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He immediately let me go. “It’s okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel trapped.”
“It wasn’t that.” I gave him a grateful smile. “Something fell out of your pocket.”
“Did it?” He shrugged. “Ah well, it will be here when we get back.”
“What is it?”
His gaze skated away; a fib tumbled from his lips. “Nothing important.”
I scowled. “You just lied.”
“No, I—”
“Tell me.” Marching away from him, stepping over our discarded flip-flops, I collected the small secret thing.
The instant my fingers cupped it, I swayed under the onslaught of bone-deep, soul-slicing emotions.
The shell.
The spiny frog shell that I’d clung to, all while he’d brought me back to life when I was fourteen. Three years since he’d saved me. Three years.
Turning on trembling legs, I held up the peach and cream shell. “You kept it?”
He rubbed bloody hands over his face, streaking the ribbons of blood already on his cheek. Dropping his arms, he gave me a despairing smile. “Of course, I kept it. It was from you.”
“Do you use it? Do you speak to your family through it?”
“No.”
“Then—?”
“I speak to you.” Stepping toward me, he stroked the shell that wasn’t nearly as spiky now, after three years in pockets and palms. The edges were dull. The spines worn. “On the nights when I couldn’t bear how much I wanted you, I’d confess my darkest desires. On the nights I dreamed of you, I’d admit how much I loved you. On the nights when I feared being taken from you, I begged it to keep me hidden so I could stay here with you.”
He laughed under his breath, slightly unhappy, slightly angry. “The idea of losing you is repellent. The very concept of being away from you is so abhorrent, I literally can’t sleep sometimes. I can’t let go of the past, but I also can’t grasp the future. Partly because my existence in this country is out of my control but mostly because...I’m so fucking afraid that you’ll see me for who I truly am. That if I tell you the truth, you won’t want me anymore.”
“Why?” My fingers closed over his and the shell. “Why would you ever think that?”
He sighed heavily. “Because I haven’t told you a single thing about who I am. The man you think you know isn’t real.”
“You’re as real as I am.”
“I’m a product of my past.”
“Tell me. Tell me so I can prove to you that nothing else matters but this.” Squeezing his hand, wincing as the shell dug into my palm, I urged, “Tell me whatever secrets you think will drive me away so I can prove to you that they will only bring us closer.”
His gaze caught mine. No moonlight shone in them. Only darkness.
I expected him to refuse, but he slowly nodded. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I’ll tell you who I truly am...before we sleep together. That way, you can decide if you still want me before I make you mine.”
Pulling the shell out of my hand, he dropped it onto his discarded jeans. “Let’s swim, canim. I’m so sick of fucking hiding.”
Without another word, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me overboard.
Chapter Forty-Four
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Javanese: Rembulan)
SEAWATER CRASHED OVER MY HEAD.
My present life split down the middle, allowing space for the past to haunt.
“You need to know something, Aslan.” My father shifted closer to me on the tight bench of the rickety boat. He looked older. Drained from the year of hiding, running, and endless flights. His eyes were black with terror for this voyage.
“What do I need to know?” I hugged my baby sister closer. She’d fallen asleep the moment we cast off. Afet, my cousin, whispered to my mother, their heads tipped together. All around us, other people who’d signed up to be smuggled out of Indonesia kept to themselves, watching each other with wariness.
“I don’t quite know how to say this,” my father whispered. “But if anything happens to me...you need to know why you can’t ever go back to Turkey.”
I stilled. “You sound as if I’m the only one who can’t go back.”
He chewed on his cheeks before replying, “If any of us go back, we’re dead. But if you go back...” His hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing hard. “If you go back, Aslan...you’ll suffer a far, far worse fate—”
My burning lungs sliced through the memory.
My fingers unwrapped from Neri’s wrist, needing all limbs free to swim. Kicking to the surface, I sucked in air as ocean flowed over my face. Jerking my head back, I flopped wet hair away, leaving my eyes free.
Neri popped up beside me, her face so young and pretty, the gleam of the moon making her hair silver-black. “You okay?” she asked quietly, her arms fanning in the water as she swam.
I kicked and forced myself not to think about what stalked below. I didn’t let images of rotting corpses and the tiny skeleton of Melike haunt me. I’d lived with my adversity for years. It was nothing compared to Nerida’s.
