The Impossibility of Us

by Katy Upperman

  I approach him cautiously, conscious of the barriers we demolished earlier, before Audrey interrupted the kiss to end all kisses. My lips tingle at the memory and, distracted, I step on a twig, splitting it with a crack.

  Mati’s head jerks up. He spots me and springs up off the ground, simultaneously pushing the notebook and pen into his pocket. A moment of heedful indecision restrains us. I attempt a smile, but it’s fragmented, a half-baked effort because the sight of him, all wounded and unsure, fills my eyes with tears.

  He rushes toward me, reaching out to grasp my hands. “Elise,” he says, “I’m sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for. This is my fault—all of it.”

  “No. I should have known better.”

  “Known better than what? Audrey was terrible to you. I’m so mad I want to pummel her. She’s messed up because of what happened to my brother, and she talks without thinking, and we surprised her, and I—I hate that you had to hear that. I’m just … I’m so sorry.”

  He quiets me with a hand on my cheek. “Don’t be.”

  My body inclines toward him because now that I know what close-to-Mati feels like, his nearness is a craving. I place my palm flat on his chest, just over his beating heart; it’s impossible not to touch him. “Thanks for meeting me,” I whisper before I get carried away.

  He nods toward a nearby bench. “Should we sit?”

  I consider, and then I’m struck by a stroke of genius. “Not there.”

  I lead him toward a set of low steps and up onto the play structure. I pick my way through the darkness, across a row of smooth planks, to the drawbridge. I stop just before, extending a foot to give the bridge a shake. “Think you can make it across?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “I’ve never seen a park quite like this.”

  “Oh, come on. If Janie can do it, you can, too.”

  His mouth curves into a half grin. “I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.” He edges past me, out onto the bridge. His first steps are careful, but then he acclimates to the way the bridge swings and becomes uninhibited, candidly happy, so different from his usual vigilance.

  “Come on,” he says, reaching for me.

  I take his hand and stagger onto the swaying bridge, bumping his hip with mine as we’re jostled side to side. He’s laughing and I am, too, and the last hour seems distant, like nothing compared with the silliness that is this moment.

  If Mom and Audrey could see us now.

  The bridge rocks sideways, rattling on its chains, and I totter forward. Mati hooks an arm around my waist, saving me from a fall into the moat (or whatever) like a knight in shining armor. The bridge stills because we have, but his arm stays looped around me, and I surrender a breath to surprise.

  “Is this okay?” he says.

  This is more than okay. It’s new, therefore thrilling, but tender and reassuring, too. My hands land on his chest and rest there like it’s their rightful place. His heart strum-strum-strums through the soft cotton of his shirt, trapped beneath the corral of his rib cage. He’s looking at me like he can’t believe I’m here, he’s here, we’re here. He’s looking at me like he adores me.

  Is this okay?

  I nod.

  “I was disappointed tonight,” he says, “because of the way your sister-in-law treated me. But do you know what was more disappointing?”

  My whisper is raw and eager: “What?”

  “Being interrupted. You stopped kissing me, and that kiss … that kiss was everything.”

  “I wasn’t sure. I mean, it was for me, too, but…”

  “But?”

  “But you’re not supposed to be kissing girls.”

  He leans forward, and I do, too. There’s that tug again, invisible filaments stretching from my heart to his, reaching out to meet him, capture him, claim him. He’s a breath away when he says, “I am only kissing you.”

  He threads his fingers into my hair and dips to press his mouth to mine. I expect tentativeness, but there is none. There’s heat, and there’s hunger, and there’s me, yielding, reaching up to circle my arms around his neck, pressing closer, and closer, and closer, until the bridge is swinging and Mati’s pulling back, smiling.

  “Where were we headed when we stepped onto this bridge?”

  “That way,” I say, pointing to the playground’s tallest turret.

  “Lead the way, shaahazadi.”

  elise

  “You have to tell me what it means,” I say, nudging him with my elbow.

  “I will, when you pronounce it correctly.”

  I try again, though I fear I’m a lost cause. “Shaahazadi.”

  Butchered.

  He grins, shaking his head. We’re leaning against the wall of the turret, shielded from the cool night air, in a cocoon of privacy. We’re side by side, aligned knee-hip-shoulder as we gaze through the turret’s glassless windows. The sky is blue-black and dotted with crystalline stars, not so different from the pair on my ceiling.

  “You’ll get it,” Mati says. “Eventually.”

  “What if I ask really nicely? Then will you tell me what it means?”

  “What would ‘really nicely’ sound like?”

