, the scars, the torn skin sewn together.

Aaliyah burns for her.

“What’s for lunch?” Cruz asks.

Aaliyah smirks and grabs her hand. She pulls her down steps into a small cabin beneath the boat. There’s a bed, room enough for two.

She kisses her feverishly.

“Lunch is this,” she whispers.

She pushes Cruz onto the bed and kisses down her body. She doesn’t want to take her time. She wants her, all at once. She’s been in a desert. This is water. This is air. This is the salvation she’s been waiting for.

She pulls Cruz’s bikini bottoms down and looks up at her. Her brow is creased and she’s watching her with an unreadable expression.

Aaliyah ducks her head between her legs and sighs when her mouth finds the place it hasn’t been in months. She kisses into her with vigor, with every ounce of desire that is rushing through her.

Cruz is still, unmoving. Aaliyah casts an upward glance at her, and her eyes are closed, her hands gripping the quilt on the bed.

She continues. She tries to coax the sounds out of her that she knows by heart. She goes to the places she knows will make her feel. She touches her in the ways that will build her up.

When she looks up again, Cruz is staring at the ceiling, unblinking.

She pulls away.

“Hey,” she says, squeezing her thigh. “What’s wrong?”

Cruz looks at her. Her chest is rising and falling slowly. She says nothing.

“Do you—do you want me to do something different?”

Aaliyah has never had to ask this before. She’s never needed instructions or direction.

“No, no, it’s fine.”

Cruz pushes her back down by the crown of her head. Aaliyah tries again. She keeps going, but the silence in the cabin becomes deafening, and the lack of reaction in Cruz’s body starts to seem like a rejection. Then her thighs close abruptly, and it’s like a door slamming in Aaliyah’s face.

She retreats from this place she is not wanted in a rush. She stands up, wiping her mouth.

“You don’t want this.”

Cruz pulls her bikini bottoms back on.

“No,” she sighs, rubbing the sides of her temples. “No, I just—”

“You just what?”

Cruz looks off to the wall, avoiding her gaze. She rubs the back her neck.

“I just can’t feel it,” she whispers.

Her wife is here, but she can’t feel it.

Aaliyah nods absently, as if this is something she understands, when it isn’t.

“Ok,” she says. “Ok, we don’t have to.”

Cruz stands from the bed and kicks a basket with blankets by the wall.

“Fuck,” she grunts. Then she storms up the stairs.

Aaliyah follows her up minutes later. She opens her bag and hands her a sandwich, and Cruz sets it aside on the seat cushion next to her.

“She kissed you?” Cruz asks suddenly.

A knot pings on the side of Aaliyah’s neck when she looks down at her. Cruz’s aviators obscure her face. Aaliyah gently takes them off.

Her eyes are black and hardened.

Aaliyah sits down next to her and takes her hand.

“It was nothing, Cruz. I promise.”

Cruz shakes her head.

“If it was nothing then why haven’t you said anything?”

Aaliyah stares at her. It doesn’t compute in her head, how Cruz could ever think that she would’ve been here kissing another woman when she was falling off a cliff, dropping to the bottom of a black hole, losing herself in a way she never has before, all because she was gone.

“We’re not settled yet, and I didn’t think it was the right time to bring it up.”

Cruz laughs sarcastically.

“So what? You were going to wait until we were home and living happily ever after again to tell me?”

Aaliyah cringes, and Cruz breaks free of her hand. She stands, turns her back, and rests her hands on the side of the boat.

“Ok, I’m sorry. I’ll tell you now,” Aaliyah says quietly. “It was after Ani came. I was in and out of feeling this—” she clutches her stomach – “this joy that she was here, that she existed. But every time I felt it, I was guilty. Because how could I feel any joy, when you were gone?”

Cruz doesn’t turn around.

“So I had a bottle of wine. And she had one too. I was awful to her, when she first came. I kept asking her to leave. I was awful to all of them, actually. I was trying to do the right thing. I was thanking her for being here, for helping with Ani when I couldn’t even look at my own daughter. And she kissed me.”

She wets her lips.

“I don’t know how long it takes, for someone to pull away from a kiss. But whatever the quickest amount of time is, that’s how long it took for me to pull away.”

She walks to her side and grabs her face, trying to pull it toward her.

“Look at me, my love.”

But Cruz doesn’t look. She keeps her eyes trained on the sea.

“All I’ve wanted is you. Only you, every day since you’ve been gone. I could never want anyone else,” Aaliyah whispers.

Cruz’s wrestles away from Aaliyah’s hands.

“Don’t touch me,” she says quietly.

“Wh-what? You don’t want me to touch you?”

Aaliyah takes a step back.

Her wife doesn’t want her to touch her.

In all the times she imagined having her back, she never pictured it this way.

Cruz stares at her. Her eyes are cold, vacant.

This is not her wife.

Aaliyah doesn’t know who this is.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth? You cheated on her. You’ve done it before.”

Aaliyah’s heart thuds. She tries to shake the feeling that it’s about to get blown to pieces.

“You asked her Cruz. You asked her to be here. Why did you do that, if you were just going to punish me for it?”

Cruz stares up at the sky and closes her eyes.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t get it.”

Cruz smacks the side of the boat. When her eyes open, Aaliyah can see the red veins coursing in the whites of them.

“Because I didn’t know if I was coming back, Aaliyah!” She shouts it at her and throws her hands in the air, as if to accentuate the obviousness of her actions. “I was trying to give you what you’d need. I was trying to make sure you’d be—be happy.”

In the little over a year they’d been together, Cruz Manuelos had told the world every single day that Aaliyah belonged to her. She’d done it with her hands and body and that cocksure grin that never left her face. Back off, it had all said. She’s mine.

I was right, Aaliyah thinks transiently. Cruz had been willing to let her go, to save her life. She had been willing to offer another woman to her, in case she never came home.

Aaliyah has to fix this.

She has to undo this.

But before she can react, Cruz shoves off the side of the boat and flies into her face.

“Tell me you didn’t need her. Be honest with me.”

“I—I don’t know what you want me to say. When she was here she helped, and Ani needed that. She needed someone. I was useless, and I think you knew I’d be useless. I wasn’t—I didn’t—”

Cruz grabs the sides of her arms, squeezing.

“So you did need her. Why can’t you just say it?”

Something breaches Aaliyah’s chest.

She tries to step away, but Cruz’s hands are affixed to her biceps.

“Let me go, my love,” she whispers.

“No. Say it, Aaliyah. Say that you needed her. Be honest.”

“Ok,” she says, her voice shaking. “My daughter needed her. So that means I did, too. But I wasn’t unfaithful to you, Cruz. You know that. You know that I wouldn’t. You know how I feel for you, because you feel the same for me.”

Cruz’s grip is steadfast on her arms. Her head jerks suddenly and one hand flies to her ear, brushing it absently. Her body language is menacing, as though she is trying to fight something off that Aaliyah can’t see.

“You’re scaring me, Cruz,” Aaliyah whispers.

Cruz’s black eyes expand, and she releases her instantly. She takes a step back.

“What else happened?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What else happened? With her. Other than the kiss. Tell me.”

Aaliyah stares at her, speechless.

“Tell me.”

“Nothing happened, Cruz,” she whispers.

“You’re telling me that in all this time, she didn’t touch you?”

Aaliyah watches as her jealousy plays out on her face. Her nostrils flare, sending air out in a fury.

“No, she didn’t touch me.”

“Not once?”

“I—I—I don’t know,” Aaliyah says frantically, running her hands through her hair as she sifts through all of the things she doesn’t want to remember. Did she ever touch her?

“She brushed my hair.”

Cruz stills.

“She brushed your hair?”

“Yes,” Aaliyah says, lighter even than a whisper.

“Where were you when she did that?”

She’s cutting her down, one slice at a time. And suddenly Aaliyah feels that she’s betrayed her, even when she hasn’t, even when it wasn’t possible for her to. She wasn’t in her body when Sarah was here. She still isn’t, not entirely.

It’s impossible to betray when you don’t exist, but she isn’t sure how to explain that to someone who doesn’t exist either.

“I was in the bathroom.”

Cruz looks straight into her, as if she can see what Aaliyah is recalling. The bathtub. Her knotted hair. The stench of her skin, after not bathing for too many days to keep track of.

“What were you doing in the bathroom?” Cruz whispers.

“I was in the bathtub, Cruz. Because I hadn’t cleaned myself for days.”

Cruz walks to a bench and picks up a life jacket. She twists it in her hands. Her knuckles turn white.

She gazes at her, her eyes fearsome. She has never looked at her like this.

“You let her brush your hair while you were naked in a bathtub?”

Her accusation is laced with wrath. It casts it as something it wasn’t. Aaliyah’s back had been turned. She’d held the towel over herself.

“She was respectful. I covered myself.”

“Respectful? Now you’re defending her?”

“We had sex when she was passed out drunk, Cruz. When I was engaged to her. You unzipped my jeans. We touched over, and over, and over again. Every single time we did it because we were dying for each other. That has never happened with her. Not once. She didn’t do anything.”

“Other than kiss you? That was okay, right?”

Aaliyah covers her face.

“You never told her about any of those things we did, did you? You kept it from her. You lied. If she didn’t walk in on us, she never would have known. How am I supposed to know what you’re keeping from me?”

Cruz has her, there. Aaliyah is fixed in her crosshairs. She had lied to Sarah. Repeatedly. She can’t reason her way out of the fact that she is someone who has been unfaithful in the past.

“I’m answering every question you ask me truthfully. I have nothing to keep from you.”

“But you’re not fucking telling me on your own! Don’t you think I deserve to know, Aaliyah? Don’t you think I should know that when I was getting fucking shot at you were ass naked in a bathtub with her—with her—” she clenches her fist, shakes it violently “--with her brushing your fucking hair?”

Aaliyah takes a step toward her, but Cruz puts one arm out.

“No, don’t come near me. Not now.” She grabs at her ear again, and Aaliyah zeroes in on the movement.

“Stop it, my love. Whatever it is in your head, whatever you keep reaching for, it’s poisoning you. This didn’t happen. I promise you, it didn’t happen.”

“Tell me what else. What else went on between you?”

“There’s only you, Cruz. There’s only ever been you.”

“Except when I was gone, it wasn’t only me. It was her, too. Answer my question, Aaliyah.”

“She hugged me. Once. I held her hand. Once.”

“Were you naked then too?”

Aaliyah peers into the depths of it, then. The hole. She’s going to fall into it, straight to the bottom, the place she never wants to return to.

“No, Cruz. I wasn’t. She hugged me when I was crying. And I was crying because you were gone. Then I held her hand when she told me she’d found someone who made her feel the way you make me feel. I was happy for her.”

“And that’s it? Nothing else?”

Aaliyah’s fingers return to her hair and she looks out to the ocean.

“She put her hand on my stomach.”

Cruz stills again. Her eyes are savage now.

“Your stomach?”

Aaliyah nods.

“You think that’s a normal place to touch someone?”

Aaliyah doesn’t know how to explain it in a way that Cruz won’t turn on its head.

“It’s something she used to do, an old habit. It’s from yoga. A deep breathing exercise.”

“So you were doing yoga together? Is that what was going on?”

“No. She did it to help me breathe.”

“And did it help?”

“No.”

“Why? Her hands aren’t good enough for you anymore?”

Aaliyah shrinks into herself.

She wonders if she shouldn’t have said any of this. If she should’ve kept this all stored within her.

But Cruz’s eyes are dismantling her, and Aaliyah cannot hide from them.

“It didn’t help because I lost the love of my life for the second time. Nothing was going to help me. But you told me, Cruz. You told me to try to let all of them help me. In your note. That’s the only reason I allowed her to stay here.”

She steadies herself and steps forward.

“And if your next question is going to be who the love of my life is, it’s you. But you already know that, don’t you? You already know all of this.”

She takes another step.

“I know that you’re hurting, habibi. Please let me help you.”

Cruz hurls the life-jacket over the side of the boat and it drops into the sea, begins to float away. Aaliyah feels herself floating with it.

“Do you know what would’ve helped me? If you kept your fucking clothes on. If you didn’t let her touch your stomach. If you didn’t put yourself in a situation for her to kiss you. That’s what would’ve helped me.”

It flares inside Aaliyah’s stomach, the need to try to defend herself from the imputation that she was not faithful.

“I didn’t put myself in that situation, you did. I didn’t ask for this, Cruz. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Did you fuck her?”

It’s the final blow. It hits Aaliyah right where Cruz is aiming, directly in her gut.

Aaliyah shakes her head. The tears collect on her lips.

“How could you ask me that?”

Cruz closes the gap between them. She looms over her, and Aaliyah’s skin prickles with fear.

She fears her wife, for the first time. Not her physicality, because she knows Cruz would never lay a hand on her. But her words. The way she has deployed them against her to beat her down.

“Because it’s a fair question.”

“None of this is fair, my love. For either of us.”

Cruz laughs.

“You don’t remember what happened in that boathouse, do you? Let me remind you what you did, when you were engaged to her. You begged me to fuck you,” Cruz bites, and she’s foaming at the mouth.

She leans down even lower, until their noses are brushing. Aaliyah can feel her breath, hot on her cheek.

Aaliyah remembers all of it. She remembers every second of that night. She remembers the moon and the smell of the blankets and the sound of the ocean hitting the dock and the way that combined like a duet with the noise of their skin smacking together.

Aaliyah holds that time as something sacred, despite it being a double-edged sword. She had transgressed, in that boathouse. But her heart had also expanded until it broke wide open, because her love for this woman was far too great to be contained.

“Please don’t talk about that night this way,” she whispers.

“Which way? How else is there to describe it?”

“I didn’t ask you to fuck me, Cruz. Those weren’t my words.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You said make love to me. Is that more accurate?”

“You need to calm down.”

“But that’s not totally accurate either, is it? Because you did beg for it, after the first time. You begged me to do it harder. You were crying for it in my ear. Fuck me harder.”

Cruz smacks her fist into her own palm to accentuate every word. “That’s what you kept saying. Fuck me harder.”

Aaliyah moves away, but Cruz grabs her wrists and holds her in place.

“So it’s a fair question, don’t you think? Given your history? Given that you asked that of me when you were engaged to someone else?”

“I made a mistake. We shouldn’t have done that, in the way we did, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Now you think I was a mistake? What, you would’ve gone on and married her if that night didn’t happen? Is that it?”

Aaliyah rips her wrists away and slams her hands over her ears. She closes her eyes.

“That’s not what I said. I chose you, Cruz. I wanted you, all along.”

“And yet it took you nine months to make that choice, didn’t it?” Cruz shouts. “Because you loved her. You loved her so much that you couldn’t choose for nine months.”

Aaliyah’s desperation storms up her throat.

“AND IT TOOK YOU TWO YEARS!”

For the first time in minutes, Cruz finally falls silent.

“What are you talking about?”

The tears roll freely down Aaliyah’s cheeks.

“It took you two years to come back to me. I waited for you, every day. I waited even after I was with her. I know it took me nine months after that. I’m sorry. I wish I could go back and re-do it. But everything that happened in that boathouse was because I was in love with you. Madly in love with you. And I love you even more now.”

Just when she thinks her vulnerability has diffused it, Cruz’s onslaught continues.

“But you still went back to her, after. You still told her you were going to marry her. What changed? What changed, Aaliyah? You’ve never told me what changed. Suddenly you decided months later that you wanted me again?”

“Cruz, please—"

“Answer my question, Aaliyah.”

“I don’t even remember what it was, Cruz. I feel like I’m—”

Cruz’s eyes pop out of her head.

“You don’t remember? You don’t remember? Let me ask you again. DID YOU FUCK HER?”

She screams it loud enough for it to vibrate to the depths of the ocean floor, and the words throttle into Aaliyah.

Aaliyah shakes her head slowly.

“That’s enough,” she says lowly. “You’re done cross-examining me.”

“Now you can’t answer? You answer everything else, but you can’t answer this?”

Cruz approaches her again, but this time Aaliyah puts her hand out. Her palm connects with Cruz’s chest, warding her off.

“You already know the answer.”

“What’s the answer, Aaliyah?”

“You’re hurting me.”

Cruz’s shoulders drop immediately.

“I’m—I’m what?”

“You’re hurting me, Cruz. This is hurting me. Please stop it.”

Cruz’s eyes widen in mortification, and Aaliyah knows that she’s landed a blow of her own. Cruz cannot handle whatever it is that has possessed her. But she can’t handle the notion of hurting her, either.

“We should go back to the house,” Cruz says coolly.

Aaliyah’s heart palpitates and everything tightens. The air doesn’t make its way in. She thinks of the bathroom floor she spent days, weeks, sprawled across. Her cracked lips, her dry skin, the coarseness of her hair. The static, rooted pain in her chest that still won’t leave.

Cruz is here, but she’s still gone.

Cruz is here, but she doesn’t trust her.

Cruz is here, but she might not love her, not in the same way she did when she left. Because the person who left would never look at her with these eyes.

Aaliyah’s legs give, and she’s on the deck of the boat.

A strangled sound leaves her lips and she sobs. She tips to the side and brings her knees into her chest.

She’s back in the hole.

“Aaliyah,” Cruz whispers.

She bends down over her and puts a hand on her shoulder. The touch drives quicker sobs from Aaliyah’s mouth.

“Oh god,” Aaliyah cries.

It’s not possible to make her see how it put an end to her, being without her. Aaliyah can’t reduce it to words. She can’t show her. It’s indescribable, inaccessible, and Cruz will never know.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Come here, baby girl.”

Cruz pulls her half up and collects her in her arms, and Aaliyah cries even harder.

“I didn’t touch her,” she sobs into Cruz’s shoulder. “I swear, I swear I didn’t touch her.”

“Don’t cry,” Cruz murmurs, running her hands through Aaliyah’s hair. “Don’t cry.”

Aaliyah grabs at Cruz’s face frantically.

“Is that what you really think? You think I was with her?” She shakes Cruz’s head between her hands, as if the violence of the movement will make her see the depths to which Aaliyah has fallen.

“No,” Cruz murmurs, winding her hands around Aaliyah’s wrists. “I don’t think that. I don’t even know why I brought it up. I don’t know why I just said any of that. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“You have no idea,” Aaliyah chokes. “You don’t know what it was like, to be without you. I wasn’t here. I was gone, too.”

The boat rocks them back and forth, and her heart races. Her muscles tense with panic.

“I need you. Not her. Not anyone else,” Aaliyah says, her anguish sounding through every syllable. “I need you. Please be here. Don’t leave me, not again.”

Cruz’s eyes ease immediately. She brings one hand to Aaliyah’s neck and massages her skin with her fingers, drawing an exhale from Aaliyah’s lips.

Her touch, her touch.

But Aaliyah knows it isn’t voluntary. Aaliyah has wielded her own desperation to force a response that Cruz hasn’t otherwise been willing to give.

Cruz lifts her up and lies her across the cushioned seats.

“Lie down,” Cruz says into her hair. “Take a breath.”

She doesn’t stay with her. She breaks away again, goes to the helm, and steers them back to the house.

When they idle next to the dock, she turns to her.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Aaliyah tries to slow her tears.

“What was?” she asks between breaths.

“Asking her to be here.”

The hardest thing, for a woman who has lived a lifetime of hard things.

Then she gets off the boat and leaves Aaliyah behind.

--

A week passes.

Sarah leaves, and Cruz thinks, selfishly, that maybe having her gone will allow her to relax.

But it doesn’t, because Aaliyah has a four-year-old daughter who is constantly wrapped around her. Cruz feels joy when she sees it. She feels relief. She feels it’s right.

She also feels that it’s foreign.

Then there’s the fact that they want to spend time with her, these people who have gone out of their way to do what she’s asked of them. Todd tries to get her to watch soccer every afternoon. David hands her a fishing pole every afternoon. Even her mother-in-law pours her glasses of wine.

The only time she really has alone with Aaliyah is at night or in the early morning, in the bed. But when she gets into the bed, she falls asleep instantly, because she hasn’t slept in months.
Aaliyah stays up by her side every night, pressing ice packs into her skin as she sleeps. It’s the only time Cruz lets her get close. They wake in the morning and there are dark circles under Aaliyah’s eyes from lack of sleep. She stares at the bruises on Cruz’s chest, her face creased with worry.

“Please let me take you to a doctor,” she begs. “I really think we should go home.”

Cruz waves her off, repeatedly.

“I’m fine,” she assures her.

Except she isn’t.

When they take the boat out and Aaliyah’s head disappears between her legs, Cruz is met with the feeling of feeling nothing at all. It zaps her senses, takes the ends from all her nerves. It’s humiliating, in a way, to have a body that’s so broken down that it can’t respond to her wife’s tongue.

So she allows her own insecurities to rear their ugly heads and picks a fight with her. She makes insinuations, accuses Aaliyah of doing something with Sarah that Cruz knows she would never do. She screams in her face, grabs at her arms.

She takes it too far. So far that she almost believes what she is accusing her of. So far that she brings Aaliyah to her knees. She falls to the boat deck, one hand over her mouth in distress, and Cruz has never hated herself more than in that instant. Cruz’s forehead splits in pain at the sight of her keeled over, and there’s a moment when Cruz finally feels something again as she holds her.

But then it’s lost to the void, and she can’t get it back.

She ties the boat off on the dock and tears up it, leaving her wife behind in tears. She flies past Todd and he grabs her arm as she tries to pass.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Everything is fine.”

He appraises her uneasily. He’s been looking at her like that since she got back. She’d told him that he and David were free to go. She was home, she could take it from here. But his apprehension was apparent. As though he felt he couldn’t leave, just yet. As though he looked at Cruz and knew that she’s a liability.

His gaze hardens.

“I say this with all the love in the world, Cruz. But I told you I’d kill you if you hurt her,” he whispers. “That still applies, even after everything.”

She rips her arm away.

“I’d never hurt her.”

Her chest hammers with her guilt, because she knows that’s not true. She has hurt her. Aaliyah had said so, on the boat. She looked at Cruz like she was a stranger, like she feared her.

“Really? What do you call that?”

He points to the boat. Aaliyah is sitting with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking.

“It’s not your fucking business if I have an argument with my wife.”

“You made it my business by asking me to be here. And I have been. She went to hell and back, Cruz. Don’t put her through more of it.”

“Yeah? And where do you think I went, Todd? Paradise?”

“No, I think you went to somewhere worse than hell. But it’s not going to help to take it out on her.”

She storms up the dock.

She would never hurt her.

Yet she has, and the fact that Cruz is capable of that sends her into a tailspin.

She trained herself to detach, and she understands day by day what Lara meant when she said it’s difficult to re-attach.

Cruz wonders if this is the way she’ll always be, if the other parts of herself are irretrievably gone, lost to the void that sits right in the center of her sternum.

Cruz drops to the floor and tries to do pushups one morning when she thinks Aaliyah is asleep. She shouldn’t be doing pushups. Her chest blazes with pain. It hurts in her stomach when her abs contract. She continues trying anyway, because feeling pain is at least feeling something.

Aaliyah’s voice stops her.

“You haven’t touched me.”

