Love from A to Z(91)

“Please! Without you, this would not be. This exodus to freedom. So thank you.” She put her arm around me, and I let her.

? ? ?

Kavi and Ayaan joined us in the library, and all four of us—Kavi, Ayaan, Noemi, and me—went to the Situation Room, where they told us that Fencer was under investigation by the school for his online activities.

That the school board was involved.

That he most likely would be fired.

Noemi gave a hoot so loud that Ms. Margolis knocked on the Situation Room door.

I let her in.

Because, now, this was what it was all about.

I was ready to let people in.

I’d still keep some people out.

But I saw—in this room, out through the window into the library, even in my pocket, with the small goose—that there were so many more that wanted in than out.

And that was one of the most marvelous things in the world.





EPILOGUE


THE WORLD IS A MYSTERIOUS place. On the one hand, its size can be measured and recorded and verified. Its marvels and oddities captured in complex, empirical detail.

On the other hand, its size is relative to our mind’s perception of it. Its marvels and oddities only extending to how far our vision goes.

For some of us, this means the world is small, including only those we see as belonging to it. People related to us, people who look like us, dress like us, think like us.

For others, it’s medium-size and includes those we connect to through some similarity, some trait that pings familiarity within, which then allows us to overlook the differences between us and them.

And then there are those who see the world as huge, as the actual size it measurably is.

Huge enough to include vast differences, people with nothing in common with one another except a beating heart and a feeling soul, these two—heart, soul—being the strongest connection between us all.

? ? ?

Adam and Zayneb were on a course to becoming the third type of people.

And they were doing it together. Four years of faraway togetherness, with brief, exhilarating glimpses in between getting a political science degree at Northwestern (Zayneb) and working on six art installation projects around the Middle East (Adam) and through visits to MS support groups (Adam and Zayneb).

? ? ?

Then they met for real—heart, soul, and body—the summer of their katb el kitab, the summer they exchanged their vows, after a short engagement.

They met up in Istanbul, only emerging from their hotel room for bites to eat and breaths of fresh air and breathtaking views.

After four days, they traveled seven hours to visit the grave of the girl killed by her father and grandfather.

Their world had become so large that it was necessary.

To end our story, they will tell you why themselves.





ADAM


MARVEL AND ODDITY: KISSING ZAYNEB


Who knew kissing Zayneb would be such a problem while being necessary to my living healthily on this planet? As necessary as how I’ve learned to keep my MS attacks at bay?

Kissing her took skill.

You had to know when to move in. And that was hard.

Like right now: We were paused by our hotel room door as Zayneb stood in front of the long mirror outside the bathroom, stuffing her hair into a scarf—the hair I’d woken up with my face buried in.

I wanted to kiss her one more time before we left the room, so I waited with my back against the door.

But I wasn’t waiting for her to finish hijabing.

She’d also been talking nonstop since we woke up, sharing her eagerness to start our excursion today.

“The only way to make this scarf work is by wearing it with plain clothes and tucking it in neat and trim, like so.” She turned to me, her face framed in the print of vivid blues I’d bought for her at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. “Thanks again for the BLUIEST scarf in the world, Squish.”

“Are you done talking?” I took my patient hands out of my pockets and reached forward and brought her close to me, until the only space between us was for our words. Well, my words. “Are your lips done? So I can kiss them peacefully?”

She nodded and tilted her head up, closed her eyes.

As our lips met, a curl of hair fell from her scarf. Her hands rose to the back of my head, pulling me in hard.

? ? ?

Zayneb, interrupting Adam’s journal here: Fade to black.

Adam, taking my journal back: We delayed our excursion, the one I wanted to come to this part of Turkey for, because Zayneb tore off her hijab in a fit of passion and, yeah, fade to black.

Zayneb: THE SCARF WAS SUPER SILKY AND FALLING OFF. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT FABRIC FOR A GIRL’S HEAD YET.

? ? ?

Who knew that four years ago I’d see a girl at the airport, and she’d end up being the part of me that had been missing for so long.

There was a reason love was a round-sounding word.

It completed you and then some, like treading a circular path, the way it was immemorial. Whole.

But also . . . infinite.

It went on and on as long as you went on and on, to meet it, keep it, treasure it.

And I would.





ZAYNEB


Before I placed flowers by the grave of the girl buried alive, the girl who’d started this whole journey that led me to my heart, I said two simple prayers.