  I stretch until my mouth is a millimeter from his ear. He’s gone rigid, but he makes no effort to move away. “Mati,” I breathe. “Please tell me what shaahazadi means.”

  A shiver ripples through him. “You are very persuasive, princess.”

  It only takes me a second. “Princess! That’s it, right? I totally should’ve guessed.”

  “Context clues. They’re the key to decoding a new language. They’re how I work out your American slang.”

  “I wish I was as good with words as you are. Do you carry your notebook all the time? Just in case the mood strikes?”

  He laughs. “Something like that, yes.”

  “Is that what you want to do with your life? Write?”

  He’s quiet a moment, his amber eyes shrouded. He says, “Writing is not a career option.”

  “Writing is my mom’s career.”

  “Things are different in Afghanistan.”

  “But there are universities.” Several—I know, because I looked them up late one night, curious. “Mati, you could take writing classes.”

  “Things are different for me,” he amends solemnly.

  “What if you went to college here, in America?” I say, voicing the idea that’s only recently occurred to me. We could do it; we could work if we were together. He doesn’t have to live halfway around the world. “There are writing programs at schools all over the US and aren’t there, like, student visas?”

  He lets go of a hefty breath. “There are, though that doesn’t change the fact that I need to return to my country.”

  “But … why?”

  “Because, Elise. I am my baba’s eldest son, which means I will be khan of our tribe one day. It is my job to take care of things at home—it is my duty.”

  I’m not exactly sure what he means by duty, but he seems reluctant to elaborate. Rather than push, rather than risk spoiling this fragment of time that feels otherwise perfect, I sit back to watch the twinkling stars. I feel a sense of solidarity with them, so far away. I have an idea of how lonely it must be, glinting forlornly in the ceaseless sky.

  Only for now, I’m not alone.

  I read about binary stars once: two stars that orbit the same central mass. That’s what being with Mati is like. We’re linked by a common gravitational pull, circling round and round while the rest of the universe closes in.

  Out the window, a flash of light streaks across the sky.

  “Oh my God!” I say, and at the same time, Mati says, “Did you see that?”

  “Was it—?”

  “A shooting star,” he says. “I’ve never seen one before.”

  “I haven’t, either. We have to make a wish.”

  “Do we?”

  “Mati, yes. Superstition demands it.”

  He raises a cunning eyebrow. “Aarzo.”<
br />
  I sit up straight, tapping my chin. “Hmm, context clues … wish? Or star?”

  His smile makes our little turret glow. “Wish. Very good. Star is stórey.” He sits up, too, scooting around to face me. His hands land on my knees and their heat trickles through my jeans. “What will you wish for?”

  “World peace.”

  He nods seriously and I realize, too late, that my insensitive joke was lost on him.

  “Wait, I want a redo.” I close my eyes for a quiet second, then say, “There. Your turn.”

  “You already wished? In secret?”

  “That’s how wishes are made. Unless you’re Janie, because then you wish for cookies all the time, loud and proud.”

  “Then I will wish for cookies, too, an endless supply to eat every day, with you.”

  “After we walk Bambi?”

  “Deal.” He holds out his hand; I grip it and we shake, though making plans like this, plans that include the words endless and with you as part of the same thought, twists my stomach into knots. If duty says he can’t consider school in the States—life in the States—then we have this summer, a few more weeks. Decidedly not endless.

  We resettle ourselves against the turret wall, my hand still entwined with is. My phone buzzes; it sounds like a helicopter cutting through the silent night. I glance at the display, expecting to read MOM because it’s getting late, but I see Audrey’s name instead. I turn my phone off completely. She doesn’t get another chance to ruin this night.

  “Your mother?” Mati says as I slide my phone back into my pocket.

  “Audrey.”

  “I bet she’s calling to apologize.”

  “I bet she’s calling to bitch about what a horrible person I am. I just—I don’t want to talk about her, okay?”

  “Then tell me more about your brother. Your voice does something amazing when you talk about him—it floats into the sky, like you can’t contain all the love you feel for him.”

  “Is that weird?”

  “No. It’s extraordinary.”

  So I tell him about Nick: silly stories from our childhood (he’s particularly impressed with one about how we used to surf down the staircase on my twin-sized mattress), gifts he bought me, pranks we played, trips we took with Mom (again with the surfing—Mati’s fascinated by the revelation that we took lessons in Maui). I tell him about how Nick and Audrey met, their freshman year, thanks to me and a stumble on the sidewalk in front of her house. She was home alone (eternal latchkey kid) and rushed outside with handfuls of Band-Aids. She ended up sticking them all over my leg—everywhere but the scrape—because she was so enamored with my big brother.