Cruz’s chest brushes the ground and she can’t push herself back up.

She glances at her. Aaliyah’s back is pressed into the pillows and she’s staring straight ahead. Her eyes are red, sunken in a way that Cruz has never seen. Her affliction is worn there, deep in the lines of her face, the paleness of her skin. It takes away her vibrance, puts a damper on the way her beauty normally shines.

“What are you talking about?”

“Since you got back, you haven’t touched me.”

Cruz pushes herself off the ground and sits next to her on the bed. She wipes the sweat from her palms on her leggings.

“That’s not true, Aaliyah.”

But it is. She’s been keeping herself just out of hand’s reach. It’s easier to maintain distance than face her own inability to feel.

Aaliyah turns her head and looks at her.

“Yes, it is. You couldn’t keep your hands off me, before you left. But you’ve been avoiding it.”

A tremor passes across Aaliyah’s mouth. She throws her hands over her eyes and drops into a pillow.

“I-if this is about sex, I just haven’t been ready,” Cruz whispers.

Aaliyah shakes her head and sighs.

“It isn’t about that. It’s how we talk to each other. How we communicate. We do it through touch. But you’re not letting me touch you. You won’t even let me hold your hand.”

She sits up abruptly and points to the ceiling.

“I’ve been here for six months dreaming about you. I looked at that ceiling every night. You know what I thought about? You holding me. Your arms around me. Mine around you.”

Aaliyah swings her legs over the side of the bed and walks into the bathroom. She strips off her clothes, climbs into the tub and turns the water on. She pulls up her knees and rests her chin on them.

Cruz can’t move. She should go to her. She should get into the tub with her. She should hold her wife.

She doesn’t. She gets up and walks out.

She watches everyone orbit around each other. She watches how seamlessly they’ve established their own routines in this sliver of the universe in which they’ve existed without her for months.

She tries to fit into it. She tries to pick up Ani one morning, but she cowers out of her hands. She doesn’t blame her. She’d cower from her, too. She walked into her bedroom with a gun and took her out of it in the dead of night.

She tries to get used to the layout of the house, the times the sun rises and sets here.

But she can’t wrap her hands around any of it, and it boils over again when she least expects it.

They’re on the beach, and Ani is screaming. She’s having a meltdown. Sand is in her eyes, and she hates sand in her eyes. Aaliyah is on her knees, pouring water from a bottle over her face.

Todd runs to a bag and grabs his phone, plugs it into a portable speaker, and music starts playing.

It’s a song Cruz doesn’t know. The music blends with Ani’s screams, and suddenly there’s sweat on her neck.

She hears it in her head, the video. It’s on a continuous loop. She hears every word, every one of Aaliyah’s screams, every sound she made.

She wipes at her neck and closes her eyes. She has to get out of here.

She stands and walks up the beach. Todd calls after her.

“Where are you going?”

“For a drive,” she says. “Is there a car? Are there keys?”

He eyes her.

“In the garage. They’re in the cupholder in the car.”

She keeps walking. By the time she gets to the garage, the nightmare playing on a loop in her ears grows fainter.

“Cruz,” Aaliyah says.

Cruz turns around.

“Are you leaving?” she whispers.

Cruz rubs her ear.

“No, no. Just going for a drive. Need some air.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Aaliyah opens the garage. There’s a red convertible inside.

“Whose is this?” Cruz asks.

“My mother bought it, to take Ani for drives in.”

“Your mother bought a convertible for a four-year-old? I told her no large purchases.”

“It was cash, Cruz. She paid in cash.”

Cruz opens the door and gets in. Her hand shakes as she puts the keys in the ignition. She pulls her hair into a bun on the bottom of her neck, then waits for Aaliyah to get into the passenger seat.

The wind whips into her skin as she drives down the road. It stings, and she wants it to sting more. It’s drowning out the sounds, and they’re almost completely gone.

Then Aaliyah turns on the radio.

Cruz looks at her.

“What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

She stares back at the road and keeps driving. Five minutes pass, and she can’t take the sound of the music. She turns the knob and lowers it, then breathes.

They keep going. They pass signs. Cruz doesn’t know where she’s driving to. They haven’t said anything to each other, on this drive to nowhere, and Cruz doesn’t know how to fill the silence.

Then Aaliyah reaches for the nob to turn the radio up again, and Cruz snaps at her.

“Don’t turn that up,” she says.

Aaliyah retracts her hand like it’s been burned. Cruz curses at herself under her breath and looks out the window.

“Why can’t I turn the radio up, Cruz?”

She says nothing. She forgot her sunglasses. The sun is blinding her.

“Cruz? Pull over. Pull over now.”

Cruz presses the brakes and pulls to the side of the road. She turns the car off, and bends her head to the steering wheel.

“What is it with the radio? Music was playing when you broke the glass, the first night. It was playing on the beach just now. Tell me what it is.”

Cruz doesn’t know how to tell her. She can’t find the words.

“Why do you keep grabbing your ear, my love? Tell me.”

Cruz gets out of the car. She starts walking. She doesn’t know where she’s going.

“Cruz! You can’t walk away from this. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

Her legs keep moving.

“Is that what you want? You want to leave me again?”

Cruz spins around. She’s strung so tight that she can barely speak.

“You think I wanted to leave you, Aaliyah? Is that what you think?”

She starts crying. Her breathing is chopped, uneven. She takes off back to the car and brushes Aaliyah’s shoulder as she goes. She gets to the passenger side, and then her legs go weak.

“I don’t belong here,” she sobs. “I don’t know how to be here. You have a life without me. You have a daughter. I haven’t been here. I have no idea where I am.” She gestures around them, as if to convey that she isn’t really here at all.

Aaliyah approaches quickly and reaches her arms out to take her, but Cruz falls back into the car.

“No, don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me.”

She clutches the side of the car like it’s the only thing keeping her standing. 

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

Aaliyah stares at her, unmoving.

“Tell you what?” she asks quietly.

“How badly he hurt you?”

Aaliyah reaches for her own stomach instantly, as though Cruz has reminded her of exactly where he beat her. It reaches a crescendo in Cruz’s ears.

“I did tell you, Cruz. I told you, on that car ride to Nantucket. You asked.”

“You said it was only bruises.”

Aaliyah runs her hand through her hair.

“It was—”

“No!” Cruz shouts. “No, it wasn’t. I know what it was, Aaliyah. And you never told me.”

“What good would it have done if I had?”

“Because I would have killed him sooner,” Cruz says through clenched teeth.

Aaliyah takes a step forward, but Cruz’s palm flies up again to keep the distance between them.

“Don’t, Aaliyah. I need you to stay away. Give me space.”

Aaliyah’s face hardens.

“We need to go home, Cruz. We need to get off this island. Neither of us belongs here.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“What?” Aaliyah breathes, her voice filled with trepidation.

“I don’t know if I can just go back to—to that life, right now.”

“What does that mean? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying leave me be. Just leave me be.”

“Fine,” Aaliyah says, holding out her hand. “But give me the keys. You’re not driving back like this.”

Cruz tosses them to her and gets into the passenger seat.

They don’t look at each other the entire ride back.

--

Later that night, Cruz sits on the side of the bed as Aaliyah tries desperately to get Ani to hold still as she pours eye drops in her eyes. They’re red and stinging still from the sand.

Hot tears are flying down Ani’s cheeks because she hadn’t slept the night before. And she didn’t sleep the night before because she tried to climb into bed with them, and Cruz screamed so loud again that she fell into hysterics instantly.

“Please calm down, baby. Let me do this for you,” Aaliyah pleads with her, trying to hold her squirming body on the toilet.

“I don’t want them, I don’t want them!” Ani shouts.

Aaliyah hangs her head.

“Cruz,” she says over her shoulder, like a plea. “Can you please hold her? For a second? I have to get this in her eye.”

Cruz stands and stares at them. Her wife, and her wife’s daughter.

“No,” she says flatly.

Aaliyah’s head snaps up.

“What?”

“No, I can’t hold her.”

She walks out.

--
The next morning, Aaliyah knows before she even opens her eyes that Cruz is gone.

It’s there, in the air around her. Her absence has created a shift in the universe, one Aaliyah feels before she even discovers it.

She sits up in the bed. Ani is asleep beside her on Cruz’s pillow, where Cruz should be. But she’s not.

She sees the note on the table. She stands and picks it up. There’s only one line.

I have to try to get myself right. I’m going to Kim’s. I’ll call you, when you get back.

There is no “I love you.” There is no “I’ll see you soon.” There is no “I’ll come home.”

The words are empty. Hollow.

Aaliyah sinks down onto the mattress.

Cruz has chosen to leave her again.

She walks downstairs.

Her mother is sitting at the table with a cup of coffee. Todd and David left, the night before. Aaliyah sent them away, because she knew that the gap was widening. Because she knew that it needed to be just the two of them if she had any hope of closing it.

“Mama.”

She turns to look at her. Aaliyah clutches Cruz’s note in one hand.

“What did you mean, when you told that woman that you did it to keep me safe?”

This wasn’t what she intended to ask. She doesn’t know where the question comes from.

“Did what?”

“You said you knew, all along. You said you gave Baba to her, on a platter.”

“Because he was going to have you killed,” she says, as though this revelation is not earth-shattering.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that he was on to you. He found you out, your preferences with women. You would have continued them, with Ms. Manuelos, even if it was life or death for you to do so.”

She sets the coffee mug down and smiles.

“A remarkable thing, if you think about it. The way the two of you are so keen on dying for each other.”

Aaliyah sits down next to her.

“I need to ask you to do something for me, Mama.”

Her mom flicks her wrist.

“Go, Aaliyah.”

“What?”

“That’s what you were going to ask, right? For me to watch her, when you go after her? I’ve already made arrangements.”

“You have?”

“I ordered furniture, for my apartment. Her bedroom will be ready this afternoon. And I’ve planned a trip, for the two of us. You can go.”

“I feel guilty, leaving her again.”

Her mother smiles.

“Welcome to motherhood. All it is is guilt.”

--
A day later, Cruz unlocks the door to Kim’s restaurant. She’d gotten in the night before, and Kim had done all she could to pour soups and teas down her throat like they were healing potions.

But they’d done nothing.

She spent the afternoon at the gym, punching a bag relentlessly. It made her insides burn, as if her skin was splitting at the seams. Her knuckles are bloodied. Her hands throb.

Still, it hasn’t gone away. She turns the volume up in her headphones and rap music vibrates in her ears as she steps into the restaurant. She flicks the lights on.

She stops in her tracks when she sees her.

She’s sitting at a table in the corner, Mr. Beans at her feet. Their table. The one they always sit at. The one they sat at the first time she came to this restaurant. The one they sat at when she came back a second time, that Valentine’s Day that feels like a lifetime ago.

She crosses one leg over the other and sits back in her seat, her eyes inscrutable.

Cruz slowly pulls her headphones around her neck.

“What are you doing here?”

She doesn’t react. She doesn’t blink. She points to the chair on the other side of the table.

“Sit down.”

Cruz doesn’t move.

Her hand stays lifted, pointing to the chair.

“Sit down, Cruz.”

Cruz looks around the restaurant helplessly.

“They’re gone. She took Sammie to piano practice. It’s just us.”

Cruz walks slowly to the table and sits across from her.

Aaliyah is stone-faced, unreadable.

She throws Cruz’s one-lined note onto the table like it’s trash being thrown into a can. Then she folds her hands in her lap and her eyes bore a hole into Cruz’s body.

“What is this?” she says, her words whipping through the air.

“I didn’t know how to say it to you, so I—”

“Are you my wife?”

Cruz flounders. Her jaw clenches and unclenches.

“What?”

“Answer the question. You made me answer yours, on that boat. Now you’re going to answer mine.”

“Of course I am, Aaliyah,” she whispers.

Aaliyah smacks the table with her hand and it wobbles immediately.

“No, you aren’t,” she says, and Cruz watches Aaliyah’s mouth move as she grinds her teeth.

“My wife,” she says, pointing to her own chest, “Does not speak this way.” She waves the piece of paper in the air then crumbles it into her fist. “She doesn’t say she’ll call me, after being gone for six months. She doesn’t leave without saying I love you.”

She throws the paper behind her shoulder and it falls to the ground.

“You’re here, but you’re still gone. It’s only your body. The rest of you never really came back.”

Cruz says nothing.

Her eyes move slowly to Cruz’s hands. She takes in her bloody knuckles, the redness. The way one of her fingers swells on her right hand, because she punched the bag without a glove for ten minutes straight, until it broke.

Aaliyah stands in one fluid movement, and Cruz springs up with her.

Aaliyah’s gaze is fire.

“You aren’t going anywhere,” she commands, and Cruz falls back into her seat.

She disappears into the kitchen and comes out a minute later with a first aid kit.

She holds out her palm, and Cruz stares into it.

“Give me your hand, Cruz.”

“Aaliyah—”

“Give it to me.”

Her eyes are resolute, determined. Cruz feels they might eviscerate her, if she holds her gaze for too long.

She puts her fist into Aaliyah’s palm like she’s about to get handcuffed.

Aaliyah starts on her pinky finger. She cleans it slowly with a piece of gauze. She removes an alcohol swab from a packet, then brushes it against Cruz’s skin.

“You remember when you cleaned that cut on my wrist, in Nantucket?”

“Why can’t you just—”

“Answer me.”

She rubs antibiotic cream into the cut and affixes a band-aid to it.

“Yes,” Cruz sighs.

Aaliyah stares in concentration as she wipes the blood from the next finger.

“I understood it, then. What happens to me, when you touch me. You were only holding my wrist at first. Then you kissed my palm. And my whole body went like this,” she snaps her fingers quickly. “Like a match, the second it gets lit.”

She blows on her finger to dry it before affixing another band-aid.

“And it happens to you, in the same way. When I touch you. Sometimes I feel you shaking under my hands. Like I’m causing an earthquake, in your body.”

She finishes off Cruz’s left hand, then holds her palm out for the other.

Cruz offers it willingly this time.

Aaliyah brings it to her face and peers at it closely.

“Is this finger broken?” she asks quietly.

Cruz looks away.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

She fishes out sports tape from the kit and starts cutting pieces, then circles them around Cruz’s fingers.

“You’re scared, because you can’t feel it right now. That’s why you won’t let me touch you.”

Cruz pulls back.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she says, her voice lower than a whisper.

Aaliyah folds her arms across her chest.

“Why was it that you didn’t tell me you were leaving, Cruz?”

“Which time?”

Aaliyah smiles sadly.

“In March.”

“Because I’m not as strong as you think I am. You would’ve made me stay, and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you no.”

The lines in Aaliyah’s throat pulse rapidly. The movement tells Cruz that she’s holding something back, fighting to stay reserved.

“Not as strong as I think you are?” Aaliyah shakes her head. “This, from someone who risked her life so that I could keep mine?”

Aaliyah looks up to the ceiling and blinks quickly, and Cruz thinks at first that it’s just an exasperated gesture. But it’s only a maneuver to keep her tears from falling.

She looks her dead on again.

“And why didn’t you ever give me a clue of where you’d be, in all these months?”

“Because—because you would’ve come after me. You couldn’t know. Just like I couldn’t know where you were,” Cruz whispers.

“Strange,” Aaliyah says absently, looking to the wall with Kim’s family photos. There’s one of the two of them, standing outside of the restaurant with Sammie between them. They’re all smiling hard for the camera.

“Strange,” she repeats, “because this time around, you told me exactly where you’d be.” She nods backward toward the crumbled-up piece of paper on the floor.

“I’m going to Kim’s,” she says in an American accent, copying Cruz’s voice. “That’s what you wrote.”

She cocks her head to one side.

“Why do you think you wrote that?”

Cruz squirms in the chair.

“You’re answering my questions, remember?”

“I don’t know,” Cruz murmurs.

Her eyes narrow.

“I think you do. I think you wrote it because you knew I wouldn’t just let you walk away like this. I think you knew I’d come.” She taps the table. “That I’d follow you right here.”

Cruz tugs at her earlobe. It’s there, again. The evil choir, in her eardrum. It takes up all the real estate in her head.

Please just make it stop, she pleads.

“What is it that you hear?”

Cruz shakes her head.

“I don’t want to—”

“Yes you do. I’m here because you told me where you’d be. Because you knew I’d come.”

She raises her eyebrows as Cruz opens her mouth again in objection, but before she gets a word out, Aaliyah slices the air with her hand.

“Enough,” she says in a rush. She collects her hair in one hand and tosses it over her shoulder. “It’s not going to work on me, Cruz. You can’t push me away, no matter how hard you try.”

Cruz crosses and uncrosses her legs under the table.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Start by telling me what happened. Tell me what they did to you.”

“I got shot, Aaliyah. Isn’t it obvious?”

Aaliyah examines her carefully, then shakes her head, unsatisfied with the answer.

“No, that’s not what it is. That’s just on the exterior.”

Cruz pushes out from the table and slides her chair back. Aaliyah stands immediately with her.

“You’re not walking away. I’m not letting you.”

“Yes, I am,” Cruz says lowly, rubbing her ear like it’s just been lit on fire. “I told you I need space.”

She tries to walk past and Aaliyah steps in front of her. They stand, chest-to-chest.

“You don’t need space, Cruz. You need me. Sit down, now.”

She points again to the table, and Cruz feels her body start to twitch.

She sidesteps her, but Aaliyah moves with her instantly, blocking her path again.

“Sit. Down. Now.”

“I’m not fucking sitting down!” she screams.

Aaliyah doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t even blink.

Cruz throws her headphones to the ground and kicks them into the wall.

“Do you want to know? You really want to know? He put headphones in my ears. He played a video on a loop for two days. All I listened to was you screaming. Him kicking you. Beating you. For two days, that’s all I heard.”

She grabs the headphones off the floor and bangs them repeatedly onto the table.

“You were begging for help. But I couldn’t make it stop. I couldn’t help you.”

She feels delirious. She doesn’t know what she’s saying, anymore. She throws her hands over her ears as the assault of her wife plays like theme music in her head.

Maybe this is it, she thinks. Maybe this is what it’s like to go insane.

She collapses back into the chair and slams the headphones into the table until they splinter into pieces.

Aaliyah walks calmly to her side and kneels before her. She places her hands on her thighs.

“You did help me. You did. Now you have to let me help you, my love.”

Aaliyah collects her hands gently and brings one to her lips.

“Don’t touch me,” Cruz cries. “Please don’t.”

She tries to push her off, but Aaliyah clutches her hands like they’re a lifeline. She presses her lips to Cruz’s knuckles.

“No, I’m not letting go,” she says between kisses. “I’m not letting you do this. I’m not letting you pull away.”

Cruz shoves her head into the wall.

“Look at me, Cruz. Look into my eyes.”

Cruz stares into them.

Her favorite color, in the world.

“I’m not letting go,” Aaliyah whispers again.

“It hurts,” Cruz wheezes. “It hurts. I can’t stop hearing it.”

Aaliyah finally flinches, like someone has stuck a knife in her gut.

She pulls Cruz down onto the ground next to her.

“I know it does. But I’m going to make it stop hurting for you. I will take care of this, ok? You did everything else. I’m going to take care of this.”

She presses her lips over Cruz’s fingers.

“Do you hear it now, my love?”

Cruz nods slowly.

“Is there anything that makes it stop?”

Cruz exhales.

“You. Your singing. That’s what I thought of, when it was happening.”

Aaliyah traces the shell of her ear.

Then she starts, with just a hum. It’s low at first, a buildup. The melody becomes soothing words, one’s Cruz has never heard her sing before.

Her voice rises and falls in tune, cracks every now and then because she’s crying now, too.

But she keeps it together, long enough that she’s eventually all Cruz hears.

--

She sings for an hour straight. Cruz stares up at the ceiling, her head resting on her thigh. Aaliyah watches her the entire time.

She stops and clears her throat. She taps Cruz on the shoulder.

“It’s time to go now.”

Cruz looks at her.

“Go where?”

Aaliyah stretches her legs out then stands. She reaches a hand down to help Cruz up, but Cruz doesn’t take it.

“Come. We’re leaving.”

“What are you talking about? Where are we going?”

“Somewhere you can breathe.”

Cruz sits motionless.

Aaliyah squats down and places her palm on Cruz’s chest.

“I can’t think of a single time you’ve said no to me,” she whispers. “And you aren’t going to start now. There’s a car outside. I’m getting into it. You’re going to sit here and watch me walk out, and then you’re going to follow me.”

She straightens herself and wipes her hands together, like she’s knocking off grime.

“Sound like a plan?” Aaliyah asks, staring down at her.

Cruz blinks, and Aaliyah leaves.

Cruz has never heard this restaurant so quiet. It’s always alive, bustling with customers or Kim and Sammie. But it’s silent, inactive. The only thing Cruz can hear is the clock ticking on the wall beside her.

And the fact that silence is the only thing in her ear leaves her dumbfounded.

Mr. Beans jumps into her lap and stares her right in the face, his cat eyes hypercritical. He nuzzles her gently, and she hears his message loud and clear.

She stands up, machine-like. She walks to the door. She turns off the lights. She gets into the car, and Aaliyah doesn’t even look up.

She hands Cruz a pair of sunglasses.

“You’ll need these,” she says, staring out the window.

They drive for an hour. The driver, a man Cruz does not recognize, moves to turn on the radio. Aaliyah snaps at him instantly.

“Do not turn that on,” she barks.

They get to an airfield, and there’s a helicopter.

“Come,” Aaliyah says, taking her hand.

“You—you chartered a helicopter?” Cruz stutters.

“Nothing to worry about, right? No one’s tracking us.” Aaliyah answers. “You killed him. He’s dead. You’ll tell me how you did it, eventually. I want to hear. But now I’m going to spend my money in whatever way I want to, and we’re getting in that helicopter.”

She pulls Cruz forward and they board. She holds her hand the entire way, and then they land.

“Here?” Cruz asks.

Aaliyah nods.

“You said you could breathe here, remember? Years ago. So we’re going to go breathe.”

“For how long? What about Ani?”

Aaliyah’s eyes zero in on her mouth the second Cruz says her name.

It’s the first time she’s uttered it aloud.

“As long as it takes. She’ll be fine. My mother’s going to learn how to take care of a child for the first time on her own.”

Cruz looks out the window. The ocean shimmers on the coast.

“I don’t have clothes here,” Cruz mutters.

Aaliyah laughs.

“I took care of that.”

She steps out of the helicopter and Cruz follows her. They get into another car, and Aaliyah rolls the window down just as they pass a sign welcoming them to Nantucket.

Chapter Text

They get to the property before noon.

Aaliyah hasn’t been here in over a year, and they haven’t been here together since the last time, when she left her behind in that cabin.

But it looks unchanged. The main house, shingled and alive with New England charm. The surrounding cabins, smaller replicas that look as though they were born from the home in the center. Her mother purchased the property when they came to the States.

“Why do we need this?” Aaliyah had asked, gazing up at it skeptically when they first visited. She was used to modern houses, one’s with pomp and circumstance that were closer to civilization. This one sits at the edge of an island, antique-like and seemingly divorced from the rest of the world.

