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Was he thinking of all the things that could go wrong? Fearing that a typical dream for others might not happen for us?
If I did have his child, what name did I put under ‘father’ on the birth certificate?
Could his be listed, or would that put him at risk?
You’re nineteen.
By the time you’re both ready for children, he’ll be legal, and everything will be fine.
An awkward silence fell; my pulse skittered. “Anyway...” I turned my phone back to face me, resting it against the saltshaker again. “I need to finish cooking, so you’ll just have to watch me while we chat. I want my dessert and can’t get it unless I feed my man.”
“Is dessert code for cock by any chance?” Honey giggled.
“Oh, Jesus, and this is where I leave.” Billy backed away, waving at me. “Bye, Neri. Bye, Aslan!”
He vanished from the shot, and I slipped into a happy evening of cooking, talking to my best friend, and stealing stares at my delicious sexy man as he put his glasses on, pulled up a math problem on a second-hand tablet we’d bought together, and settled into the numbers he loved so much.
What a wonderful night.
What a wonderful life.
What a shame that soon, it would just be a memory.
A memory with the power to kill me.
Chapter Fourteen
*
Aslan
*
(Heart in Swahili: Moyo)
TWO YEARS.
On the one hand, time shot by in a whirlwind of study, renos, work, parental visits, and sex that never failed to draw us closer. On the other, time had turned into my enemy, aging me from twenty-two to twenty-three to twenty-four, ensuring the more years I lived in Australia overshadowed the years I’d lived in Turkey.
I spoke my language often.
I shared my culture with Neri regularly.
But I couldn’t help feeling that a part of me that belonged to a different country, a different life, was slowly dying the longer I lived in Australia. The sun and salt were a part of me now. I might not ever earn a passport or call myself an Aussie, but I felt at home here.
A home that we’d made, just the two of us.
For two years, we lived together in wedded bliss. We hardly ever fought; we supported one another, looked after one another, and kept falling into deeper levels of love.
Each day, Neri took me by surprise—bringing home a matching shell to the one she’d given me when she was fourteen. Or waking me up with her lips trailing kisses down my belly. Or feeding me painkillers when I rolled my ankle after a stupid mistake on the stairs.
Each little, caring thing she did made me fall a little more.
There was no bottom.
No end.
If I was ever taken away from her or she was taken away from me, I wouldn’t fucking survive it.