“Because we deserve some peace and quiet. And this is where we’ll find it,” her mother had said.

She opens the door and prays they find it now.

They walk inside, and it smells stuffy and damp, like a place that has not been lived in. She goes room to room and opens every window. She’d called ahead to have it cleaned before they got there, and yet dust still flies off the furniture as she passes. She grabs a cloth and wipes it everywhere she can find.

She feels Cruz’s eyes trail her the entire time. She watches Aaliyah apprehensively, as though she is frightened to come too close. Aaliyah let’s her keep her distance.

When the sun begins to set, Aaliyah finds her standing at the end of the dock with her arms folded. It’s the golden hour, and yet she is cast in a shadow, a lonesome figure staring out to sea.

Aaliyah approaches her from behind and wraps her arms around her.

“That’s the real ocean,” Aaliyah says. “Nothing like Florida.” Cruz wrinkles her nose, then laughs.

It’s the first time she’s heard her wife laugh in months.

“It’s all ocean, isn’t it?”

Aaliyah shakes her head.

“No, that smells like the sea. And the sea smells beautiful. It smelled like nothing in Florida.”

Cruz unfolds Aaliyah’s arms gently and nods.

She still doesn’t want me to touch her, Aaliyah thinks.

They sidestep around each other for the rest of the night, until they get too tired of the awkward dance and sit down on a couch in the family room. Aaliyah tries to ignore how Cruz sits one cushion over. Aaliyah pulls a pillow into her chest and clutches it tightly, then takes a deep breath.

“What do you want to watch?” Aaliyah asks, flipping through the channels.

“You pick,” Cruz says.

Aaliyah chooses a random romantic comedy, with the hope that it will suck the awkwardness out of the room and fill it with laughter.

Cruz watches, but Aaliyah doesn’t think she sees any of it.

An hour in, she crawls toward her and lays her head into her lap. Cruz taps her hair once, a touch that barely registers, and then she withdraws her hand.

They don’t laugh a single time.

--
Aaliyah wakes up to an empty bed just as the sun begins to rise. The window is open, and the sound of insects and birds chirping filters in. There’s a crack, and then another. She looks up to the ceiling, fearing it is caving in.

It is, she thinks. It’s all caving in.

Then another ear-splitting crack fills the air, and she realizes it’s coming from outside. She goes to the window. Cruz is standing in the yard with an axe, sending it violently into pieces of wood. They splinter and come apart. She’s wearing a sports bra and athletic shorts, and her entire body ripples with every movement.

Aaliyah grabs a robe and goes downstairs.

She watches the muscles in her back move and shift as she swings the axe back and then down.

“Cruz.”

Her shoulders jump and she whips her head around.

“Shit. You scared me.”

“What are you doing?”

“Chopping wood,” she says, pointing to a pile next to her. At least two dozen pieces are stacked there neatly.

“How long have you been out here?”

She wipes her brow and flicks sweat from her hand.

“I don’t know, an hour?”

“You did all of that in an hour?”

She shrugs her shoulders.

“You shouldn’t be doing this with your—”

“I’m fine, Aaliyah.”

Aaliyah goes to the pile and stares at it. She picks up a piece and runs her fingers over it, then looks back to her.

“Why are you chopping wood?”

“There’s a fireplace,” Cruz says. “In the sunroom. And another in the living room”

“But it’s summer.”

“I figured if you come back here with her in the winter, you could use it.”

She turns back around and raises the axe.

“You mean if we come back here.”

She stills with it suspended over her head in mid-air, then lowers it slowly.

“Yeah,” she mutters over her shoulder. “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”

She has never sounded less convincing.

Aaliyah walks away to the noise of the wood splintering behind her. She walks inside and closes herself into a bathroom, then climbs into the shower. She collapses her head against the tiles, breathing deeply.

I can do this, she tells herself. She’s going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.

Aaliyah avoids close encounters with her for the rest of the day, sensing that Cruz is not ready for them. Her body broadcasts its weariness. She’s jumpy, constantly agitated. Her eyes look unclear, terrorized by something that Aaliyah cannot protect her from.

By nightfall, Aaliyah begins to question whether she can really do this at all. She questions whether Cruz has gone to a place she cannot reach. It occurs to her that maybe she miscalculated. Cruz needs help. She needs a professional. Aaliyah had known this from the moment she returned. Maybe that’s where she needs to be right now. Maybe she needs something that Aaliyah is incapable of giving.

More disturbing, though, is Aaliyah’s fear that she needs something Cruz is incapable of giving, too.

Aaliyah has gone through life confident in her looks and the way she can use her body to draw others in. And yet for the first time, she feels unwanted.

Her wife will barely look at her. Her wife will barely touch her.

The self-doubt creeps in like a poison and distracts from the reason she brought them here.

She’s here to put her back together. She’s here to put them back together. She recites it like a mantra in her mind.

Her mother calls that night and puts Ani on the phone. Aaliyah presses the speaker button as she makes a cup of tea over the stove.

“Mami,” her voice comes through excitedly. “We went to the toy store.”

She recounts how the toys were stacked on the shelves, the dolls and the dinosaurs and the stuffed animals. She jabbers on about how her mother bought her one of everything. She speaks of it with childish wonder, as though she has never witnessed such a thing, and Aaliyah comprehends it all at once.

Her shoulders sink to the ground.

She missed her daughter’s first time in a toy store.

When she hangs up, she turns and finds Cruz leaning against the arched entryway to the kitchen, observing her from behind. Her gaze is enigmatic, darkened.

“I’m going to bed,” Cruz says.

“Ok.”

She walks away and Aaliyah eyes her cup of tea. She empties it into the sink and goes to the bar on the side of the kitchen. She throws the cabinets open and fishes around until she finds a bottle of vodka. When she pulls it out, she recognizes it instantly.

It’s one Sarah bought, after she found Cruz and Aaliyah in the boathouse.

She stares down at the bottle and laughs bitterly.

She unscrews the cap then takes a sip. It burns down her throat. She closes her eyes and remembers how Sarah had thrown another bottle at the wall in the bedroom. Aaliyah had stepped over the broken shards of glass and realized all at once that she and Sarah had never moved each other in the way they should have.

Aaliyah hears the door to the bedroom upstairs closing, and wonders if she and Cruz have moved each other so much that they are now oceans apart.

She carries the bottle outside and stares at the boathouse, as though it is the only place that can provide her sanctuary. She opens the door, and the smell hits her instantly.

Mothballs. Mustiness. The smell of their sex, their naked bodies. Cruz had been right. She had begged for her, in this boathouse. She had begged for her to take her harder, because she was desperate for her touch.

She’s desperate for it now too, so much so that she would take her hand anywhere at this point.

She grabs a blanket from a shelf and throws it to the ground, then sits on top of it. She brings the bottle to her lips and takes a long chug.

The bench is in the corner, where it was the last time, when her grief shook her until she collapsed on top of it because she thought her daughter was gone. The vodka starts to replay it all for her, how she fell into Cruz’s arms. How Cruz rocked her back and forth, then laid her down on the wooden planks and breathed life into her stomach.

She takes another endless gulp, and she keeps going until the sharpness she feels in her chest begins to ease. She keeps going until the world swirls a bit together, and she lies down and stares to the ceiling. She likes that it swirls. She likes feeling under the influence of something other than her own fear that she cannot set any of this right.

She finishes the bottle, then closes her eyes. They’re drenched in tears, because she has been crying. The vodka made her barely notice that, too.

She awakens to someone shouting her name.

She blinks in confusion. Everything is out of focus. She moves to sit up, but the boathouse spins around her, the center of a tornado. Maybe she is the tornado. Or maybe this is the eye of the storm, and she’s caught in the middle.

The shouting continues, and she clutches the sides of her head.

Her hand knocks into the empty bottle next to her, and a sober thought filters through her mind as she realizes that she is inebriated in a way she has never been.

“AALIYAH!”

She recognizes it as her wife’s voice.

Her wife, who is calling for her.

Her wife, who sounds maddened with panic.

She wants to call back to her, but if she opens her mouth it might all come screaming out of her, the vodka and despair and grief because she has everything back and yet nothing at all.

And then there is a figure standing over her. She comes into focus. Cruz’s face is wet, and Aaliyah wants to tell her that she can’t swim. Not with those stiches, not with the risk that her skin might come undone. It can’t be good, to have the sea filter through the holes in her body.

The wetness drips down onto her, and she understands, then, that her wife is not wet from a swim. Her wife is wet from her tears.

“I couldn’t find you,” she sobs over her. “Why are you out here? What are you doing out here?”

She hovers over her, and Aaliyah sees it then, in her hand. The outline of it. It’s black, deadly. The gun.

“Why do you have that?” she whispers, and her words are now the swirl, syllables blended together and indecipherable.

“Because I couldn’t find you,” she repeats frantically. “You were nowhere.”

Then she’s gone for an instant, out of view.

“Did you drink all of this?”

Aaliyah isn’t sure who the question is for. She opens her eyes and looks around.

There’s the bottle. The cap is gone.

Oh, she thinks. Yes. I did.

Then there’s a hand on her cheek. Aaliyah leans into it.

“You drank all of that? Why?”

Now both of her hands are on her face.

“Why did you do that, baby girl?”

She looks up into her dark eyes. She wants to tell her that she didn’t mean to, but that it felt good anyway. She wants to tell her that she’s scared, because it shouldn’t have felt good to lose herself in this swirl.

But there’s something else she wants to say more.

“Do you love me?”

Cruz’s grip on her face falters for a second.

If she answers, Aaliyah doesn’t hear it.

“Come on,” she’s saying to her, pulling Aaliyah into a sitting position. When she comes up, the world spins in a never-ending circle.

“No,” she says, pushing her away. “No, leave me.”

“I’m not leaving you in here. We’re going inside.”

“No, we aren’t. Go, Cruz.”

Her hands find the underside of Aaliyah’s arms and Aaliyah smacks them away again.

“You don’t want me,” she slurs. “Just leave me.”

“Aaliyah, please,” she says, her voice riddled with exhaustion.

She tries to ignore how the wooden panels on the wall behind Cruz’s head are a blurry vortex, how the wall itself is moving when it shouldn’t be.

“I left her,” Aaliyah murmurs. “I left her again. She went to the toy store. I wasn’t there.”

Cruz peers down at her, expressionless.

“It’s dangerous,” Aaliyah snaps at her. “All of this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I told you. I told you, in that cabin. We’re destructive. That’s why I didn’t choose you at first. That’s why it took me nine months. There’s your answer,” she lashes out again.

Aaliyah grabs the blanket between her hands and pounds it to the floor.

“It’s dangerous, how much I love you. That’s what’s dangerous. It was going to kill me, when you were gone. And now you’re back and it’s still going to kill me. So there you have it. That’s why. It terrified me that it might come to this. Because I have no control over what you make me feel. Because you can destroy me.”

She throws her hands over her eyes, because now the swirl is too much. She isn’t sure what she was thinking, why she ever thought she enjoyed it in the first place.

“And I can destroy you. Look at you. Look what’s happened to you,” she says, pointing at her. “I destroyed you.”

She isn’t sure if she’ll remember these words, her drunken soliloquy, and she doesn’t quite care one way or another as she stares into her face.

“Is that a good enough answer? Do you still need more from me?”

“No, I don’t need more,” Cruz says, her voice unfazed. “Can you come inside with me now?”

“I-I can’t get up,” she stammers. “Just let me stay here.”

Then her face comes into focus. All of her dark features have softened. And Aaliyah knows that look. She knows who this is. She’s seen her before.

Her wife.

“You don’t need to get up, my love,” Cruz whispers back. “I’m carrying you.”

Then she’s in the air, floating through it. She sees grass and the pool and the ocean beyond it and then the wood, the splintered wood, the handle of the axe, and then they’re inside.

“Drink this,” Cruz is saying to her. “Drink this, it’ll help in the morning.”

She’s sitting on the island, and Cruz is standing between her legs tipping a glass to her lips. She opens her mouth and lets her pour the liquid into her, as though she is a child. A child, who left her own behind again.

She knocks the glass away and it crashes to the floor.

“You didn’t answer. I asked you if you loved me. You didn’t answer.”

Then she’s floating again, and there is a banister in her line of sight. She hears Cruz panting, because her body is held together by stitches and yet she is climbing up steps with Aaliyah in her arms.

She is carrying her, when the converse was meant to occur. Aaliyah is supposed to be the one doing this. Aaliyah is supposed to be the one lifting her, not the other way around.

She’s stronger than me, Aaliyah thinks, another sober though pushing through the intoxication. She’s stronger than everyone.

Aaliyah’s body goes down and she’s caught by pillows, and Cruz comes down on top of her.

Cruz cradles her head, and Aaliyah isn’t sure if she imagines what happens next. She isn’t sure if it’s just a product of her drunkenness, wishful thinking. But she welcomes it, even if it is.

Cruz’s lips, brushing against her forehead. Once, twice. Kissing down the sides of her face, to her cheeks. Hot, wet.

Then the words, whispered into her temple. Maybe another figment of her imagination, but she listens to them anyway.

“I don’t just love you. I exist for you.”

--

The throbbing is unlike any other.

It bangs on the sides of her head when the room enters her vision. It’s dark, the shades drawn to keep out the assault of the light.

She moves but there is no bed beneath her. There are arms around her instead, holding her in place.

“I’ve got you, baby girl,” she says into her ear. “Do you feel sick again?”

Then she realizes that she’s on the floor, in the bathroom. She’s reclining into a chest. Her chest. Her wife’s chest. These are her arms, around her. There’s a blanket over them, a fuzzy white one. It slips, whisper soft, against Aaliyah’s skin.

“Sick?” she asks.

Then she feels them. That’s Cruz’s hand, wrapped across one thigh and landing on the other. That’s her other hand, pressed into her shoulder, propelled by an arm across her chest.

She ceased to remember this part. How lovely it is, to be propped up against her. To lean into her. To be held by her.

“You got sick this morning,” Cruz says into the side of her head. “A few times.”

“What?”

She blinks, and her tongue is chalk.

Her wife’s arms are around her. She got sick. Because she drank a bottle and cried herself to sleep. It all rushes back.

“You can’t do that again, Aaliyah. You can’t disappear.”

“I didn’t disappear,” she mutters, her words heavy still with the aftermath of the vodka. “I was right outside.”

“Come on,” she says.

Then she’s being pulled up. She stands, and she realizes she is in nothing but underwear and one of Cruz’s long sleeve shirts.

“Where are my clothes?”

“In the washing machine. You got sick on them.”

The shower turns on, and the room fills with steam.

“How did I get in these?”

Cruz turns back to her, confusion wrinkling in the space between her eyebrows.

“I put you in them.”

Aaliyah’s heart beats with disappointment. Her wife took her clothes off and she wasn’t even conscious when it happened. She laughs then, and it comes out as a harsh cry. It is so very unfortunate, to want this woman so badly that she would settle for a moment of vomit-induced, drunken nakedness in her arms.

Cruz pulls the shower curtain back.

“Are you ok? Do you feel like you’re going to get sick again?”

“No,” Aaliyah says, rubbing the sides of her eyes. “No. Just a headache.”

“Get in the shower. I’ll go to the store, we don’t have Advil here.”

Then she walks out, before Aaliyah can ask her not to go. Before Aaliyah can ask her to stay. To climb into the shower with her. To keep her arms around her.

--
It takes five bottles of water for Aaliyah to find her feet again. She walks slowly into the kitchen, pressing her fingers into the center of her forehead as the headache labors on.

Cruz is outside again, chopping more wood for a winter that won’t come for months. She comes into the kitchen drenched in sweat, her hands covered in dirt.

“Did you take the Advil?” she asks her.

Aaliyah nods.

She nods back. She leans against the island and crosses her arms.

Gone is the soft look. Maybe it was never there, to begin with. Maybe Aaliyah imagined it all.

“You can go to her,” she mumbles, looking to the ground.

“What?”

“Ani. You can go be with her. You should be with her. I don’t want to be what’s keeping you from her.”

Then she walks down the hall, and the shower begins to run seconds later.

Aaliyah parses through her words, but is unable to discern what the message is. Whether she wants her to stay. Whether she wants her to go. Whether she’s guilty that she’s here. Whether she wants her at all.

Aaliyah opens the refrigerator and stares into its emptiness. They’ve already gone through the food she had delivered before they arrived.

She leaves a note on the island that she’s going to the grocery store, then heads out into the sunshine with sunglasses and a sixth bottle of water.

She drives to the market. It’s a charming, shingled building with stands of fresh produce outside, the type that could only exist in a beachside town. She grabs a cart and pushes it toward a selection of plums.

She selects one and fingers it in her hand, but it feels too hard.

“Alex.”

She turns into a man with yellow-blonde hair. He takes his ray ban’s off. Blue-grey eyes, reptilian in shape.

“Clark.”

Her one-night stand that turned into a three-day long weekend the first time she came to Nantucket. He was precisely what she was looking for, when she stepped into this world as Alexandra Abadi. A noncommittal, no strings attached body who gave her just enough pleasure.

He was also a total fuck boy. Todd had told her as much, when he evicted him from her property upon discovering him in Aaliyah’s kitchen.

“Get out of here, Ken,” he’d shouted like a tyrant.

“His name is Clark,” Aaliyah had snapped at him.

“He looks like a Ken. And you are not a Barbie, honey.”

“Really? Then what am I?”

“A queen. He won’t worship you, he only worships himself.”

But he had worshiped her body, and that had been enough. She had been searching for it like buried treasure, at the time. That euphoria that Cruz’s hands gave her, in the hotel in New York. She wasn’t sure if it could be replicated. She was chasing after a duplicate.

She’d never found it. Not in him. Not in Sarah. Not in anyone.

She blushes at the memory of him as she peers up into his face.

“How’ve you been?” he asks, his voice perpetually low in just the way she remembers. He speaks like he is sharing a scantily clad secret, all the time.

“Good,” she says. “And you?”

He flashes a smile.

“I’ve been great.”

She nods her head and then his eyes swing up and down her body, unashamedly. His mouth opens, and she can see his tongue.

She’s wearing an outfit that she fished, blindly, out of her closet: a camisole that ends at her midriff because she’d shrunken it in the dryer too many times, a pair of ripped jean shorts that are perhaps too short for a man like this. She looks down at herself and realizes how ridiculous it is. It looks like something a teenager would throw together and parade around in, begging to be looked at.

“You look beautiful, as always,” he remarks, appraising her like she is a piece of fine art he’s considering buying.

It comes reflexively, then. The flutter, between her thighs. The feeling of being desired, even when this is not the person she wants to be desired by.

She laughs and looks away.

Then his hand finds her shoulder, and it brushes over her bare skin lightly.

“The good ones are inside.”

“What?”

“The good plums,” he says.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, they’re the ones that sort of like,” he brings his fist to his lips, then releases his fingers outward, “explode, in your mouth, when you bite in.”

He pulls her by the arm.

“Come on, I’ll show you where they are.”

She stays rooted in place, and he turns back to her and laughs.

“It’s just plums, Alex. Don’t get all shy on me.”

She follows behind him until they reach another stand. He plucks three plums out at once and throws them into a plastic bag, then hands them to her.

“So are you here for the summer? Or just a visit?”

“A visit,” she answers.

Then his eyes dart to her hand. He looks for it, a ring on that finger. Only it’s not there. She had taken it off that morning, because her fingers were swollen from the effects of the vodka bath she dunked herself in the night before.

“Nice,” he says. “Still have that property, around the corner?”

“Mmmhmm.”

He smiles, showing his freakishly white teeth.

“Do you remember when—”

“I better get going,” she cuts him off.

She pushes her cart away and flies through the store quickly. She buys everything Cruz loves. Fruits and pastas and protein powder and fish of all types and pesto and loaves of French bread and Nutella and endless energy drinks and oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies and eggs and bacon and more eggs because she sometimes drinks them raw, something Aaliyah has always hated. She throws things into the cart in excess and tries to move quickly, because she’s bumped into him in nearly every aisle.

She gets to the line to cash out and when the cashier rings her up, she realizes suddenly that she has forgotten her purse at home. The hangover flares in her stomach as she collapses her head into her hands.

“This can’t be happening,” she says under her breath.

“Everything ok?”

She turns and he’s there again, in line behind her.

“I forgot my purse,” she says, making no effort to hide her irritation.

He quickly takes his wallet out and slides two crisp one hundred dollar bills into the cashier’s hands.

“No,” she says. “No, Clark I don’t—”

“It’s fine, don’t worry. It’s not a big deal, Alex. It’s just groceries.”

“No, really—"

The cashier balances the money in her hands, unsure of whether she should put it in the register.

“Ring her out,” he tells her. “Do you need bags? I have reusable one’s. Here, let me help you,” he says, reaching for the handle of the brown paper bag that she is holding.

Then a hand flies in and grabs his wrist.

“That won’t be necessary.”

Aaliyah looks up, and there she is, procured out of thin air.

“Cruz. What are you doing here?”

Her black eyes swing to her, then back to Clark.

He sticks his hand out.

“Clark,” he says. “Nice to meet you. And you are?”

She stares into his outstretched palm.

She takes it, and Aaliyah can see how hard she grips it.

“Cruz Manuelos.”

She says it like she’s a stranger. And Aaliyah wonders if she is just that, a random person walking up to them in a store for no apparent reason.

Then she turns to the cashier.

“Here,” Cruz hands her a credit card. “Give that to me.” She plucks the cash from her hands and thrusts it into Clark’s chest. “Thanks for offering to buy her groceries,” she says, but there is not a hint of gratitude in her voice.

He laughs.

“I’m not offering to, I’m buying them,” he replies, as though he is purchasing more than just food.

He pushes the money back toward the cashier, then snakes one hand to Aaliyah’s lower back.

Aaliyah jerks away.

Cruz’s jaw works quickly and Aaliyah reaches for her, because she can see what’s coming before it does.

“Don’t touch her again,” she says threateningly, the slant of her brow suddenly lethal.

His eyes narrow.

“I’m sorry, who are you?”

She steps into his space. She’s his height, but she could be taller by feet with how she holds herself. Her shoulders jut out from her racerback tank top like blunt objects, capable of doing damage on their own.

“Her wife,” she announces through clenched teeth.

She smacks the cash out of his hands and it fans to the ground. Aaliyah’s skin tickles with trepidation. She waits for her to hit him. She waits for her to pounce. But she doesn’t. She turns and calmly bags the rest of the groceries in seconds, and he curses behind them under his breath.

“Let’s go,” she says to Aaliyah when she’s finished.

She pushes the cart outside and Aaliyah follows her. They get to the car and load the bags into the trunk, side by side.

Aaliyah stops suddenly, one bag in hand.

“What are you doing here?” Aaliyah asks.

“I saw your note. I walked.”

“Why?”

Cruz doesn’t answer. She shovels the rest of the bags in rapidly.

“Hello?”

Cruz looks up, her eyes black and solidified, and she sighs in exasperation.

“He was—” Aaliyah starts.

“I don’t want to know what he was,” Cruz cuts her off, throwing the last bag in and slamming the trunk closed.

“Then why do you look so mad?”

Her eyes pop even further in exasperation.

“I wasn’t with him since we’ve been together, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Aaliyah says in a rush.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? That I—”

“No,” she says incredulously. “That is not what I’m thinking. Why would you ever say that?”

Aaliyah folds her arms.

“Well—”

Cruz puts one hand out to stop her. She looks to the sky and rubs the bridge of her nose, and Aaliyah can tell that her mind has returned to her tirade on the boat.

“Don’t answer that,” Cruz says.

Aaliyah goes to the driver’s side, but Cruz takes the keys from her hands.

“I’m driving back,” she says. “Get in.”

“No, I’m driving back,” Aaliyah snaps, grabbing the keys back.

“Why are you being difficult?”

“I’m not being difficult, you’re the one who showed up here and now you have that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“Like you’re angry. Like you’re angry at me for going to the grocery store, Cruz.”

“I’m not angry you went to the grocery store, Aaliyah.”

She says it back sarcastically, and Aaliyah’s skin gets hot on the back of her neck.

Dynamite when they click, and especially when they fight. She’d forgotten this part of them, their ability to dig deep under each other’s skin.

Aaliyah holds the keys behind her back and glares at her.

“Then what are you angry about?”

“Gosh, I don’t know, walking in and seeing a guy who clearly wants to fuck you and I don’t want to know if he already has and I couldn’t breathe when I was away from you and now I can’t fucking breathe for a second when I’m with you because look what happens,” she hisses the words out in a perpetual run-on sentence, throwing her hands over her head animatedly.

“You can’t breathe when I’m with you? Gosh, how unfortunate that must be, to dislike my presence so much that you can’t breathe around me.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, that’s not what I meant,” Cruz mutters at the ground, then flings her black eyes back toward her like they’re weapons. “You drive me nuts. You can’t go anywhere.”

Aaliyah laughs acidly, and she tastes the vodka still in her throat.

“Now you’re telling me I can’t GO anywhere? So I’m your PRISONER? And why is that?”

“Because LOOK AT YOU,” Cruz screams. An elderly lady walking past them with a grocery cart yelps and gapes at the sound of them.

They’ve become a spectacle, shrieking at each other in the middle of a parking lot. It might be funny to a passerby, but to Aaliyah it’s only white-hot, fueled by her growing temper in her stomach. Where it comes from, what has caused it, she does not know.

“Look at me? Why, because I’m a mess? Is that it? Is that what you’re going to tell me? That I’m a mess?”

Cruz groans and rolls her eyes.

“You’re not a mess—” Cruz starts.

“—yes I am—” Aaliyah interjects.

“—no you’re fucking not—”

“Stop talking over me Cruz—”

“I’m NOT talking over you, you’re talking over ME—”

“—well you haven’t said ANYTHING in three days so I’m sorry I’m not used to hearing your voice—”

“You’re GORGEOUS,” Cruz screams, and her voice cracks with the decibel level it reaches. Her chest heaves. “Every fucking time you leave the house, you’re a fucking magnet. Everywhere you go.”

Aaliyah’s jaw falls, and her voice falls with it, because her wife still thinks she’s gorgeous even though she woke this morning with vomit on her breath and vodka in her veins.

Cruz glares at her, her brows wrinkled with frustration.

“I walk in there,” Cruz continues, pointing to the grocery store wildly, “and you have a Ken doll following you around like a puppy.”

“His name isn’t Ken,” Aaliyah bites, her vocal cords suddenly roaring back to life.

“I don’t give a fuck what his name is!” Cruz shouts as she shoves the grocery cart away from them. It begins to roll, and a man walking by grabs it just before it hits another car.

“Would you stop cursing for once!”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Cruz spins away from her and then spins back, and it’s dizzying.

“And it doesn’t help that you’re wearing—that you’re wearing—whatever the fuck this is,” she says, motioning with her palm toward her. “It doesn’t help that you have no fucking clothes on.”

“I have clothes on. What do you call this,” Aaliyah shouts, grabbing at her shorts and camisole.

Then Cruz stills, like a deer in headlights. Her eyes rake down her body, then dart away, then rake up it, then dart away again. And there it is, back again, the pulse between Aaliyah’s legs. The feeling of being desired, this time by the person she so miserably wants to desire her. It’s there, in the darkness of her wife’s gaze, the way her eyes are lingering on her despite fighting mightily to look away.

Cruz shakes her head slowly and walks up to her. Aaliyah backtracks, and her back collides with the driver’s side door of the car. Cruz comes closer, until there is no space between them and Aaliyah can smell the mint of the gum that is crushed between her teeth, lost to the clench of her jaw.

Her fingers come up to her hips, stroking the bare skin of Aaliyah’s midriff once. Then they trail down, landing at the bottom of her shorts. She tugs at a loose thread.

“This is not nearly enough,” Cruz whispers.

“No?” Aaliyah whispers back, angling her head up until their noses brush. Their voices have dropped, from something shrill to a familiar quietness. Aaliyah can sense that she has her, right where she always used to, in the palm of her hand. Cruz is malleable here. Aaliyah knows she can pull her in whichever way she wants her to go.

Cruz swallows.

“No,” she answers, dipping her forehead down to rest it on hers. Aaliyah wraps her hands around the back of Cruz’s neck.

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you like it.”

It breaks the spell, and Cruz pulls away. Aaliyah had misjudged. She didn’t have her, after all.

Cruz points to the car, the keys in her hand. She had taken them from behind Aaliyah’s back, without her even knowing. Then Aaliyah ponders whether it is only her, the one who falls victim to the sorcery that manipulates the air between them. Maybe Cruz isn’t susceptible to it, in the way she used to be.

“Get in,” Cruz says.

Aaliyah sighs and drags her feet to the passenger seat. She turns the radio on when Cruz puts the car in reverse to fill the silence between them, then frantically smashes the button until it goes back off.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

Cruz eyes her, then stares straight ahead on the three-minute ride back.

She pulls down the gravel drive and turns the car off.

Aaliyah jumps out, unable to spend a second more so close to her in a charged space that might not be reciprocal.

She throws the trunk open to grab the bags, and then she feels her. Two fingers, then three, then Cruz’s whole hand, sliding onto her abdomen from behind.

The world shouldn’t tilt on its axis with a simple touch, and yet it does.

“I’ve got this,” she says, her breath hot on Aaliyah’s neck. “Go inside.”

--
That night she sits before a vanity. She lathers herself with creams that feel too delicate, too luxurious for her skin. It’s worn, at this point. It rejects moisture, as if it has no tolerance for things that might make it seem alive again.

She sees Cruz walk into the room behind her through the mirror. She sits on the edge of the bed, and her dark eyes follow Aaliyah’s every movement.

She approaches her just as Aaliyah picks up a tweezer. She takes it out of her hand, then kneels at her feet. She spins the chair until Aaliyah is facing her, then wraps her hands around her calves.

She stares up at her with tears in her eyes.

“I’m scared,” she whispers.

Aaliyah’s feels a single bang, in the center of her chest.

“Of what?”

Her fingers grip the backs of Aaliyah’s legs harder.

“Hurting you. Hurting her. I’m not right. That’s why I had to get out of there, that island. That house. I can’t live with myself if I do that, Aaliyah. I can’t.”

Aaliyah strokes her hair back from her face.

“You’re not going to hurt either of us, habibi.”

“I did. I hurt you, on that boat. I was awful to you.”

“No,” she says. “It’s okay. We’re past that. We’re here. We’re trying.”

“It’s not. It’s not okay. I don’t deserve you. I’ve never deserved you.”

Aaliyah feels her stomach whirl with nausea. It batters her, like a wave beating down on the shore relentlessly. Because her wife is kneeling at her feet, disclaiming her worthiness after saving her life.

“How could you say that, my love? Look at what you’ve done for me. Look at what you’ve done for her.”

Cruz leans back on her heels, then pulls at her ear.

“I did something, when I was gone. I had to—” she breaks for a moment, swallowing. Her face is like a leaf, shaking in the wind. “I had to figure out how to get through it, and I couldn’t stop thinking of you. It was distracting me. I had a job, and I couldn’t do the job with you in my head. So I thought of these bad things, to make myself focus on them instead of you.”

The bang moves from Aaliyah’s chest to her throat.

“Bad things from my life, before you. And they made me feel nothing, eventually. Like I was numb. Desensitized.”

She clears her throat before continuing.

“And toward the end I started to lose it. I couldn’t control any of my thoughts anymore. I started to have these nightmares. Like I was seeing you, in a life without me if I didn’t come home. And you were with her, in all of them.”

“You don’t need to explain this—”

“No, I do. I need you to understand. When I had those dreams I let myself believe that they were true. I let them become the bad things. I used them. And I used them because they hurt me. And if I was hurt, I wasn’t thinking of you. I wasn’t thinking of anything at all.”

Cruz looks to the ground and breaks their eye contact, and her face is filled with shame.

“Then when I saw her there, in your sweatshirt, it was like I couldn’t figure out where I was. I felt like I walked in on the dream, and you were with her. I think that’s why it happened, when I first saw her in that kitchen. Then on the boat, with you. I’m so sorry, Aaliyah. I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

“Look at me,” she says, tilting her chin up. “You don’t need to make anything up to me. You need to stop apologizing. You need to forgive yourself. You’ve been through something that no one can comprehend.”

“I put a knife to her throat. I scared you. You told me I was scaring you on that boat.”

“It wasn’t you, Cruz. This is you, right here.”

Cruz leans her head down and lets out a shaky breath.

“All of those things I said…they weren’t true. The truth is that that night meant everything to me,” she says, her voice muffled because she is pressed into her knees.

“What are you talking about?”

“In the boathouse. I need you to know that. Even if you never chose me. Even if you stayed with her. That night would’ve been enough. It would’ve made my life.”

Aaliyah rubs the back of her neck.

“I’ll always choose this,” Aaliyah whispers. “I’ll always choose you.”

Cruz presses a kiss to her kneecap, and Aaliyah inhales sharply. It’s the first time she’s kissed her anywhere since the night she came back.

Unless she did it, the night before. Unless her lips were truly on her forehead, her cheeks.

Aaliyah still isn’t sure if she hallucinated it.

“What did you say?”

Cruz looks up to her.

“What do you mean?”

“Last night, after you carried me to the bed. What did you say?”

Just as she did in the parking lot, Cruz avoids answering.

She stands and goes to the bathroom. She runs the water in the sink and drinks from it.

Aaliyah had forgotten this habit. She does it all the time, as though drinking from a cup is an inconvenience.

Aaliyah gets into the bed and turns on her side, squeezing her eyes shut.

She feels her climb into bed beside her. The mattress shifts as she reaches to turn off the lamp.

And then Cruz is there, against her back. Her arms envelope her. Her mouth, on the nape of Aaliyah’s neck. Her lips, opening and then closing, opening and then closing. She might as well be kissing her right in her center. She keeps going, and the heat courses through Aaliyah’s veins. It sends violent quakes through her body. It must feel like this, to be a flower in the morning dew, to be a flower in bloom. She palpitates in that place, because her heart has decided that it resides between her legs instead of her chest.

“I said I don’t just love you,” she whispers in the spot Aaliyah’s neck ends and her torso begins. “I exist for you.”

Aaliyah bites her lower lip and holds back her cry.

It’s enough.

It’s enough to remind her what she has come here to do.

It’s enough to make her believe it.

I can, she thinks. I can bring her back.

She reaches backwards blindly for her hand, threading their fingers together.

Her hangover begs for sleep, but Aaliyah stays awake for minutes longer, so she can spend some time doing it. So she can sing to her, until she feels Cruz’s body go still with drowsiness behind her.

--

“Get up, my love.”

Cruz blinks awake. The room is dark. Aaliyah is staring down at her. She’s in one of Cruz’s sweatshirts, and it swims on her in size.

She looks good in that, Cruz thinks.

“What time is it?” she mumbles.

“4:30.”

“What? In the morning?”

“Let’s go, we don’t have much time.”

Cruz rolls over and buries her head under the pillow.

“I’m not going anywhere at 4:30 in the morning.”

Aaliyah rips the pillow off her head and laughs.

“Really? Because you’ve been getting up to be a lumberjack every morning at the crack of dawn.”

Cruz sighs.

“Meet me downstairs. Five minutes, or we’ll be late.”

Then she disappears.

Cruz trudges down the stairs, her head tucked into a hooded sweatshirt. She slips her feet into sandals and Aaliyah takes her hand.

She drags her out the door, to the guest house and garage beneath it. She opens it to reveal a black convertible, one Cruz has never seen. She walks to the driver’s side and Cruz blinks the sleep out of her eyes rapidly.

“No,” she yawns.

Aaliyah turns back to her with raised eyebrows.

“No what?”

“You don’t drive places. I drive.”

Aaliyah smirks and tosses her the keys.

She gets in and pulls out, and Aaliyah points in the direction to turn out of the property.

“Where are we going?” Cruz asks.

The wind whips the hood off her head. It’s warm and balmy here, even before the sunrise. The moon slowly leaves the sky as they drive down a deserted road.

“You’ll see,” Aaliyah says.

They drive for a half hour. Aaliyah continues to point, and she takes random turns. They go down one-sided gravel paths, wind through dirt roads, and Cruz gets confused eventually at the direction they’re taking.

Aaliyah’s hand comes into Cruz’s line of sight, and she flinches when it connects with her neck.

Fuck, Cruz thinks. Fuck, fuck, fuck me.

She hates this. She hates that she is still tense to the point that her body jumps at her wife’s touch.

Aaliyah withdraws her hand, and Cruz sighs.

“No. It’s okay,” she whispers.

Then it’s back. Her fingers close around Cruz’s neck. They knead her skin intensely, and the pressure makes Cruz’s eyes droop.

“You can’t close your eyes when you’re driving, my love,” Aaliyah says from the passenger seat.

“Sorry. It just feels—”

“Good?”

Cruz sneaks a look at her.

“Yeah,” she says, surprise in her voice.

“We’re here,” Aaliyah says. “Slow down. Pull up there.”

They pull into an empty parking lot. A white lighthouse with red circles around it looms before them, and the ocean is dark with the remnants of the night sky behind it.

“Where are we?”

“I’ve always wanted to come here,” Aaliyah says, hopping out of the car. “To see it.”

“To see what?”

She flashes her a smile.

“The sunrise.”

She heads toward the lighthouse and Cruz follows behind her. They climb up a winding staircase, and Cruz tries to avoid the sight of her backside, the way it is barely covered by a pair of spandex shorts.

Why does she always need to dress like this, she thinks.

They get to a door at the top of the staircase and Aaliyah attempts, in vain, to open it. It doesn’t budge.

She grunts in frustration as she pulls down the handle.

“Move,” Cruz says through another yawn. “Let me try.”

But it won’t budge for her either. It’s stuck, adhered to the frame.

“It’s jammed,” Cruz explains over her shoulder. She turns to look at her, and Aaliyah frowns. She crosses her arms and sighs.

“Oh,” she says. “Ok. I guess we can go back.”

She starts to walk down the stairs, her shoulders hung in defeat, because yet another thing has gone wrong.

“No, hold on,” Cruz calls after her.

She takes a step back and eyes the door.

“What are you doing?”

Then she sends her leg out and kicks it hard. It flies open.

Aaliyah stares at her in shock.

“Why are you so set on hurting yourself?”

Cruz readjusts her sandal and grins.

“What makes you think that hurt?”

They walk outside just as it begins. The light peaks over the horizon. It sprouts, like a plant growing from the earth. The ocean begins to glimmer, and the water extends so far that Cruz thinks it might be the only thing that exists.

“Wow,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” Aaliyah whispers back. “I’ve been waiting to do this.”

Cruz shields her eyes from the rays and looks to her. “What do you mean? What were you waiting for?”

The sun hits Aaliyah’s face, blazing into her eyes until they become all Cruz can see.

She smiles widely.

“My love story.”

Cruz feels it beating madly in her chest. Her heart. She hasn’t felt it like this, in this way, in months. Its pace has been driven by fear. Beats of panic, pulses of terror. But it moves this time with something else. Something right, for once.

They stand shoulder to shoulder and look out to the sea together. It’s tranquil, serene in a way that nothing has been in so long.

Then Cruz’s stomach growls, and Aaliyah laughs hysterically.

“Come on,” she says. “Clearly you can’t go past sunrise without eating. I bought a ton of groceries.”

They head to the staircase.

“Oh, you mean the one’s Ken was going to buy for you?”

Aaliyah’s eyes whip toward her, colored with concern. Cruz’s ribbing misses its mark, because Aaliyah isn’t used to it anymore. She has been looking at her like this constantly, as if she is on eggshells around her.

“I’m only joking,” Cruz whispers, reaching one hand to her shoulder. It’s almost cringe-worthy, how awkward her hand is as it rests there, because it has forgotten how to touch her wife.

Aaliyah nods, and they head back to the car wordlessly.

When Cruz pulls into the garage and yanks the keys from the ignition, Aaliyah grabs her hand.

“You know, right?” she asks, biting her lip.

“Know what?”

“That I exist for you too.”

Cruz looks down at her hands and fiddles with the keys. She manages a nod.

“No. Say it,” Aaliyah directs, squeezing her hand.

“I know.”

--

Cruz stares out the kitchen window after they have breakfast.

The world explodes with color here. There are flowers in bloom, butterflies, birds. The shingles on the cabins and boathouse are bright white. They clash with the dark blue ocean water.

“Come outside with me,” Aaliyah says from behind her. “You need the sun. Your skin is grey.”

She grabs Cruz’s hand and pulls her out the door, to the dock. They walk to the end of it and Aaliyah sits down, her legs dangling over the side. She leans back and closes her eyes.

“Sit with me,” she says.

Cruz drops down next to her and reclines back, closing her eyes. The water bumps into the dock and a seagull calls overhead.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Aaliyah asks.

“Hmmm?”

“The peace.”

She tucks her head into Cruz’s shoulder.

“Are you breathing yet?”

“Yeah. I am,” Cruz whispers.

“Good,” she says, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “I’m going to take a swim.”

Aaliyah sits up and takes her shirt off, then unclasps her bra. She stands and steps out of her shorts and underwear. Cruz looks up at her, and she’s suddenly even warmer.

“You’re staying on this dock, my love. No more swimming until those stitches come out.”

She dives into the water. Cruz shuffles to the ladder on the side of the dock and hangs her feet off it, dipping her toes in. Aaliyah surfaces feet away. She turns and smiles over her shoulder, wiping her hair back over her forehead until it shines in one sleek direction. Her eyes are exploding against the ocean. She floats on her back and Cruz fixates on her bare chest, the perfect circles of her breasts.

She hasn’t taken truly looked at her wife’s nakedness since she’s been back. She shifted her gaze when she undressed her nights before as her head lolled with drunkenness in her arms. She felt like a voyeur when she slipped her sweatpants off, as though she were observing something illicitly.

Aaliyah laughs and splashes her.

“What are you staring at?”

Cruz blinks.

“That’s the first time you’ve really looked at me since you’ve been back,” Aaliyah says. “I was getting nervous.”

“Nervous about what?”

Aaliyah swims up to the ladder and clutches it with one hand.

“That you weren’t attracted to me anymore.”

She has never once heard Aaliyah express this type of insecurity about herself.

Cruz reaches down and pulls her up, and Aaliyah climbs the first rung of the ladder and hovers between her knees.

“How could you ever think that?”

Aaliyah frowns.

“I don’t know. You’ve always looked at me like—like you want to eat me.” She laughs. “But I feel like your eyes have been avoiding me whenever they can.”

Cruz mentally kicks herself for doing this to her, for making her think that the malfunctioning of her body, its numbness, stems from a lack of attraction.

“Aaliyah, all I think about is you when I’m around you. All I can look at is you.”

Cruz rubs her eyes and laughs.

“Do you know what I couldn’t stop thinking about, every time I allowed myself to think of you in the last six months?”

“What?”

Cruz grips her lower back and pulls her closer.

“Your boobs,” she says.

Aaliyah throws her head back and giggles uncontrollably.

“I’m being serious,” Cruz insists.

Aaliyah laughs harder.

“I know you are, that’s why I’m laughing.”

Their eyes lock and they fall silent. Droplets fall from Aaliyah’s body onto Cruz’s shirt, leaving wet marks in their wake. Cruz’s gaze drops back to her chest, and she takes her in.

“You can do it, you know.”

Cruz’s eyes flit back to her face.

“Do what?”

“Touch me. You don’t need to just stare.”

She can touch her.

Cruz raises her hand in slow-motion. She traces the outline of her breast with just her fingertips, then hesitates.

Aaliyah stares at her intently.

“Keep going,” she whispers.

Her fingers brush over her nipple, and then she raises her hand and finds the other side. She pauses again and lowers her fingers, until they rest just below her breasts.

“Use it,” she says.

Cruz looks to her.

“Use what?”

Her eyes challenge her.

“You know what.”

And Cruz does know.

But she’s not sure if she can.

She leans forward tentatively. She presses her lips to Aaliyah’s sternum, keeps them affixed in place. She doesn’t move to the left. She doesn’t move to the right.

She doesn’t do what she wants to do, because if she goes further, she doesn’t know what will happen.

She doesn’t want to feel it again. The sensation when they were on the boat, of feeling nothing at all. Of being incapable of intimacy.

She has faced no greater shame than in the moment she knew that her body was incapable of performing, in that way, with her wife.

Aaliyah holds her head in place.

“I’ve missed you,” Aaliyah says directly into her ear. “I love you.”

The words are simple and straightforward, one’s they’ve professed to each other countless times before. Yet they snap Cruz into focus, hard enough that she goes from an observer to someone with a firsthand perspective. She is suddenly there, sitting on a dock with her feet in the sea, pressed between her wife’s breasts. Her wife, who is standing naked before her. Her wife, who remains hopelessly stunning, even as her pain sits like a fixture on her face. Her wife, who missed her.

Cruz pulls back and plays with the ends of Aaliyah’s hair.

“I’ve missed you too,” Cruz breathes. “This isn’t because of you. None of this is because of you.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s like I had to hit an off button, on myself. To get through everything. And I don’t know how to turn myself back on.”

Aaliyah traces the lines of Cruz’s face. She leans in, licks her own lips.

“Why don’t you let me worry about turning you back on?” she whispers seductively.

Aaliyah brushes her lips along the bottom of Cruz’s jaw, then pushes Cruz’s chest back.

“But right now I need to put on sunscreen. Out of the way,” she laughs. “Let me up the ladder.”

Cruz reclines back onto her forearms and Aaliyah climbs up around her. The sun is blinding and Aaliyah’s naked body shields it for a moment, so that she is the only thing Cruz sees from her vantage point below. And Cruz can see all of her.

Oh my God, Cruz thinks.

“You’re staring again, my love,” Aaliyah teases.

Cruz hoists herself up, and her limbs spring in a way they haven’t in weeks.

“I’m not allowed to stare?”

Aaliyah’s eyes flash at her.

“You’re allowed to do whatever you want with me.”

Cruz’s fingers twitch. Her mouth is suddenly parched, her skin crisped by the rising morning sun.

Aaliyah kisses her cheek softly then wraps a towel around herself.

“But you look like you need a nap. You have circles, under your eyes.”

“It’s morning.”

“When’s the last time you slept in? Come on,” she says.

Aaliyah takes her hand and they walk into the house, up the stairs. She fluffs the pillows in the bedroom, draws all the blinds until it’s dark. Then she points to the bed.

“Get in,” she says. “Go back to sleep.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to rub your back until you fall asleep. And then I’m going to the spa, and by the time I get back you’ll still be sleeping because you need it.”

Aaliyah pulls her into the bed, pushes her onto her stomach, then traces circles on her back. She starts to sing. Cruz fights, and fails, to keep her eyes open.

When she wakes up, she can tell by the light through the window that it’s dusk. She slept the day away. She stretches and yawns, then makes her way through the house.

She starts in the kitchen.

Aaliyah isn’t there.

She walks to the family room.

Aaliyah isn’t there.

Her eyes sweep the pool deck outside, the dock beyond it.

Still, nothing.

She checks all the rooms, and suddenly her palms get wet. Her heartrate quickens.

She said she’d be back, she thinks.

She’s gone, again. Like two nights before, when Cruz had woken and torn through the house, unable to find her. She’d run through the property, the gun back in her hand. Because she was convinced something had happened. She was convinced the doom had found them.

The sound of it was in her ears again, up until the moment she walked into that boathouse and found her in a heap on the wooden planks. Her screams. Him kicking her. It’s here again, and she wants to cut her ears off her head and never hear again.

She races to the front door and slams right into her as she opens it.

“What—what are you doing?” Aaliyah asks in a huff, dropping a bundle of roses from her hands.

“I couldn’t find you,” Cruz says breathlessly.

She scans Aaliyah’s face.

Holy shit, is the only thing that registers in her mind at what she sees.

Her hair, full and alive with waves down her back. Her eyes, blue and grey and green and hazel and vibrant, no longer sunken. Her face, flawless, dewy. The color, returned to her cheeks from an hour in the sun, as if that was the missing ingredient necessary to send her beauty into overdrive.

“What? I’ve been in the garden, clipping roses.”

Cruz’s hands circle her waist possessively, pulling her in. Aaliyah sets a pair of shears on the nearest table and winds both arms around Cruz’s neck.

“If I knew all I had to do was disappear for you to touch me like this again, I would’ve done it sooner,” she says playfully.

Cruz winces. She can’t joke about this. Not when it still simmers right beneath her skin. She clears her throat.

“I was terrified, Aaliyah. For months, I was terrified something was going to happen to you.”

Aaliyah’s smile sobers.

“I’m right here, habibi,” she says softly. “I’m okay.”

Cruz’s fingers dig into her hips, drinking her in for a second time.

“God, you’re beautiful,” she mutters.

Aaliyah’s eyes twinkle.

“Is that why you’re staring again?”

--
The next day, Aaliyah pulls her down and makes her lie on her stomach across a towel under an umbrella. She pulls a bottle out of her bag.

“What are you doing?” Cruz asks over her shoulder, moving to sit up.

Aaliyah pushes her back down.

“No, lie still. I can’t look at it anymore,” she says.

Cruz raises one eyebrow.

“Look at what?”

“How stiff you are. Let me try to get it out.”

She presses Cruz’s head down to the towel and Cruz stares, sideways, at a pelican diving beak first into the ocean.

Her fingers start at the nape of Cruz’s neck. They linger there.

“Are you okay with this?” she whispers into her ear.

Cruz considers the question. It bothers her that it needs to be asked. It bothers her that she even needs to consider it.

“Yeah,” she whispers back.

Then her fingers fan out over Cruz’s shoulders. Her thumbs return to the base of her neck, kneading circles that grow firmer with each stroke.

Cruz’s eyes flutter close.

Her hands rub deftly over every inch of her back, and the intrusive thoughts in Cruz’s mind detach one by one. All she can feel are her fingers, all she can smell is the lavender of the oil on her hands.

She massages the soles of her feet, her calves, her hamstrings.

“You’re so good at this,” Cruz mumbles.

Her breathing evens out, and she floats in that place between sleep and awake.

Then Aaliyah’s fingers knead the skin of her upper thighs, and Cruz is suddenly aware of every centimeter her fingers trace, the higher they go, the closer they creep to the inside. They disappear down her leg and slide up again, and every receptor on Cruz’s body starts pinging.

She wants to tell her to go higher, but then Aaliyah’s hands are gone. She replaces them with her lips and tongue. They blaze the same path, from her neck to her shoulders, down her back. They pick up again at the soles of her feet, her ankles, and when they get to the spot behind her knees, Cruz’s muscles start to spasm involuntarily.

“It seems,” Aaliyah whispers between kisses, “that I’ve found the on button.”

Cruz grips the towel in her fist and Aaliyah’s laugh comes from a place deep in her throat.

Then her mouth is gone. Cruz’s chest pounds as Aaliyah untucks her left arm and rubs slowly down it. She kneads her fingers across Cruz’s palm, presses kisses into her knuckles.

She pulls away and Cruz hears a box snap shut, then she’s back. She feels the coolness of the band slip over her ring finger, and Cruz opens her eyes.

The black diamond ring stares back at her from her hand.

Aaliyah lies down on her stomach and rests her chin on Cruz’s shoulder.

“How do you feel?” she asks.

Cruz smiles and edges closer to her, throwing one arm over her back.

“Alive,” she says.

--

Cruz sits with her back against Aaliyah’s chest on the deck that night, a bottle of wine barely drunk on the table next to them.

She’s singing again in her ear. She does it on autopilot now, as though it’s a natural part of the way they coexist.

Her voice is pacifying in a way nothing else is.

She’s unbreakable, Cruz thinks. But I’m still broken.

Aaliyah interrupts the reverie.

“How did you get to him?”

Cruz looks down and rubs her chin.

“You really want to know?”

Aaliyah kisses the side of her head.

“I do, yes.”

“Amira. We followed her, for months. She gave us his schedule, eventually. We planned it around that.”

Cruz can feel Aaliyah’s head pull back, a sharp intake of breath.

“You—you told her, about us?”

Cruz nods.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing really, for months. She folded, eventually. I think she cared about you, in her own way.”

Cruz rubs Aaliyah’s arms.

“She said that she was happy you were finally free. She wanted me to tell you that.”

Aaliyah’s head presses into her, and Cruz can feel the wetness on her cheeks from her tears.

“And when you found him, what did you do?”

“I don’t think you want those details.”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want to know.”

Cruz waits a beat.

“I did what he did to you,” she breathes. “I slapped him. Then I kicked him, in his stomach. I didn’t stop, for awhile.”

Aaliyah’s lips press into her again.

“Then I shot him. Between his eyes.”

A sailboat, lit up against the night sky, careens across the water in the distance. The sails slap with the wind.

“I’ve never wanted to kill someone like that, Aaliyah. Every other kill, I’ve taken my mind out of it. I didn’t want to take a life. But I did this time.”

Aaliyah collects her hands in her own and squeezes them.

“Thank you,” she says eventually.

Cruz cranes her neck back to look at her. “For what?”

“For bringing her back. For saving her, from him. For saving me. I can never repay you for all you’ve done.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that.”

Aaliyah rests her chin on her shoulder.

“I’m thanking you anyway.”

Then she starts singing again.

--

Days pass and Cruz sleeps more than she has in months, but the exhaustion still weighs her down. It’s the type that makes her groggy the next morning, even when she’s slept for over 12 hours.

She goes for a run before the sunrise, while Aaliyah is still asleep. It’s a bad idea, but she does it anyway. Her gut throbs with every step and her chest is on fire. She passes the market, then a gas station, and she keeps going.

She doesn’t make it far before she drops to a jog, then eventually a walk. Her apple watch clocks in at a mile, and she groans in frustration at her inability to go further.

She turns back and eyes the long drive back to the property, then takes it in a sprint. Her feet pound against the gravel. As she approaches the house, she sees Aaliyah sitting outside on a swinging porch bench.

It’s only when she gets to the stairs that she notices how empty her eyes look.

“What—what’s wrong?” she pants. She drops her head between her legs and heaves. Sweat is dripping from every part of her.

“I woke up and you were gone,” she says quietly.

Cruz stands up straight and stares at her.

“I only went for a run,” she wheezes.

“You shouldn’t be doing that, Cruz. You know you shouldn’t. Why can’t you let yourself heal?” She stands but Cruz motions for her to stop.

“Hold on, hold on. Stay here.”

She stumbles into the house and grabs a water bottle from the refrigerator. She presses it to her head and jogs back outside.

Aaliyah is still sitting on the swing. Cruz drops down on the ground across from her and chugs the water.

“We don’t do well without each other, do we?” Aaliyah asks randomly.

Their eyes meet and Cruz shakes her head.

“No, we don’t.”

Cruz dumps the rest of the water bottle over her head and exhales.

“Are you mad at me for leaving in the way I did?”

Aaliyah bites her lip.

“When?”

The fact that she even needs to ask when makes Cruz wince. She has left her, more than once.

“In March.”

“I could never be mad, after what you did for me. For us. I’m just scared you’re going to disappear again. I don’t know if I can handle it again, losing you. It’s dangerous.”

“What’s dangerous?”

“How much I love you. I thought it would kill me, when you were gone.”

Her eyes are grey and filled with torment. Cruz thinks of what David said, the day she came back. How the people left behind go through it too.

“You said that already.”

“What?”

“In the boathouse. When you were drunk. You said we were destructive. And that this was dangerous.”

Her eyes widen, and she brings a hand to her mouth.

“Cruz, I—”

“I know you didn’t mean it. Not in that way, at least. You meant it in the way you just said it.”

Cruz stands and sits next to her on the bench, then pulls her legs into her lap and rubs her shins. She rests her head against the shingles of the house.

“I asked you, Aaliyah,” she whispers. “Do you remember? I asked you before I left. If you thought something was going to happen to me, I asked you what you would do. You said anything. Everything. That’s what I did. I’d do it all again.”

She watches a tear drip from the side of Aaliyah’s eye, down her nose, across her lips, to her chin. She follows it until it drops against the bench.

“I would.” Aaliyah nods her head. “I would do anything. I want to do it now. I just don’t know if I’m doing it right.”

Cruz squeezes her hand.

“You are. I don’t know if it’s the way the flowers smell here or something, but I can finally breathe.”

Aaliyah laughs.

“I love them,” she says, staring out into the gardens.

“Love what?”

Those eyes swing to her, chameleons of blue and green and grey.

“The flowers. The gardens. They make me believe the world can still be beautiful.”

Cruz wipes at the sweat on her forehead. She thinks now might be it, the time to ask the question that’s been on the tip of her tongue since she came back.

“What’s she like? Ani?”

Aaliyah looks at her.

“Perfect.”

Cruz bends her knees in and out and the bench swings under them.

“It’s insane, how much she looks like you.”

Aaliyah picks a flower from a pot next to the bench and runs her fingers over the petals.

“It’s a blessing.” She picks another flower, and weaves the stems together. “That he’s not in her. Not even a little bit. She’s sweet. She’s funny. She barely cries.”

“I think I scared her. When I took her from her room. I was the one to do it. I think she remembers it. She seems skittish around me.”

Aaliyah continues to thread the flowers.

“She’ll get over that, when we get back. You’ll be great with her.”

Cruz frowns and looks out at the ocean.

“Do you really think that?”

She whispers the question. She closes her eyes and sees her brother’s face. The swollen bump, on his arm. His distress, as he died.

She shudders.

Aaliyah’s hand finds her cheek. She rubs along her jaw.

“Of course. I’ve seen you with Sammie. He adores you. So will she.”

Cruz swallows deeply.

“I love that—”

“—she has my eyes? I know you do.”

Cruz brings her legs out and stills the swing.

“How did you know what I was going to say?”

“Because Kim read your letter to me,” she whispers.

“That wasn’t something you were ever supposed to hear unless you had to, my love,” she whispers back.

Aaliyah wipes away a tear. She places the flower behind her ear. It’s light blue, a spark that makes her eyes ignite with color.

“Were those the erased lines?”

Cruz stares at her unknowingly.

“On the note, you had my mother give me. Did you write those things there originally, in case—”

“Yeah. But I didn’t want you to read them. Ever.”

They swing for a moment in silence.

“Something weird happened, when I first picked her up,” Cruz says.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. It was just this feeling. Like every moment of my life was leading to her. Like I was meant to be there. Like she was mine, even though she’s not.”

Cruz plucks the flower from behind Aaliyah’s ear and twists the stem in her fingers.

“Do you think the world works that way?” Cruz asks softly.

Aaliyah takes her hand.

“I do. It’s called fate.”

Cruz closes her eyes. So that’s what it was. She was fated, to be there in that bedroom, to be the one to lift her out of that bed, to be the one to carry her away from that life.

“Then there was something else,” Cruz whispers.

“What?”

“I had this dream, when I was in the hospital.” Cruz explains, closing her eyes. She can see it, right behind her eyelids. What she looked like. “I was in my room, in the last house that we—that we lived in, before my brother died. And she came in.”

Aaliyah’s forehead wrinkles as she listens.

“She was older. A teenager, maybe. I thought it was you, at first. But her voice was a little different than yours. She was talking to me. I don’t know how to explain it, how much she looked like you.”

Aaliyah’s hand palms her cheek again, turning it toward her.

“Look at me.”

Cruz opens her eyes and stares into her face.

“I want her to be ours, Cruz. I want you to adopt her. I don’t want to be her only parent.”

Cruz says nothing.

And then the tears come, like a fountain spraying water for the first time. They shoot out of her, and she collapses her head into Aaliyah’s shoulder.

“She had these fucking drawings, in the room I took her out of,” she sobs into her. “It was—they were—”

Aaliyah grips her tightly and lets out a sound, one of suffering. Cruz closes her mouth and swallows it all back. She decides, then, that she cannot go on describing it. That she will carry what she saw in that villa on her own. That she will never give the full image of it to Aaliyah, the emptiness that her daughter existed in before Cruz took her out of it.

“I’m so sorry it took me so long. I’m sorry, Aaliyah. I should have gotten her out sooner. I waited weeks before even leaving, and I knew. I knew, that entire time, that she existed. Three weeks. I waited three weeks, before deciding to go.”

“No, my love. No. Don’t do that. Don’t think that way. I’ve already thought it, and those thoughts do nothing for us,” Aaliyah whispers.

Cruz lifts her head to find her eyes, and they are overflowing with tears.

“What do you mean, you’ve thought it? You’ve thought that I should have—”

“No, no. I’ve thought of how I walked out of that hospital, not knowing that I was leaving my daughter behind. What mother doesn’t know? What mother doesn’t know?”

Cruz presses her fingers to her mouth to stop her.

“You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“So then you’re not blaming yourself either. She’s here, because of you. You did that, Cruz. You.”

Cruz rests her head again on her shoulder.

“Will you?” Aaliyah whispers.

“Will I what?”

“Adopt her? But only—only if you want to. If you don’t—”

“I do,” Cruz says quickly. Then she wipes away her tears and sits up straight. She smiles. “But she has to stop calling me soldier.”

Aaliyah giggles, then throws herself into Cruz’s chest. Cruz’s hand flies to her eyes.

“Fuck,” she groans.

Aaliyah startles and pulls away, her face creased with concern.

“What? Did I hurt you?”

“There’s two of you now. I’m so screwed.”

Aaliyah’s eyes widen then contract, and she punches her in the shoulder.

“You’re such a wiseass.”

Cruz brushes her lips with her thumb.

“But you love it.”

Aaliyah grins.

They swing together for minutes, and the rhythm takes them back and forth in the air. A line of ducks walks past their porch and they both laugh at the same time at the sight of the ducklings racing to keep up with the pack.

Aaliyah takes her hand.

“What did she say?”

“What did who say?”

“In the dream. You said she spoke to you.”

“She asked me if I was coming somewhere. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I promised I would. We shook on it.”

Aaliyah studies her.

“And then she said it was her.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what she said. She said ‘it’s me. Ani.’”

--
Aaliyah grabs the keys to the car and ushers her out the door.

“Where are we going?”

“To get you checked.”

“Get me checked? For what?”

Aaliyah slips on a pair of sunglasses.

“Your stitches. Your body.”

Cruz walks back into the house.

“No, I’m fine. I got checked, already. I can take these out on my own.”

“Cruz. Please. For me? It’ll make me feel better.”

Cruz sighs and gets in the car. She pouts the entire way there, then sets her lips in an displeased frown when they get to the office.

“What kind of doctor is this?”

“Someone I trust. Let’s go.”

Aaliyah drags her, unwillingly, inside. They check in, then a nurse brings them to a room in the back. It’s white, sterile.

Cruz thinks of the hospital, waking up alone with Joe next to the bed. Her fear, at first, that the whiteness she saw meant she wasn’t waking up at all.

She’s sick and tired of sterile rooms.

She paces back and forth, and Aaliyah flips through a magazine.

“Please just sit down,” she says absently, and Cruz drops into the chair next to her in a huff.

The doctor comes in eventually. He’s old, with white hair and a mustache. Kind eyes.

He shakes Cruz’s hand, his firm grip.

“Dr. Mike,” he says. “Pleasure to meet you. Let’s have a look.”

Cruz pulls her shirt over her head. Her skin is better, but not by much. The bruises are a fading purple, the area stitched still red and angry.

He asks her to lie back. His hands prod, gently, over her stomach. From the corner of her eye, she watches Aaliyah fidgeting. Her eyes are darting back and forth between Cruz and the wall, as though she can’t bear to look for too long.

He takes her out for an x-ray, and when she gets back, Aaliyah is standing, staring out the window.

“I don’t want to pry,” he says. “But can you tell me what caused this?”

Cruz swallows.

“I serve,” she says, which isn’t entirely false. “I got shot. The bruises are from impact, from the vest. The stitches are from two bullets.”

He nods.

“Yes. I figured as much.”

He pulls out the x-ray images, flicks off the lights.

“There’s fragments, right here,” he says, pointing to her stomach.

“Fragments?” Aaliyah interrupts. “You mean, they’re still in her?”

“Only pieces. It’s not uncommon, with gun shot wounds. And they don’t need to be removed immediately. But I wouldn’t wait, more than a few months. The pain will never quite leave, if you don’t take them out. That, and you’ll always risk infection. Good news is, I think I can take these stitches out today.”

There’s a rush of movement, and Aaliyah is gone from the room.

The doctor stares at Cruz in confusion.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Can you just—can you hold on a second?”

She takes off down the hallway, but Aaliyah isn’t there. She looks into empty rooms. She stops outside the door of the bathroom, and she can hear a gag, someone vomiting.

Then the unmistakable sound of them, her cries.

Cruz tries to open the door, but it’s locked. She jiggles the knob, then bangs on the door.

“Let me in,” she demands.

There’s a click. It unlocks, and she pushes through.

She’s sitting in front of the toilet, her head in her hands. The room smells like vomit. Aaliyah heaves again, and Cruz grabs her hair immediately.

“It’s ok,” she says, holding her hair back. “You’re ok.”

“I’m sorry,” she groans. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you, not the other way around. I’m sorry.”

She retches into the toilet again.

“Stop apologizing. There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I did this to you,” she pants. “You have bullets in your body. Because of me. This is my fault.”

“None of this is your fault. Don’t ever think that.”

Cruz flushes the toilet. She stands, wets some paper towels, and reaches out to clean her face, but Aaliyah swats her away.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Aaliyah’s hand trembles as she grabs for paper towels on her own.

“Aaliyah—”

“I’m fine, Cruz,” she says, giving Cruz’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “We have to go back, he needs to take your stiches out.”

The lines of her face straighten and she smiles, but Cruz sees the tenseness in her brow, around her mouth.

She’s trying to hold it in. She’s trying to keep it together, for both of them. Because Cruz hasn’t been able to.

Aaliyah shakes out her hair and takes a deep breath.

“Let’s go, I want to get those out of you,” she insists.

“No, just—just hold on a second. Come here.”

Cruz pulls her close and Aaliyah resists.

“Cruz, I’m fine—”

“No you’re not. You don’t need to keep it together all the time. Give it a second. Just let me hold you.”

Aaliyah’s eyes widen for an instant, as though she is stunned by Cruz’s desire to do this for her.

Oh God, Cruz thinks. I’ve left her.

Then Cruz’s hands lunge for her desperately, her arms encase her, and Aaliyah dissolves into her body. Cruz buries her head into her hair, inhaling the scent of her.

Lavender.

Orange blossoms.

The scent of her wife. It’s here. It’s real.

--

Aaliyah puts on a smile for the rest of the day and pulls herself back together. It’s baffling, how quickly she swings from a withering mess over a toilet bowl to something dazzling again, but she manages it.

Unbreakable, Cruz thinks, recalling Amira’s words again. Aaliyah has shown it every day. She has pushed through all the ways Cruz has withdrawn from her.

Cruz can still see it, though, despite her best efforts to hide it. It’s there, plaguing her eyes.

She looks heartbroken. Cruz tries to imagine what she must have felt for the six months they were separated. What it must have been like, to not know the details. To be left behind, again. To fear that Cruz wasn’t coming home. To believe that Cruz was dead. To wake up one day with a daughter who she never knew existed.

But Aaliyah is determined to pull them through this and make it better, so determined that it leaves Cruz with the certainty that of the two of them, she remains the stronger one.

That night she takes the remote out of Cruz’s hands and turns off the TV.

“Hey, it wasn’t even halftime,” Cruz protests.

“Let’s go,” she says over her shoulder.

“Where are we going now?”

“Ice cream.”

“You think that’s a good idea after your toilet incident this morning?”

Aaliyah huffs.

“I was nervous, not sick. Come on.”

They take two bicycles and go into town, and the moon lights their way. Cruz pedals fast, does tricks on the bike, rides with no hands.

“You’re such a show-off,” Aaliyah mutters, and Cruz grins.

They get to a shingled ice cream shop and set the bikes against a picnic table. Aaliyah sits on top of it. Cruz walks backward toward the window to order.

“What do you want?”

Aaliyah looks her up and down slowly.

“You.”

Cruz stops short.

“What?”

She smiles widely, and her eyes flutter.

Cruz’s heart pounds.

“Oh, you meant what flavor? I don’t know, surprise me,” Aaliyah says, her tongue making a quick appearance between her teeth with her grin.

She comes back with two cones, vanilla and chocolate twists. She hands one to Aaliyah and sits on the table next to her.

There’s a family feet away with three young boys, all under the age of five. They run in circles, tackling and screaming and chasing one another. One falls, nicks his knee on the gravel, and blood comes pouring out. He wails, and Aaliyah watches in silence.

“I could never imagine three,” she says absently.

Cruz takes her in. Eyeliner dramatizes her eyes, as if they could be any more dramatic. She’s wearing a blue ruffled tank top and white pants. Her skin is bronzed from days outside, and her hair is piled into a bun behind her head, bouncing and loose.

It’s devastating, the way she always looks.

“No? What could you imagine?”

Aaliyah’s tongue curls out, and Cruz’s eyes fixate on it as she licks around the top of the cone.

“Not three,” she says. Her tongue continues to lap the ice cream in a circle slowly, torturously.

Their eyes connect and Aaliyah laughs.

“Looks like you’re too busy imagining something about my tongue to have this conversation, though.”

The comment takes her off guard, and Cruz grabs the edge of the table to steady herself.

“Oh yeah? You think that’s what I’m imagining?”

Aaliyah grins, her eyes knowing, her lips decidedly smug.

“I don’t think. I know that look, Cruz Manuelos.”

Cruz chuckles.

“That’s funny, what I was really imagining was doing this,” Cruz says, then smudges her cone into Aaliyah’s face, smearing ice cream all over her mouth and cheek.

Aaliyah gasps. Her eyes go wide.

“Oh wait, hold on a second,” Cruz says, smudging it onto her other cheek. “Mmmm, there you go princess. Now you’re perfect.”

Before she can react, Cruz jumps from the table and takes off to the car, sprinting. Aaliyah yells at her from behind, and Cruz roars in laughter.

She gets to the driver’s side and Aaliyah pins her to the door, holding her cone like a weapon.

“Don’t do anything you’re going to regret,” Cruz warns.

Aaliyah’s eyes narrow. She lowers the cone to her side.

Then she winds it back up, straight into Cruz’s nose.

They both come away with white and brown ice cream dripping from their faces.

“I don’t regret that at all,” Aaliyah gasps, doubling over with laughter. Cruz licks ice cream from the side of her mouth, shaking her head.

“No?”

“Not even a little.”

Cruz wraps her into a bear hug and walks her forward.

“Stop it!”

She holds her tight and careens down a gravel path.

“Let me go,” she says, smacking her arms and trying to run in the other direction.

They get to a dock. It’s lit up by boats moored to both sides. Cruz half lifts her as she squirms. When they arrive at the end of it, Cruz sets her down, so that her feet are right on the edge, an inch from dropping into the sea.

Aaliyah grabs at her wildly.

“I’m going to fall,” she yelps, and Cruz laughs, clutching her back.

“You think I’d let you fall?”

Aaliyah looks up at her. Ice cream drips from her face. Her eyes grow serious.

“No, I don’t think you would.”

“Good. Because I wouldn’t.”

Cruz squeezes her hips.

“But we're still going in.”

She jumps, pulling her with her, and they fall into the water.

Aaliyah breaches the surface, gasping and splashing her.

“You are something else,” she says, coughing on water. “It’s freezing in here this late. And it smells, this is the bay.”

“I thought this was the,” Cruz gestures with air quotes, “real ocean?”

Aaliyah glares at her. Her teeth immediately begin to click together with shivers. Cruz wipes the ice cream from her face. Aaliyah reaches out and does the same for her. Their legs brush against each other as they tread water, and Cruz can taste the chocolate and vanilla, mixing with the ocean water. It’s salty sweet, a flavor someone should box up and sell.

The moon reflects on the surface of the water and dances into Aaliyah’s eyes. She swims closer until they’re flush against each other, then runs one finger down the curve of Cruz’s back.

“Tell me I was right,” Aaliyah whispers.

“Right about what?”

“You were thinking about my tongue.”

Cruz stares at her.

“Can’t let it go, can you?”

Aaliyah reaches out and trails her fingers along Cruz’s neck.

“Say it.”

She leans in, and just when Cruz anticipates her kiss, she begins to splash her relentlessly.

Cruz raises her hands in defeat.

“Fine. Fine. I was thinking about it.”

Aaliyah’s eyes gleam.

“And what exactly were you thinking?”

Cruz sighs dramatically.

“I was thinking that’s what your tongue looks like, when you do it.”

Aaliyah raises her eyebrows in pretend confusion.

“When I do what?” she asks in a sing-song voice.

“Now you’re just playing with me.”

Aaliyah’s lips spread into a satisfied grin.

Cruz’s eyes zero in on them. They’re impossibly pink, impossibly full.

“What?” Aaliyah asks softly, wiping at her face. “Do I still have ice cream on me?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Cruz touches her lips with her fingertips, runs her thumb over the bottom one.

“This fucking mouth,” Cruz breathes, and then she plunges into it and kisses her.

It’s the first time she’s done it, other than the moment in the surf on the beach in Florida.

She starts with her head tilted to the left. Then she goes right. She kisses her from every angle. She ends in the center. She moves her lips frantically, and Aaliyah throws her arms around her neck and sighs into her mouth. She only pulls away when her lungs begin to scream from lack of air.

Aaliyah’s eyes stay closed, her brow raised in an exulted slant.

“You haven’t kissed me like that in so long,” she whispers into the space between their lips.

Chapter Text

The envelope is like lava in Cruz’s hand. She drops it to the ground, because she knows exactly what it contains.

It’s only nine in the morning, but she has no concept of time. She flies down the stairs, and Kim busts out of the kitchen as she makes her way through the restaurant.

“Where are you going?” she demands. She looks old. She looks weathered. She looks like she’s fed up, and Cruz can see that she is the subject of her ire.

“None of your business,” she says.

“You’re under my roof,” Kim snaps.

Cruz stops in her tracks and stares at her.

“So then I’ll leave.”

“You’re not going anywhere. Sit down and talk to me. What’s happened? Why do you look this way?”

Cruz ignores her and makes her way outside. The sun is blinding, even though it’s early. She walks blocks until she gets to the pub. She bangs open the door and finds solace in the darkness within, the way the lights here never seem to be above the dimmest setting.

“Manuelos,” the bartender nods. “You’re early.”

“Just one,” she says to him, sitting down on a stool before him.

“One? Really?”

She glares.

“I don’t have time for this today.”

He slides her a glass with whiskey and ice, and she downs it immediately. Then she taps her fingers to it and looks at him expectantly.

“You said one,” he says.

“Well now I’m saying two, Gary.”

She throws cash on top of the bar and he sighs, then fills it.

“What did she do now?” he asks

“It doesn’t matter,” she answers.

She drains the second glass then stares at it until the ice evaporates. He watches her the entire time, as if he expects her to do what she sometimes does. To stay here, all day. To start with one, then two, then tree, then four, then five, and then get escorted out the door from whence she came.

But today she doesn’t. Because today she has something else she needs to do.

She jogs back to Kim’s and the whiskey swirls in her stomach. Sweat drips down her face as she raises back up the stairs. She flings the door to her studio open and Mr. Beans scowls at her.

"Don’t you look at me like that too,” she mutters.

She opens the envelope, her hands shaking the entire time. She already knows. She should’ve known it was coming. She’s known for 90 days, and yet done nothing. She had told her, between the sheets.

“Don’t be surprised if you get it again,” she’d said. “You’ve let this go on for too long.”

She shakes anyway.

She flips through the pages. She crumbles them in her fist.

She flies back down the stairs. She doesn’t bother with her car, because she’d promised her long ago to never get behind the wheel again with alcohol in her system. She’s keeping that promise, even if she hasn’t kept the others.

The subway ride takes two hours. She folds and unfolds the papers in her hands the entire way. She shoves them into the envelope when she gets to her stop.

She jogs all the way to their apartment and stares up at the building. It disappears into the clouds overhead, and the sight makes her dizzy.

“Ms. Manuelos,” the doorman says as she walks by. “I’ll need to call her, to let her know you’re here.”

She freezes.

“Call her? I have a key. That won’t be necessary.”

He leaves his desk and walks up to her.

“It will. The locks were changed, three months ago. I told you that, the last time.”

She bites her fist and nods.

“Sure. Ok. Call her.”

He lifts a phone to his ear and mutters into it discretely, and she doesn’t bother to listen to what he says. Then he waves her through to the elevators, and she leans against the railing the entire ride up.

She stands before the door and collapses her forehead against it. The whiskey is still hot on her tongue. She bangs twice. She can hear her footsteps.

Then it opens, and there she is.

Those eyes.

Her outfit, a professional skirt and silk shirt. Her feet, propped up by beige stiletto heels. Her hair, flowing in waves down her back. Her hand, that finger. It’s vacant, where the ring should lie.

Cruz thrusts the papers into her chest.

“I’m not signing this,” she whispers.

Her face is impassive, just as vacant as that finger is.

“You are,” she answers.

“I’m not.”

She crosses her arms.

“Cruz.”

“Aaliyah.”

Aaliyah sighs and leans against the door.

“You’re not even going to let me in?”

Her eyes look tired. Worn. Like they’re sick of this conversation, one they’ve had on repeat too many times to count.

“You don’t live here anymore, Cruz. You know that. We’ve been through this. You can’t just show up and demand entry.”

“Then why did you let me up in the first place?”

Aaliyah rubs her fists into her eyes then casts her hand out to the foyer.

“Fine. Come in. Take your shoes off.”

Cruz kicks her sneakers off and walks into her own home. Or what used to be her home, because suddenly it’s clear that it isn’t anymore.

There’s an end table by the door with a glass bowl for keys. That bowl wasn’t there. She doesn’t remember the bowl ever being there, in all the years they’ve lived here. It’s sea glass, tinged in green and blue. Just like her eyes.

Where did she get that, she thinks. When did she get that?

She walks into the living room and hears Aaliyah trailing behind her with tentative footsteps. They keep their distance, because proximity is no longer a good thing.

She surveys the fireplace. It’s not a real one. It has a remote. She always loved that remote. One button, and the fire would blaze electrically, as though the old-fashioned way was too hard to manage in a bougie place like this.

Then she sees it. It’s the most obvious thing in the room. It screams to be looked at, and she looks. She stares. She memorizes it. Her hands reach for it, and she takes it off the hearth of the fireplace and runs her fingers over their faces.

“Cruz,” Aaliyah whispers. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Now she gets a photo? That’s how serious it is? There’s a picture of you and her, on my fireplace?”

Cruz turns around, holding the frame like it’s a bomb about to detonate.

“It’s been over a year and a half. What did you expect?”

She smashes the frame into the bricks of the fireplace. The glass shatters, and the photo within it falls to the floor.

Aaliyah doesn’t even flinch. She’s long past flinching at her antics.

“I expected you not to have another woman in my home,” she shouts, “with her fucking picture on my fireplace,” she gestures wildly to the fireplace, “when you’re still married to me,” she finishes, smacking her palm to her own chest.

“Because you won’t sign this,” Aaliyah says, waving the envelope toward her with a plea in her voice. “That’s the only reason. And you know it.”

She drops the paper on a coffee table and walks to the couch. Her heels click as she goes. She sits down, then rests her head in her hands.

“And this isn’t your home. You left, Cruz. It’s been a year and a half. You can’t keep coming here and doing this to me.”

“I didn’t leave,” Cruz spits. “You kicked me out. And we both know me nof signing that is not the only reason you’re still married to me.”

“I kicked you out after you showed up to her softball game drunk. I kicked you out because you’ve never truly been here. I’ve waited for eight years. Eight years, Cruz. Eight years of chances. I can’t do it anymore.”

She grabs the piece of paper and rips open a drawer from a nearby desk, then plucks out a pen. She stomps up to her and shoves it toward her.

“You need to sign it.”

“You don’t want me to sign it.”

“Yes,” she shrieks, her eyes blazing, “I do. I wouldn’t have sent it to you five different times if I didn’t want this.”

“Does Ani know it’s serious with her?”

She groans.

“Of course she knows. I don’t keep things from her. She knows everything.”

Cruz narrows her eyes.

“What’s that mean, she knows everything? You’ve told her about—”

“No, I didn’t tell her about that.”

Cruz steps into her space. She inhales the scent of her. It’s a drug, and she’s been in withdrawal.

The pen juts into her sternum. Just between her breasts. She can feel the shape of it.

“You don’t really want me to take that pen,” she whispers. “I am not fucking signing this.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Aaliyah snaps, shoving the pen into her chest again. “Why are you doing this? Why won’t you just—”

“Why did you let me in?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You changed the locks to keep me out and then I come here and you let me in. You let me in, every time. And before you changed the locks you never made me leave when I came.”

She laughs sarcastically.

“Don’t delude yourself into—”

“I’m not deluding myself. You let me in because you want this. You’re the one deluding yourself.”

“I’m trying to protect my daughter. I can’t have this in my home. I smell it, on your breath. How many did you have today?”

Cruz rolls her eyes.

“I’m not drunk. I’d never hurt her.”

“That wasn’t my question. And you do hurt her, when you do this to yourself. You won’t get help. You won’t accept help. I can’t keep trying to help you when you won’t help yourself.”

“You married me. I was always fucked up, and you knew it. And then you had me adopt her. Why did you do that if you were going to fucking take her away from me?”

“I’m not taking her away,” she proclaims, the exasperation evident in her tone. “You get visitation. You just choose not to take it.”

Cruz smacks the paper and pen from her hand and it falls to the ground. Then she pushes her backward.

“Stop it,” Aaliyah snaps, swatting her hands away. “Stop it now.”

“No. You let me in because you want this. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.”

But Cruz keeps pushing, until she’s up against a wall. She clutches her hips between her hands, ducks her head down until their foreheads touch.

“Fine. Then stop me.”

Then she finds the hook to her skirt. It’s blue, pencil-like and straight. It fits like a glove, and Cruz gulps as she looks down at the shape of her waist. She undoes the hook with a single flick. She reaches for the zipper, and pulls at it slowly. Aaliyah’s eyes dart back and forth across her face the entire time.

The zipper reaches the end, and Aaliyah exhales deeply.

“We can’t keep doing this,” she whispers. “You can’t keep doing this to me, Cruz. I’ve moved on. You need to let me move on.”

“With her? You’ve moved on with her? You tried to do that once, remember? Didn’t work out.”

“This isn’t right. This isn’t fair to her. And it’s not fair to Ani.”

“That’s not what you were saying when we were in the shower a month ago,” Cruz breathes into her ear, and she can feel the way Aaliyah shivers even though she’s not even touching her.

Cruz tugs once, and the skirt comes down. It pools at Aaliyah’s feet, and Cruz drops to her knees on top of it.

“Stop me, Aaliyah. Go ahead. Do it now, before it goes further,” she whispers, parting her thighs. “Do it.”

She pushes her shirt up so that it rests above her belly button, then props her forehead against the center of her. Her underwear is green silk today. She knows this pair. She’s seen it before. Last time, it was black.

Aaliyah stares down at her. Her pupils are blown, and her chest is moving uncontrollably.

“Does she ever do it for you over your underwear?”

Aaliyah swallows, but says nothing.

“She doesn’t, does she? Because she can’t. She doesn’t know how to touch you, like you need to be touched.”

Cruz traces her finger over the top of her underwear slowly. She knows this road. She’s driven down it, ignoring the stop signs and the red lights. They both have, too many times.

“Does she know once isn’t enough for you? That you always need more?”

Aaliyah’s mouth parts and Cruz laughs arrogantly.

“You’re not saying anything. Because the answer is no, right? You’ve only been getting this from me. You’ve only ever gotten it from me.”

She takes a turn on her route and drags her fingers along the elastic of her inner thigh, then stares up again at her with her eyebrows raised.

“Are you going to stop me?”

Another swallow.

Then the concession. She shakes her head, because Cruz has defeated her, once again. They’ve defeated each other now, for years.

“Good. I’m not even going to take them off,” she says lowly.

She doesn’t. She leaves them on, and her mouth goes to work over them. Within seconds, Aaliyah’s hands tug viciously at her hair.

“Why do you do this to me,” Aaliyah cries, holding her palm over her mouth. But her moans tell Cruz that she wants her to. She wants this, still.

When it’s over, Cruz sits back on her heels and wipes her mouth.

“Let me give you more,” she says to her. “Let me take you to bed.”

And they go to bed, because this is scripted by now. The ending is already written. They writhe against each other in the sheets repeatedly.

When Cruz is over her, there’s a moment when Aaliyah holds her face.

“You promised me, last month. In the shower. You said you’d come back, the next day. You never came.”

Cruz falters, for an instant.

“I know,” she kisses her, as though her lips will earn her forgiveness. “I’m here now, my love. I’m here.”

She is. They both are. In all the ways they’ve fallen short of what they should have been, this is the one thing they’ve always done right.

“Have there been others, since last time?” Aaliyah asks quietly.

There have been others generally, in the last year and a half since she’s been banished from her home. Drunken trysts and forgettable nights, none that rival even a second of holding her in this way.

“No,” Cruz kisses into her again. “No one. There’s only ever you. Only you.”

At least it’s honest, even if technically incorrect.

Then Aaliyah finally shoves her away when she’s had enough, because that part is scripted too.

“You need to go,” Aaliyah whispers. “She’ll be here soon. And Sarah is coming to take her to practice.”

Cruz feels the whisky like fire in her stomach. Her daughter is being taken to practice. By her.

How did it come to this, she thinks desperately. How did I let this happen?

But she knows how. Years of letting herself be sucked away by the demons she refused to face.

Lara’s words ring through her mind from eight years prior, the warning Cruz never heeded about the bad things.

Use them carefully, or they become you again.

Cruz became them.

Cruz sits up in the bed and Aaliyah’s hand finds her bare back.

“You’re destroying me,” Aaliyah says, in a voice that sounds more than destroyed. It sounds obliterated.

Cruz looks to her.

“Do you understand what you’re doing to me? I tried, Cruz. I tried. For years. All you did was push me in the other direction, and now you won’t let me go.”

“Are you going to be happy with her?”

“I’m not going to be sad.”

Cruz laughs, but there is no mirth in the sound.

“You’re giving up on me.”

Aaliyah withdraws, as though the words have wounded her.

“You’ve given up on yourself, Cruz.”

The door opens in the foyer. Aaliyah shoots up quickly and scrambles for clothes.

“Get dressed, that’s her. Say you’re here for, for—” but Aaliyah can’t finish the latest fabricated excuse for Cruz’s presence in this home that is no longer hers, because they’ve run out of time. They always run out of time.

“Mami?”

Cruz darts into the bathroom and closes the door. She pulls her clothes on rapidly.

“Hi baby,” she hears Aaliyah say. “How was school?”

“It was fine. I’m starving. Do we have anything for sandwiches?”

“In the kitchen. Come on, I’ll show you.”

When she’s done changing Cruz follows them out. She watches from a distance as her wife and daughter stand at the island together, smearing mustard on loaves of bread.

She clears her throat, and Ani’s eyes swing to her instantly.

“Mom,” she yelps, like she’s stunned to see her. Like she wasn’t expecting to see her here, in their home. Like she hasn’t seen her in weeks.

Because she hasn’t.

Because Cruz has been in the hole, the one she’s never been able to fully climb out of.

It happens quickly. Too quickly. The narrowing of Ani’s eyes. The set of her chin. The squaring of her shoulders. The way she spins on Aaliyah, hostility in her gaze.

“What is she doing here?” Ani snaps, pointing toward Cruz. Then she spins back on Cruz. Her voice descends from a stable state to sobs. “You missed my game. You missed my game, and you told me you would come. You promised. You promised to be there.”

“Ani, I—”

“NO! You can’t just show up here, when you miss everything else. You miss everything. Why are you here?” Another spin, back to Aaliyah. “Why is she here? Where’s Sarah?”

Sarah.

Her daughter is asking for Sarah.

Cruz does not belong here anymore, and Sarah does.

An alarm goes off in Cruz’s head, finally signaling what she has known for years.

Her time is up.

“I came to bring Mami a form for school,” Cruz says calmly, opening the envelope that she fished off the floor when Ani wasn’t looking. “We both needed to sign it, so that you can play spring sports.” The lie rolls off her tongue with ease, just like all the others. She bends and picks up the pen, then holds the papers up against the wall.

Their divorce papers. The one’s she’s refused to sign for a year.

It’s clear, now, that it was always going to come to this.

She signs her two initials, then places the cap on the pen. She slides the papers back into the envelope and walks up to the island. She sets it down in the center, next to the bowl of fruit, then looks to Aaliyah’s face.

Her eyes are swimming with tears. They look foreign. They’ve morphed into a new pigment of blue-green, one Cruz hasn’t seen before.

“I’m sorry,” Cruz says to Ani, never once breaking eye contact with her wife, who she deserted long before she signed the papers making her departure official. The apology is for all the ways she’s failed them both.

“You said that last time,” Ani snaps. She stomps off to her room in a rage.

Cruz breaks away. She walks to the door.

“Cruz,” Aaliyah calls after her. Then she’s there, standing before her. The tears drip down her face. The envelope is in her hand. “What if I don’t really want this?”

Cruz bends and kisses her cheek. She brushes her chin with her thumb.

“It’s not going to work. We both know it. I can’t keep doing this to you,” she says.

“But what if—”

“We’ve done the what ifs. I can’t do this. I can’t be what you need. Sarah can. And Ani needs her. She needs something stable.”

In all these years, Cruz has been everything but stable.

She opens the door and steps out. Aaliyah lingers, watching her. But she doesn’t stop her.

Cruz closes her eyes. She says the rest with her back turned, because she can’t stomach the sight of her anymore.

“You love me, right? Even though—”

There’s a pause, and she chokes back the rest.

“I’ll always love you,” Aaliyah answers.

“But in that way?”

“In every way.”

Then Cruz leaves her.

--

There are hands on her. Gripping her. Shaking her. She feels wet. Drenched. Soaked through, like she’s in a pool of water.

“Wake up, my love. Wake up.”

Her voice. Waking her up. Cruz’s eyes flutter.

Then she smells it.

Lavender. Orange blossoms.

Cruz shoots up like a rocket out of the bed, her chest heaving at a pace it’s never heaved.

“What is this? What’s going on?”

“It was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare, habibi. Come back to me. Come here.”

Cruz’s hands find her hair and she tugs. Tears flood her eyes.

“No, no—” she begins.

“Yes, it was. You were talking in your sleep. You’re drenched in sweat. Look at yourself,” Aaliyah says, pointing to her clothes.

Cruz rips her t-shirt away from her chest. It’s sticky and soaked through.

“Where is she?”

Her heart is climbing out of her body. The room begins to blur.

Aaliyah kneels on the bed, her palm open and stretched out for Cruz to take.

“Who, my love?”

“Ani. Where is she?”

Aaliyah frowns.

“She’s with my mother. Please come back to bed,” she motions with her hand.

“No, how do I know this is real? How do I know any of this is real?”

Cruz slams her eyes shut and clutches her stomach. It’s burning with the pace of her breath, sharp pains in the spots where her skin is grizzled and raised.

She’s trying to remember what these scars are from, how they got there.

Where am I, she panics. When is this?

Then Aaliyah’s hand is on her chest.

“I’m right here,” she whispers into her mouth. “It’s real. I’ll show you.”

Then she kisses her. Lightly. Softly. Like she’s proving to her that gravity exists, that her feet are attached to the floor in this bedroom.

“You’re here with me,” she says, her tongue brushing against Cruz’s lips. “In Nantucket. We had ice cream before we went to bed. You kissed me, for the first time in months.”

“But—”

Then her tongue finds its way inside her mouth.

“I’m going to take these clothes off you now. You’re soaked. And you’re coming back to bed with me.”

She pries her t-shirt over her head then pulls her shorts and underwear off.

“Come, my love. Back to bed, it’s too early to get up.”

She yawns as she tugs Cruz’s hand, and Cruz follows her in a trance. They lie down in the bed, and Aaliyah brings her head into her chest.

Cruz settles into her. And then she remembers. She killed him. She came home. The scars are from bullets. There are fragments there, still stuck in her intestines. But she’s here, with her wife, in one piece.

“Listen to me breathing. You’re right here,” Aaliyah whispers to her. “You’re right here.”

“It was so real,” Cruz gasps.

“No, it wasn’t. It was a nightmare. None of it was real. This is real.”

--

In the morning Cruz watches her from across the kitchen as she washes dishes in the sink. The sun is on her shoulders, a ring of light that makes her seem celestial, a being not from the here and now.

Cruz doesn’t know if she’s from the here and now, either. She’s not even sure what that consists of anymore.

Aaliyah shakes water from her hands and looks at her over the shoulder. She turns the faucet off.

“Come here,” she beckons with one hand.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve been pulling away again, this morning. Come to me. I’ll keep you close, if you let me,” she whispers.

Cruz sees her, the version as she existed in the nightmare. The skirt, pooling at her feet. Her eyes, filled with tears. The envelope in her hands. Her voice, obliterated to the point she didn’t sound like herself. So different from the way she sounds now, as though her vocal cords can only emit love.

Maybe that’s how they got there, in a nightmare that wasn’t real, in a home that Cruz didn’t belong in. Maybe Cruz pulled so far away that Aaliyah couldn’t keep her close anymore.

She doesn’t want to do that.

She never wants to do that.

She walks up to her and Aaliyah winds her hands around her lower back.

“What was it? The nightmare?”

Cruz sighs, and Aaliyah slips her hands beneath her shirt. They’re cool on her skin.

“We were getting a divorce. You were—you were—with her. Ani hated me. I failed you.”

“You’re not failing, in real life,” Aaliyah says. “You’re here, with me. I won’t let you fail, my love.”

“It’s hard to separate the dream from reality, when it’s that real.”

Aaliyah’s hands dig into her side.

“Tell me the details,” she says, her voice encouraging in a way that makes Cruz feel like she can.

“I’m not sure—”

“Please.”

Cruz looks down at her, and Aaliyah’s eyes change in temperature, seemingly increasing in warmth.

Cruz takes a deep breath, then describes all of it. Everything she can remember, down to the color of the glass bowl on the end table by the foyer. Aaliyah nods along, as though she’s listening to a story. When Cruz finishes, Aaliyah’s nods change in direction, and she begins shaking her head back and forth.

“There’s no fireplace,” Aaliyah says, as though she’s cracked the code to the puzzle of all the things haunting Cruz in her dreams.

“Wh-what?”

“There’s no fireplace, in our apartment in the city. You said there was a photograph of her and I on the fireplace. That doesn’t exist. That makes it imaginary, not real,” she explains.

Cruz closes her eyes and processes this. She imagines the layout of the apartment. Aaliyah is right. There is no fireplace.

“And you said you were drinking whiskey. But you don’t drink whiskey. You can’t. It makes you sick, immediately. You told me, because the first time you ever got drunk when you were younger, it was—”

“Shots of whiskey. Yeah.”

Aaliyah smiles, then steps away and begins to stack dishes into a cabinet.

“But those are just the small things, my love,” she goes on, and Cruz knows this voice. It’s the one she uses in lectures. It’s instructional, confident. She speaks like she and she alone holds the answers, and Cruz listens like she does.

“You would never disappear on me. And I would never disappear on you. You said you told me in the dream I gave up on you? That’s not possible.”

“But what if—”

“There is no what if. These bad things that you’re so scared will overcome you…you’ve already survived them, habibi.”

Cruz runs her hand over the bowls on the counter and begins to dry them with a dishtowel.

“Do you want to know the biggest problem with that dream?”

Cruz meets her eyes.

“You haven’t told me a single description of what she looked like.”

“What?”

“You told me the color of a bowl you saw, on the end table. You told me I was wearing green underwear. Even the bartender had a name. You have all of these vivid details, and yet you didn’t say a thing about what Ani looked like.”

“I don’t remember any of her features—”

“That’s just it. You couldn’t stop looking at her, in Florida. You didn’t even notice you were doing it, did you? You wouldn’t look at me. You wouldn’t look at anyone. But if she was in the room, you couldn’t keep your eyes off her. And when you told me about the dream you had in the hospital, that’s all you focused on. How she looked. How much she looked like me.”

Cruz opens her mouth, but she’s at a loss for words.

“You told me. Remember? In the dream, from the hospital. She came into the room. She was smiling at you. She said ‘it’s me, Ani.’ Then she asked if you would come somewhere and you promised you would. Then you did that thing—how did you describe it?”

“We shook on it.”

Aaliyah lifts her hands, as though it’s all obvious. She walks back up to her and takes Cruz by the waist.

“You see? That’s the dream that was real, my love. That’s the real you. There isn’t a world in which you’d ever let us down.”

“But—"

Aaliyah kisses her, taking the words from Cruz’s lips. She’s been doing it freely now, and Cruz is letting her. She takes Cruz’s hands and fastens them to her hips.

“No. No buts. Hold me. Don’t let go. If we keep doing that, we’ll be fine. I promise.”

Cruz dips her head into her neck and the sunshine finds her, too. They stand there in it, enshrined by the yellow light. The faucet drips water insistently behind them and Cruz thinks, naggingly, that she needs to fix it because it hasn’t stopped leaking since they’ve gotten here.

“See?” Aaliyah whispers into her forehead. “Don’t let go. Keep holding on. I’ll keep you here, always.”

“Ok,” Cruz says.

“There are other flaws, in that nightmare. It wouldn’t have just been her, at that point. And we wouldn’t have been living in that apartment, all that time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I love that apartment. We’ll keep it. But I don’t want to live with a family there. I want a big brick house, on a street with trees. With sidewalks to walk on. I see that, in my own dreams. And there would’ve been another. Because she won’t be our only one. It was just her, in this nightmare you had. That makes it all the more wrong.”

“You still want that? What we talked about, before—”

“Of course I do. I want everything, with you.”

Cruz brings her hands to Aaliyah’s stomach, as though it contains this future she speaks of. Then she folds into her. She turns her head and presses her lips into her wife’s neck, and her pulse thrums beneath her mouth.

She is safe here, enclosed by her wife’s arms. She is untouchable here.

It’s only then that Cruz awakens to this part of it, this part of them. The extension of herself, the way she begins in her own arms then ends in Aaliyah’s, how they combine to make something complete.

She doesn’t know how it took her so long to come back to it, to understand that the only way to rid herself of the detachment was to affix herself to her.

-

That afternoon Cruz peers over her shoulder on the couch as she hammers away on a laptop.

“What are you looking at?”

Aaliyah throws her hair over her head in a frenzy and sighs. She wears her stress between her shoulder blades, displays it in the creases by her eyes.

“Schools,” she says. “I—I started thinking, she’s not enrolled anywhere.”

“Ok,” Cruz says quietly.

They lock eyes.

“We don’t need to talk about this,” Aaliyah says quickly, “if it’s too much.”

“It’s not too much,” Cruz whispers. “I want to. Show me what you’re looking at.”

She shows her. Ten different schools, spread across Manhattan. She explains all the differences. The public one’s, the private one’s, the charter schools. The grades they begin at, how Ani would be eligible for kindergarten if they started her in September.

Aaliyah spews it all out in an endless sentence, and she doesn’t inhale a single breath in the five minutes she takes to walk Cruz through it.

“I just don’t know anything about this, and some of them offer music and art classes and others don’t, and some have hundreds of extracurriculars and others don’t, and there are some with only limited sports and sports I’ve never heard of, and there’s one that only has a swimming team, and I don’t know what to do or how to decide, and I don’t know when she’s going to be ready, and I don’t want to—”

Cruz clamps her hand over her mouth.

“Slow down, baby girl,” she says. “Slow down.”

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. “What are we going to do?”

Cruz sits up and moves onto the pillow behind her, then reclines her legs on the leg-rest. She pulls her into her chest.

“First you’re going to lie here and breath for a minute, because I think you’re turning blue,” she says into the side of her head.

She feels all of the air enter and exit Aaliyah’s body at once.

“But I—”

“No, it hasn’t been a minute. Be quiet.”

She rubs her shoulders and finds the knots beneath her skin. She starts to knead one out, and Aaliyah groans instantly.

“That hurts,” she whispers. “In such a good way.”

“You literally have balls of stress in your back. Take this off,” Cruz says, pulling her shirt over her head. “Let me rub them out.”

Aaliyah melts into her, so completely that Cruz can’t tell where her body ends and her own begins.

“I don’t want her to go to school yet,” Aaliyah says over her shoulder, as though she is admitting a sin to a priest. “Is that bad of me?”

Cruz moves to the other shoulder and works her there.

“Why don’t you want her to go?”

“I want to spend time with her. I want us to spend time with her. I want to just exist with her. And I want to get her checked.”

“What do you mean, checked?”

“I want her to be seen by someone. We don’t know what happened to her, all this time. And I want to make sure—to make sure—”

“There’s nothing wrong with her. You said it yourself. She’s perfect. But we can get her checked, if it makes you feel better,” Cruz answers. “She can come with me,” she says with a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m going, when we get back. To—”

“Oh,” Aaliyah interrupts.

There’s a pause, and Cruz suddenly feels self-conscious admitting to her wife that she needs to go to therapy, because she’s still hearing her screams in her own head. She wonders if Aaliyah can sense it, how Cruz feels that she’s still teetering on the edge.

“I want to go,” Aaliyah says suddenly. “With you. And for me, too.”

Cruz’s motions on her shoulders stop.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“So then it’s done. That’s what we’ll do. She doesn’t need to go to school yet,” Cruz says matter-of-factly, with the type of confidence she exudes when she is certain of the path she will take. “She’s four. She’s not going to miss anything. Do they even teach them to count at four?”

Aaliyah stills.

“She’s—she’s going to be five, soon.”

Cruz feels the tension ripple through Aaliyah’s back. It ends in a resounding shudder.

“You don’t need to hold it in,” Cruz whispers into her ear.

It’s as though the words give her permission, and she lets it go, all at once. It comes out heavy, fast and wet. She turns and sobs into Cruz’s chest, and Cruz grips her tightly the entire time.

When it finally slows, Aaliyah clears her throat.

“I missed it. All those years. I missed them.”

“But you’ll have the rest. You’ll have all of them.”

“You promise?”

She turns then and finds Cruz’s eyes. She’s looking to her for confirmation. For reassurance. For safety. Cruz has given this to her in excess for their entire relationship. She’s reminded, again, that the nightmare could not have touched the borderline of reality. There is not a world in which she would ever stop keeping her safe, even if it’s only from her fears.

“Yes,” she says, angling Aaliyah’s cheek toward her with one hand to find her lips. “I promise. You’ll have everything with her.”

Then she flips her over and slots her beneath her body. She holds herself up by her arms and lets her hips drop into her. Aaliyah pulls her deeper until there is nothing that intervenes between them.

Another reminder, now, of her true reality. It pings like a siren in the way the weight of her hips pin her down. She’s meant for this, to be on top of her, in this way. She could never exist in a nightmare where she became so detached that she allowed someone else to affix themselves to her hip bones.

“Are you going to kiss me?” Aaliyah asks, weaving her hands through Cruz’s hair.

She does. Slowly, at first. Then sloppily. Their lips don’t bother moving. It’s only their tongues. It’s sinful, to kiss this way, and they haven’t done it in so long.

She breaks only to find other parts of her. There’s her throat, and she hasn’t kissed her there in months. She makes up for lost time in the hollow of it. Then her collar bones, those collar bones.

Why haven’t I been kissing these all along? The question echoes in her mind, and she covers them fully. She moves down, but she’s already been here, on her sternum. So she goes to the right and she takes one in her mouth and Aaliyah lets out a sound that Cruz has never heard, like someone has their hands around her windpipe and her lungs are on the brink of collapse.

“I’m overflowing for you,” Aaliyah whispers, “I felt it, when you kissed my neck the other night. Like a flower, in the morning dew. Like a flower, in bloom. That’s what you do to me.”

Cruz stares up at her in question, because she speaks sometimes in poems that Cruz must parse through, like a maze. But the look in Aaliyah’s eye tells her the way out of this one immediately.

Oh, Cruz thinks. Oh.

Cruz hasn’t heard it in months, the way her wife utters beautiful debauchery to explain her own desire. She never stoops to ordinary filth, simple sexualized terms. No, everything with her comes with an air of regality, an art of expression that Cruz is certain no one else is capable of.

“Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie,” Aaliyah says in Arabic, and the words are electrifying in a way regular language could never be.

“Where—where did you come up with that?”

“I didn’t. That’s Shakespeare, my love,” she says, taking her by the hand. She leads her down, beneath her sweatpants. “It means feel it.”

Cruz blinks at her, perplexed, because she struggles to fathom how it is that she is married to this woman with these eyes who quotes Shakespeare to her as she slips her hand beneath her pants.

Before she can fully comprehend the direction of her palm, she’s there, in the place she hasn’t been in over 6 months, over 180 days, over 4,300 hours. But it’s not like she’s been counting.

“I—I—” Cruz fumbles, and Aaliyah smiles.

“It’s okay, I just wanted you to feel it,” she whispers. Then she pulls Cruz’s hand away, as if she understands that Cruz is still incapable of moving it on her own, in this way. It feels cold here, outside the warmth of her sweatpants.

“Breathe, habibi. You’re the one turning blue now.”

Cruz collapses into her and they join at the cheek. Aaliyah holds her there until her breath returns to a normal speed.

“Basketball. Soccer,” Cruz says into her ear when she finds her tongue again. “And they have to be schools with good teams.”

“What?” Aaliyah asks, breathing into her ear.

“The sports. For the school. Those are the only one’s she’ll need.”

“And how do you know she’s going to play sports? What if she likes art?”

Cruz pulls away. Her nose is stuffed and her ears are plugged, as if the single moment her hand spent between her wife’s legs was like a submersion to the bottom of the sea, or a flight to an altitude she is no longer accustomed to.

“Trust me,” she says, more matter-of-factly than she’s said anything yet.

Aaliyah smiles.

Cruz closes her eyes. Just when she thinks Aaliyah has fallen asleep beneath her, she stirs.

“Thank you,” she whispers, curling one hand under Cruz’s shirt.

“For what?”

“For making all of it sound doable.”

And then they fall asleep.

--

The next day, they lie together in a hammock under a willow tree. The leaves slide over Cruz’s shoulders, tickling her skin. Aaliyah is sprawled out against her chest in her bikini, holding a book over her head and squinting to try to make out the words against the sun.

“Are you sure I’m not hurting you? I feel like I’m pressing into your stomach,” she says over her shoulder.

“It doesn’t hurt. And if it did I wouldn’t say anyway.”

Aaliyah lets out an irritated sigh and goes back to reading.

“What’s the book about?”

“Family drama. Sisters. They lose their father, early in life, and they have no mother. It affects them all, in different ways. Not a fan, to be honest.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me think of him,” she whispers.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I was naïve, to think I ever had a father in the first place.”

Cruz nuzzles her head.

“I’m sorry.”

Aaliyah turns the page as though she’s reading, when Cruz knows she isn’t.

“You know he used to take up the atmosphere of any room he walked into. He was captivating, in a way. Everyone would always say I was just like him. And he would do the things fathers should do, on the surface. Always coming home armed with gifts. Smiling at me, like he was proud of me. Proud of who I was.”

“And you don’t think he was?”

“I know he wasn’t. I think I figured it out, early on. He’d parade me into the room, whenever he was entertaining guests. But he’d only do it to objectify me. ‘Look at my beautiful daughter,’ he would say. He wanted people to think he was capable of that. Capable of being a father.”

Aaliyah lets out a heavy breath.

“He was good enough at tricking people that even I believed he really loved me, sometimes. Mama told me, only recently. That in the end, he was just going to have me killed. Wipe me off the face of the earth, as though I was nothing at all. Someone capable of that isn’t capable of love at all.”

“I know,” Cruz whispers.
“What do you mean, you know?”

“Your mother told me, once. I didn’t know at the time, obviously. But it made me feel—”

“Better that you got rid of him?”

“In a way, yeah. I’m sorry, if that—”

“Don’t be. Evil lived in him. I mourn only what he should have been.”

She stares up at her book again and continues reading, like they haven’t just discussed a monumental thing.

The wind blows and Cruz stares up into the branches above. They’re long, graceful. They form a curtain around them, closing them in from the rest of the world so that it’s just the two of them, and nothing else.

Cruz runs her hands slowly down her body. She starts at her neck, moves down her shoulders, her arms. The breath moves quicker out of Aaliyah’s chest as she does. She revels in it, the way her body still responds to Cruz’s hands in the way it always has.

Her fingers fall to her hips, moving in slowly, and Aaliyah snaps her book closed.

“Are you trying to drive me crazy?”

Cruz laughs.

“No. You’re just extra reactive.”

Aaliyah plucks the bookmark from a page and starts folding it together until it creases.

“I haven’t in so long,” Aaliyah whispers.

Cruz’s hands pause.

“Haven’t what?”

Aaliyah wriggles on top of her, and Cruz senses her embarrassment.

“Oh,” Cruz says, suddenly understanding. “You mean you didn’t—you didn’t—”

“No,” Aaliyah replies. “No, I didn’t want to feel that alone, without you.”

Cruz feels a tremor pass down her arms, to her hands. She has been painfully aware of Aaliyah’s need for this. And she has been even more acutely aware of her fear that her body will not cooperate long enough to give it to her.

“Did you?” Aaliyah murmurs the question quietly, as though this is something she is scared to ask.

“Twice,” Cruz says after a pause.

Aaliyah wriggles again.

“And were you thinking of me, when you did?”

“Of course I was.”

“What were you thinking?”

Cruz lets out a puff of air.

“Do we have to do this?”

“I want to know.”

“I thought of what you looked like, that night in Mexico. When you were wearing that—that—”

Aaliyah turns into her and Cruz can feel her breath hitting her in the side of her neck.

“Mmmm, the something white?”

Cruz nods.

“Did it feel good?”

“No. I couldn’t feel it at all.”

She doesn’t want to say more, and Aaliyah must sense it, because she opens her book again and turns a page.

But the tremor continues down Cruz’s arms, and her hands move automatically again over Aaliyah’s body. They make their way over her waist and stomach.

She stops at her ribs.

They jut out in a way they never have before, and Cruz can feel each one.

“You lost a lot of weight,” Cruz murmurs.

Aaliyah closes her book again.

“I didn’t eat much, for awhile.”

Cruz reaches for her shirt.

“Get dressed,” she says.

Aaliyah pouts and closes her eyes. “I’m not done tanning.”

“We’re going to the market.”

Aaliyah squints at her.

“Why?”

“Because you need a cheeseburger. Let’s go.”

They take a bicycle down the street. Aaliyah gets on the handlebars, and Cruz pedals.

When they get into the store, Cruz grabs a basket and takes her hand, and they walk to the meat section. Aaliyah breaks away and Cruz stares down at different brands of burgers.

“Bro, she’s so fucking hot,” she hears next to her. She looks up, and there are two men in bathing suits and sandals. One has a raging sunburn on his nose, and the other is wearing a backwards ballcap. They speak like surfer boys who meet the stereotype. Prolonged syllables, over-annunciation. Cruz’s nose wrinkles at the smell of marijuana on them.

“Twenty bucks says you can’t get her number.”

The sunburned one claps him on his back. “Watch me.”

Cruz follows their eyes to Aaliyah, standing feet away and reading the back of a package of cheese. She’s wearing nothing but a bikini and a sheer cover up that doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Her skin is glowing from a day in the sun.

“She has a ring on,” Cruz says to them in amusement.

They both startle and look to Cruz, as though they’ve only just noticed her. The sunburned nose rolls his eyes.

“Like that matters,” he says.

“Aaliyah,” Cruz calls. Aaliyah looks up from the cheese, raising her eyebrows.

Cruz switches to Arabic.

“They’ve made a bet on whether they can get your number,” Cruz says, nodding toward the men. Aaliyah’s eyes dart to them. Cruz smirks.

“And this is funny to you?” Aaliyah asks back in Arabic.

Cruz shrugs her shoulders and picks up a package of ground beef.

“Why is it that you can’t go to this market without having a problem?” Cruz questions, still in Arabic.

Aaliyah smiles.

“Are you going to get jealous again?”

Cruz grips the ground beef tighter, and her fingers leave imprints in the plastic.

“You think I was jealous of Ken?”

Aaliyah let’s out a single laugh.

“How else to explain your parking lot meltdown?”

“Your lack of clothing, to start. Or did you forget how your asscheeks were hanging out of those shorts?”

One of the men taps her on the shoulder. “Putting in a good word for us?” the one in the ballcap asks.

“Oh yeah, she said she’s interested,” Cruz says, pointing over her shoulder toward Aaliyah casually, as though she is nothing more than a friend playing wingman. “She said she wants your number.”

She can hear Aaliyah gasp. Cruz snorts.

“Oh shit, she’s coming this way,” the sunburned one remarks.

Aaliyah walks over slowly. She releases the clip that holds her hair in a twisted bun, and it falls down her back dramatically. She tosses it back and forth as she steps closer, then looks both men up and down.

“Baby,” she purrs to Cruz. “I’m not hungry.” She takes the meat out of Cruz’s hands and throws it into the refrigerated cooler.

Cruz looks at her. Aaliyah reaches out and grabs Cruz’s lower back, dragging her hand dangerously low. She leans in for effect.

“Take me home and fuck me,” she says quietly.

Cruz’s mouth falls, and the men’s fall with it. Aaliyah’s eyes are gleaming. She tips forward and licks the corner of Cruz’s open mouth.

“Please,” she whispers.

“Holy shit,” one of the men says.

Cruz feels a pulse between her legs. Her cheeks flame. Aaliyah turns and looks at the men.

“Sorry, boys. My wife is taking me home to lick me until I scream.”

Cruz coughs. Something is stuck in her throat, lodged in her windpipe, depriving her of air.

Aaliyah pulls Cruz by the elbow and walks her down the aisle, then turns and rushes back to the meat cooler. She plucks the package of ground beef out.

“And then she’s making me a cheeseburger.” She winks at them, then walks away.

“I think I just jizzed in my pants,” the sunburned nose exhales. “They’re both fucking smoke.”

Aaliyah grabs Cruz as she passes by her and hustles her to the front of the store.

“I cannot believe you just did that,” Cruz mutters.

Aaliyah’s tongue escapes the corner of her mouth, and her eyes shine.

“I wish you could’ve seen your face.”

--

When they get back, Cruz leans the bike on the side of the boathouse and Aaliyah tousles her hair.

“I’m going to use the outdoor shower.” Aaliyah points to a wooden shower stall feet away. There are climbing pink rose bushes that surround it on all sides. It’s open, with no curtain or door in front of it.

“The people who built this place weren’t into privacy, huh?”

Aaliyah crinkles her eyes.

“Who’s around to see? The next house is a mile away.”

She starts to walk away, but Cruz grabs her hand. She tugs gently and pushes her into the boathouse panels. She finds her eyes. They’re a fierce shade of blue.

“What you said, in the market. Is that what you want me to do?”

Aaliyah looks down at the ground.

“Hey, come here,” Cruz whispers, pulling her chin back up.

“I don’t want anything you aren’t ready for, my love,” Aaliyah says.

“That isn’t an answer.”

She searches Cruz’s face, then stares pointedly at her lips. Her hands come up and grip Cruz’s sides, and Cruz leans closer. Her skin smells like sunscreen and lemons, like a day spent in the sunshine.

She grabs Cruz’s hand and brings it to her own chest, placing it over her heart. It bangs wildly into Cruz’s palm.

“Can you feel that?”

Cruz nods.

“That’s your answer.”

“I’m nervous, Aaliyah.”

She breathes her admission directly into her lips, and Aaliyah cups her cheeks with both hands.

“Why, my love?”

“Because of what happened. On the boat, when you tried to—when you—” her cheeks swelter with her humiliation. “I just don’t want to screw this up again.”

Aaliyah’s grip on her tightens.

“Don’t say that. You haven’t screwed anything up.”

She brings Cruz’s palm back to the spot on her chest over her heart.

“I ache, with how much I want you,” she whispers, and Cruz can feel her heart pounding again beneath her palm. “I always ache for you. And you can have me, whenever you’re ready. We can wait as long as you need.”

“Ok,” Cruz agrees, retreating backward a step to create space between them.

“Ok,” Aaliyah says back, dropping Cruz’s hand. She smiles, but Cruz can see in the way her lip quivers that it’s forced.

“Let me shower.” She taps the side of Cruz’s hip. “There’s too much sand on me.”

Aaliyah slides away and walks to the shower, pulling her cover-up over her head as she goes. She unties the top of her light blue bikini. It falls at her feet, exposing the perfect lines of her back in full. Her shoulder blades, delicate and elegant. The curve down the center of her back, like a canyon in the middle. Then she steps out of her bottoms and continues forward.

Cruz stares after her. Aaliyah throws a look back at her over her shoulder and smiles again.

“I’m going to put air in the tires. They’re getting flat,” Cruz says, placing her hand on the handlebars of the bike.

Aaliyah nods and turns on the shower head, then stands under the water. She throws her head back and closes her eyes, wiping at her neck. Her mouth opens enough for Cruz to see the whites of her teeth, and it’s like the straw that breaks the camel’s back, a provocative onslaught that sends her running in the other direction.

She jogs into the boathouse. She opens a box, pushes things across a table. The table she laid her on top of, that night. The table she crawled on top of, over her body. The table she took her on, over and over again. She spins around and looks at all of the surfaces, the one’s they covered with their bodies.

Make love to me, she had said, on these wooden planks.

Cruz rubs her face and her pulse gallops in her neck.

What the fuck am I doing? She thinks.

Cruz doesn’t know how much Aaliyah has done intentionally. But she comprehends, on some level, that Aaliyah has wielded her body and her words and her charm and those eyes to seduce Cruz out of remission.

Cruz is more than seduced. She’s going to detonate, if she doesn’t have her.

She drops the box she’s holding to the ground. Dust flies out of it and she coughs. She walks hurriedly back outside.

Aaliyah is rubbing shampoo through her hair, and she doesn’t notice Cruz approach.

She’s singing. She’s singing the same song, from that day months before, the day it all went wrong. The day the before became the after.

Cruz freezes and listens to her.

Then Aaliyah looks at her.

“What are you doing?” she asks shyly.

Cruz doesn’t even bother with discarding her clothes. She walks right into the shower and presses her into the wall.

She decides, then, that it doesn’t matter if her body is capable of this. All that matters is that she can give it to her. Because her wife hasn’t in so long. Her wife has told her she hasn’t. Her wife needs her, in this way, and Cruz is desperate to serve it to her.

It’s carnal, the way Cruz kisses her. She inhales her lips. She pushes her tongue deep into her mouth. She grabs at her breasts, licks down her neck, shoves her thigh between her legs to part them.

Aaliyah releases a throttled sound.

“Please don’t do this unless you want to,” she whispers.

Cruz squeezes her chin and dives into her mouth again.

“I want to,” she says. “I want to.”

She slides her hand between her legs and pushes into her, and Aaliyah cries out.

Cruz kisses her harder. She’s moving too fast, yet not quick enough.

Aaliyah grabs the back of her head and pulls Cruz into the crook of her neck.

“I’ve needed you.”

Aaliyah says it like a prayer into her ear, and Cruz’s pace becomes frenzied, insatiable. She adds to it, feeling instantly how ready she already was to open for her in this way.

Aaliyah’s hips rock forward and Cruz drives them backward, until Aaliyah’s back starts slamming into the wooden shower panels. Vines from the rose bushes tangle through cracks in the wood. A thorn cuts into Aaliyah’s skin, drawing blood. Cruz stops suddenly, blinking away the mist from the shower.

“Am I hurting you?” she asks worriedly, but Aaliyah yanks her wrist back.

“Don’t you dare stop,” she breathes.

Then Aaliyah’s hand finds its way into Cruz’s shorts, uninvited. Her fingers are a feather’s touch, and it all caves in. Cruz’s body roars to life. Her legs founder. Her arms shake. Her knees sway.

“No, I want you to. I want you to have this,” Cruz pleads, grabbing at Aaliyah’s wrist to stop her.

Aaliyah shakes her head.

“Open your eyes, my love.”

Cruz stares at her through half closed lids.

“Can you feel it?”

Cruz falls into her, her open mouth pressed against her forehead.

“God yes,” she manages.

Aaliyah pulls Cruz’s own hand away and turns them around. Cruz’s back hits the wall. The branches from the rose bushes slice against her skin. Aaliyah presses her into the panels, her fingers continuing against her.

“I’m going to make you feel everything,” she whispers.

And then she does. It unfolds wildly, culminates at full tilt, and Cruz falters against the side of the shower as she comes down.

Aaliyah’s forehead collides with her chin as she sobs.

She has never done this before. She has never been the one to cry afterward.

“Are you okay?” Cruz whispers. “What’s wrong? Shhh. It’s ok.” She covers the sides of Aaliyah’s face with her hands like a halo, and Aaliyah’s ribs ripple with her hurried breaths.

“Nothing,” she squeaks out. “I’m just crying for you.”

“What do you mean?”

Aaliyah closes her eyes, leans all the way into her.

“Because you can feel.”

Cruz bends down and pulls up her shorts. She sweeps one arm under the back of Aaliyah’s knees and lifts her up. Aaliyah’s hands circle her neck.

She walks out of the shower, her clothes dripping, toward the house.

“Where are we going?” Aaliyah says against her neck.

“To bed.”

“I’m not tired.”

“Good, we aren’t sleeping.”

“You can’t carry me all the way in again, you’re hurt.”

“Says who?”

They don’t turn off the shower.

They never go to sleep.

And Aaliyah finishes the execution of her bait-and-switch, as though she had been lying in wait for Cruz to come for her body all along. As though she had tempted her, only to turn the tables.

She doesn’t let Cruz take charge. She doesn’t let her give back to her a single time. When Cruz attempts to, she ducks her advances tactically.

“It’s not time for that,” she says repeatedly, pushing Cruz’s hands away. “It’s time for you.”

She holds Cruz’s body under an endless spell, one Cruz gives into willingly until she feels so much that she can’t bear to feel anymore.

Cruz crawls out of bed at some unknown time to make coffee and scavenge for food. Her legs are wobbly, her lips enlarged and swollen. Aaliyah’s hands are sprawled above her head, her cheeks flushed.

“Had enough already?” Aaliyah teases.

Cruz shakes her head.

“You’re unbelievable.”

Cruz walks barefoot down the stairs. She stands at the kitchen window, bleary-eyed, while the coffee machine drips espresso into a mug. There’s a motion outside, and she squints. The hamburger meat is a swinging bygone, suspended in the plastic bag on the handlebars of the bike.

She laughs.

--
Aaliyah wakes up hours later to the morning sun. She crawls out of the bed in her underwear and slips on one of Cruz’s long t-shirts. It smells like her, and she breathes it in. She turns to look at her naked body. She’s asleep on her stomach, her arms flung over her head and tucked beneath a pillow. She’s sprawled over the quilt, like she always does after a night of intimacy, as if she cannot tolerate the heat of a blanket.

She goes downstairs and the doorbell rings. She checks the camera and sees delivery vans in the gravel drive. A man stands with a floral arrangement at their door.

“Sign here, ma’am,” he says when she opens the door. “Where would you like all of them?”

“All of what?” she asks, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“We have over thirty bouquets for delivery to this address,” he says, pointing to three trucks in the driveway.

“We didn’t order this. You have the wrong property. There’s another house, a mile down the road, maybe—”

Then Cruz’s arms circle her waist.

“No you’re in the right place, thanks,” she says. She grabs the clipboard from him and signs her name with just her initials, like she always does.

Aaliyah turns to look at her.

“What do you mean they’re in the right--”

“Where would you like us to put them all?” the driver interrupts.

“Wherever. The house is big. Put them everywhere,” Cruz says, walking to the kitchen.

Then the bouquets come through the door, a continuous line of colors. Red Roses, light blue daffodils, yellow sunflowers, white lilies, scarlet azaleas, baby’s breath, lavender, orange daisies.

Aaliyah follows her into the kitchen.

“What is going on? What is this?”

Cruz’s head is ducked into the refrigerator.

“For you,” she says between gulps of an energy drink.

“What are you talking about?”

She wipes her mouth and turns around.

“They’re for you.”

“From who?”

She laughs hysterically.

“Do you have another wife I don’t know about? From me.”

A man brushes past them and puts a vase of pink roses on their island.

“Are you sure we can go in all the rooms?” he asks Cruz.

“Yeah, just spread them out,” she says, gesturing with one hand.

“You ordered these, for me?” Aaliyah asks, blinking in confusion.

“I told you I had to make it up to you,” Cruz says.

“Make what up to me?”

“How I acted. On that boat. The things I said. And you said looking at them makes you believe the world can still be beautiful.”

Water fills Aaliyah’s eyes. It comes quickly, like someone is pouring it in with a heavy hand from a pitcher.

“Why did you get so many?”

“I asked for 153 stems.”

“153?”

“For all the days I was gone.”

Aaliyah feels herself go dizzy. The ground beneath her feet is uneven. She grabs the side of the island, and Cruz reaches for her.

“I love you,” Cruz whispers into her hair. “I love you.”

It sweeps her up, the reintroduction to this version of her.

Her wife, the dreamer.

She’s here.

--

The day is unseasonably cold, and Cruz spends it with her head bent in the fireplace in the sunroom.

“I’m going to get it to work,” she keeps saying, on repeat.

“Please stop going on the roof,” Aaliyah pleads.

“One more time,” Cruz says with her palms up, as though Aaliyah has caught her red-handed. They’re covered in soot. “Just tell me if you feel the air coming down. You should feel it, this time.”

“Cruz.”

“Just one more time,” she says as she jogs past, planting a single kiss on her head.

“But why,” Aaliyah whines. “It’ll be hot again tomorrow.”

“Because it’ll be romantic, to eat in here with it on later,” she shouts.

And she’s right. The fire makes its own music as it crackles when Aaliyah places plates on the table that night. The table is solid acrylic, with a gleaming glass top. Her mother bought it at an auction for an obscene amount a little over a year ago, and they’d never eaten on it since.

“It’s too nice,” her mother had said when Aaliyah first attempted to set it with plates.

“Too nice to eat on? Then why’d you buy it?”

“To look at!”

Aaliyah smiles to herself as she rearranges the placemats to protect the surface. What her mother doesn’t know, won’t kill her.

Cruz’s hands find her waist suddenly from behind, and she jumps, startled.

“You scared me,” she laughs.

The golden hour is long past, but the fire sends light throughout the sunroom. Dust particles float through the air, suspended and enchanting in the way dust can be when the light finds it in the right moment.

Cruz pushes her into the glass edge of the table until it cuts into her thighs. Her hands slip beneath the hem of her sundress, pulling her underwear down.

Aaliyah turns to find her, but Cruz nudges her cheek until she’s staring ahead again.

“What are you doing?”

“Giving you what you need,” she whispers into her shoulder.

“Oh yeah? What do I need?”

Her hand cups the back of her neck, guiding her down slowly. Aaliyah goes willingly where it directs her, until she’s bent over the table, one cheek pressed flush against the glass.

Cruz chuckles, low and suggestive. She comes down on top of her, and Aaliyah can feel that she’s bare.

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”

Aaliyah let’s out a loud-pitched laugh.

“You’re going to make love to me on a glass table?”

Cruz kisses her neck, covers Aaliyah’s ear with her mouth.

“Something like that.”

Cruz pulls away, and Aaliyah’s back is suddenly cold from the lack of contact. Then she flips her over, gives her a boost so that she’s sitting on the table. She fingers the bottom of her dress and Aaliyah lifts her arms. Cruz pulls it over her head.

“Lie back,” she says softly, nudging Aaliyah’s chest with her fingertips. Aaliyah reclines against the table, propped up on her forearms. The glass is cool against her lower back, and her skin squeaks against it as Cruz pushes her further back.

Then Cruz retreats. The fire beyond them casts shadows across Cruz’s face, lighting and darkening her features all at once. The flames dance in Cruz’s eyes as they fixate on Aaliyah’s body. Her body, which has gone unclaimed and lost for months. Cruz takes it back with only her eyes, and Aaliyah twists and turns beneath her gaze. They survey her brazenly, as though Cruz is unbothered by the act of staring so intrusively into her nakedness. Her fingers trace the outline of her own mouth as she travels the contours of Aaliyah’s skin, stripping her down even though there’s nothing left to take off.

Aaliyah stares back at her. Her lips, plump and wide. Her jaw, defined and strong. The lines of her collar bone, the sharpness of her abdomen, the way her hip bones flash lethally as they dip into that place. The cut of her imposing, arresting.

Cruz lets out a breath, loud enough for Aaliyah to hear. The fire hisses behind them, sending embers into the chimney, and Aaliyah pitches in anticipation.

It’s the most intimate physical moment they’ve ever shared.

All without a single touch.

“God, Aaliyah,” Cruz whispers. “Everything I want to do.”

She shakes her head.

She bends over her, mouth brushing once against the inside of Aaliyah’s knee, the top of her thigh. Then she unfolds her so completely that it validates every fear Aaliyah had in her absence. She never would have had this again, if Cruz didn’t come home.

Her body tightens at the thought of it. It stiffens her toes, travels up her legs. Cruz pauses, peering across her stomach, up her chest, and to her face. Her dark eyes are wet, her eyebrows fiercely angled. The look tells Aaliyah that Cruz understands, somehow, precisely what Aaliyah is thinking.

Her hands trace the bottoms of her ribs. “It’s okay,” Cruz murmurs. “It’s okay now.”

Aaliyah let’s out a single cry when her mouth returns, but she can’t rid her mind of the anxiety. It’s itching to unleash in the pace of her heart, mixing with her desire in a way that renders the two inseparable. She squeezes her eyes shut and tries to will it away, but it refuses to go.

Then it’s there, suddenly, in the pit of her stomach. The phantom. The kick.

Cruz’s mouth stops again, and this time she bends all the way over her.

“Hey, pretty girl. Look at me,” she prods, one hand on Aaliyah’s neck.

Aaliyah opens her eyes and Cruz pulls her to a sitting position.

“You have it in your eyes too,” she whispers, pressing her mouth to Aaliyah’s cheek.

“Have what?” Aaliyah asks, running one hand through Cruz’s hair.

“The pain. You told me you saw it, before. In mine. Now I see it in yours.”

Cruz rubs her thumbs under her eyes.

“But your eyes are way too beautiful to have that,” she continues. “And I know you’ve been holding it all in, because you think you need to around me. But you don’t. Talk to me. Tell me why you have this,” she says, running her fingers along her eyelids.

Aaliyah’s eyes flutter.

“I feel this panic,” Aaliyah lets out shakily. “Right here, in my stomach. It’s like a kick. I don’t know how to make it stop. It makes me feel like I’m going to lose everything.”

“When did it start again?” Cruz asks, brushing back her hair.

Aaliyah hesitates.

“How did—how did you know?”

She’s never told her about it, in all these years. She’s never told anyone.

“I noticed it, in the beginning. Before we were together. You grabbed your stomach all the time, when you were nervous.”

Cruz drops her forehead to her shoulder, resting it there.

“It broke me, to see you that way. You always flinched, like something was hurting you from the inside. Then it stopped, when we—when you—”

“I know. But it started again, after you left.”

Cruz’s mouth closes on the knob of her shoulder. She slides it along her clavicle, to her neck.

“You’re not going to lose anything. You have her. You have me. I promise.”

“You promised that, once before. Then you left.”

Cruz laughs.

“Yeah, and I kept my promise, didn’t I? I’m right here. I came back.”

Her fingers brush along Aaliyah’s stomach, circling her belly button.

“What if his family comes back? What if they try to take her?”

Cruz shakes her head.

“No one is taking her. No one is touching her. I’ve got her. For her whole life, I’ll have her. Nothing is going to happen to her. I promise.”

Aaliyah swallows.

She had listened to these promises, once before. Then she spent six months feeling naïve for believing in them.

Yet here she is, suspended over a glass table, in her wife’s arms. Because she came back. Because she kept her promise.

And the way she looks at Aaliyah now is enough to convince her that she always will.

“Ok,” Aaliyah says. “Ok.”

“I’m going to take it away now. Can you let me do that?”

She nods.

Cruz kisses her softly. They’re timid pecks, lips caressing in a way that makes them seem barely there, and Aaliyah closes her eyes. She pushes her back down and returns to the center of her, and she kisses her the same way there. It’s faint. Subtle. She starts using her breath in lieu of her lips, and she keeps going that way until Aaliyah’s body rises for more. Then she unfolds her again, and this time when Aaliyah shudders, she knows it’s just desire on its own.

“Let go for me,” Cruz whispers.

And she does. Suddenly, gloriously, without warning.

Cruz’s mouth finds her ear, and she asks the question.

“More?”

Aaliyah nods, breathless. Cruz flips her back onto her stomach then pulls her to the edge of the table until her feet reach the ground. Her lips move languidly down her back. Then there’s a pause and she’s gone. Before Aaliyah can ask what she’s doing, it’s inside of her, and she gasps. She feels full, expanded.

“Where did you get this?”

Cruz chuckles again, but never answers.

It’s not slow. It’s not gentle. It isn’t light. Her thrusts are relentless, hard, drilling. Aaliyah’s breath comes out ragged. It fogs up the glass of the table. She can see it, the circle of condensation by her mouth, desecrating this surface that has never been touched. Her hands grab desperately against it, looking for something to hold on to but finding nothing in its smoothness.

She has an ephemeral thought, one that leaves as quickly as it comes, that now she knows what it feels like, to be had atop glass.

Cruz throws her hand onto the table and it collides with a vase, one holding a handful of the 153 stems scattered throughout the house. It falls over, sending water onto the glass. The flowers fly across the table, pink gardenias. Their perfume fills Aaliyah’s nose, and something loud and primal escapes her lips when Cruz finds that place.

“I’m sorry this took me so long,” Cruz whispers from behind, her voice tight with exertion. Aaliyah wants to tell her to stop apologizing but then she’s there, at the peak again, and it doesn’t matter anymore how long it’s been because it never really stopped at all.

Cruz falls back into her, her chest covering her back from behind. She’s drenched with sweat, and Aaliyah can feel the air moving in and out of her body as her weight flattens her into the table.

And then, the same question.

“More?”

Aaliyah doesn’t answer this time. She lets the way her breath moves, madly and erratically, speak for her. Cruz listens.

There’s more, when she turns her onto her back again and pulls her legs around her waist.

There’s more, when she lifts one of her legs over her shoulder.

There’s more, when she flips her onto her side and crawls onto the table behind her.

“I can’t take anymore,” Aaliyah murmurs at one point as Cruz breathes into her.

“But you want it,” she pants into the heart of her. “Tell me you don’t.”

And she’s right. She wants more, and Cruz gives it to her.

She gives so much that Aaliyah’s legs lose function at the end. They’re both on the table, splayed over its surface, heaving. Cruz throws one hand across Aaliyah’s stomach.

“Good?” she asks.

Aaliyah lets out a whimper, as though all of it has defeated her.

“Good?”

It isn’t the word to describe what just occurred. It was ruination, wreckage, destruction, a mastery of every pulse point under her skin. It was Cruz’s way of showing her that she still owns her body, that it never belonged to Aaliyah at all.

Cruz pulls her up into a sitting position, and Aaliyah sways, every limb boneless, every muscle weakened.

“Legs around my waist. Hands around my neck,” she instructs.

Aaliyah complies, and then she’s being lifted, carried. She’s in a daze, knocked senseless by all of it. Then they’re in a shower. There’s a window open, and something that sounds like waves is just beyond it. Aaliyah doesn’t know what part of the house they’re in, which bathroom she’s carried her to. Cruz grabs the showerhead, a washcloth, a bar of soap that smells like lilies. She comes toward her through the mist, and Aaliyah tries to take them from her. Cruz pushes her away.

“No, let me take care of you.”

Hands that have just annihilated her wash her delicately, and Aaliyah trembles the entire time.

She cries again, clinging to her.

“What’s wrong, my love?” Cruz asks, wiping suds away from Aaliyah’s face.

“Nothing. I’m just crying for me this time,” she says after catching her breath.

The next morning, she checks the table, running one hand along the edge. The first light of the day filters into the sunroom, bright enough to show the aftermath in vivid detail.

Her dress lies in a heap at one end. Imprints and smudges of their bodies litter the glass surface, together with the crushed petals of gardenias. It’s scratched in places, even chipped and dented in at least two spots. She tries to summon what caused that, and then she remembers, her hand grabbing wildly for an anchor, finding a water glass, banging it down. Then Cruz’s thigh at one point, hammering into a plate.

She knows the table has lost its value, that her mother will notice the damage instantly.

She doesn’t think it’s ever looked better.

--
Aaliyah’s phone buzzes as she’s sitting on the porch, drinking coffee.

“Hi honey,” she says, answering the phone.

“You little shit,” Todd says, his voice ten octaves too high for so early in the morning.

She laughs.

“You got the travel package?”

“I got it. Why did you do this?”

“Because you told me, when we were there. You said if you could go anywhere in the world, you’d go to Bali.”

“I’m packing. David is complaining.”

“What’s there to complain about?”

Aaliyah puts him on speaker so she can hold her mug with both hands, letting it warm her palms.

“I don’t know, it’s Bali. It’s a five-star hotel. He needs to get over himself.”

“I agree. Tell him I said so.”

“I can hear you, Aaliyah,” David drawls in the distance.

“Seriously, thank you, sweetheart. You really didn’t need to do this,” Todd says. “I mean, I guess you kind of did. Remember how bad you smelled?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Can you not?”