  “And they were together from that day on,” I say.

  “Until…”

  “Well, Aud would say they’re still together. Some days I think her devotion’s impressive. Some days I think it’s unhealthy.”

  “Her soul knows its mate,” Mati says softly.

  My throat swells with sadness. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but yeah. Maybe.”

  “What happened to him, Elise?”

  I can talk about Nicky until I run out of oxygen, but talking about his death … I still get emotional. Sometimes, I still feel like weeping. “He was a civil affairs soldier,” I say, giving my composure a chance to find its footing. “So he was like a middleman between the US Army and the local Afghans. The emails he sent … He went on and on about the people he was meeting—kids especially. He was always asking us to send packages with things he could give them: candy, school supplies, and little toys. He loved it. I missed him, but when he called he always sounded so happy, so satisfied. It was hard to be upset about his deployment when it brought him so much gratification, you know?”

  Mati nods. He shifts to put an arm around me, and I nestle into his side, inhaling the fresh scent of his skin. I can see the moon through the turret window, watching us like a pale face. It’s so late; I wonder whether my mom’s panicking yet. I wonder whether Audrey’s still sad. I wonder what Mati really thinks about what happened earlier, about being here with me now, about leaving me soon.

  I toy with the zipper of his hoodie. “Do you want to hear more?”

  “Only if you want to tell me.”

  Strangely, I do.

  “My mom didn’t see Nick’s deployment like I did. Neither did Audrey. She was pregnant when he left, and then Janie was born six weeks early, before Nick was due to come home on leave. My mom had to fly to North Carolina to help her. The whole thing was a mess. Aud sent Nick pictures of Janie and they talked online as often as they could, but she was stressed—like, distraught, all the time.

  “We don’t know what happened the day he died—not really. We were told one of the Afghan soldiers Nick’s unit was working with was playing both sides. He gave up mission intel, there was an ambush, and an RPG hit the vehicle my brother was traveling in. Three other Americans were killed in the attack. Supposedly Nick died immediately. Supposedly he didn’t suffer. But we’ll never be sure.”

  Mati presses his lips to my hair. “Photojournalism … What happened to your brother is why you’re set on traveling the world with your camera.”

  I nod. “I hate that I’ll never know exactly what happened. Maybe that’s morbid, but the question marks are haunting. What if he did suffer? What if he was crying out for Audrey? For Janie, who he never even got to hold?” Tears flood my eyes now. I’ve never voiced these worries—I’ve never had the guts—and doing so brings a rush of contradictory feelings: heartache and relief, amity and embarrassment. But none of those is enough to cut me off. “The Afghan soldier who betrayed Nick’s unit … What happened to him? It makes me crazy that I’ll never know. There should’ve been someone there, documenting what happened.”

  “That will be you, someday.”

  I mop my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. “I hope so.”

  “I see now why your sister-in-law acted the way she did. I don’t accept it, but I understand. Grief is … inconcealable.”

  And then he pulls me close, and it’s exactly what I want. Exactly what I need.

  * * *

  Later, he whispers, “I know what your shooting star wish was.”

  I look up to find his eyes luminescent, his cheeks darkened by prickly stubble. “You do not.”

  “I do. You wished to stay in this turret with me forever.”

  His smile says he’s joking, but holy shit … “How did you—?”

  “Maybe my wish was the same.”

  I snort. “You wished for cookies.”

  “Infinite cookies, Elise. With you.”

  MATI

  In a citadel’s tallest turret,

  we exist like royalty.

  It is a whimsical place,

  perfect for exploring.

  Perfect for learning her touch,

  and how she likes to be touched.

  She makes little sounds—

  sighs, murmurs, mewls,

  kittenlike and sweet.

  They unleash something in me,

  and cement what I have suspected

  since we met …

  She is right.

  We are right.

  In our private turret,

  she is never still.

  Her hands roam …

  caress …

  excite …

  until I am the one who can’t stay quiet.

  My sounds are deep and gruff.

  They are words like “yes,” and “please,” and “more.”

  They are a language she understands.

  She listens. She is attentive.

  She lets me return the favor.

  I would stay

  forever

  in this turret

  with her

  if I could.

  But where she sees white, I see black.

  In the vastness between us,

  there are infinite variants of gray.

  I cannot stay in America,

  cannot stay
with her,

  because somewhere,

  between slate and silver and charcoal,

  lies the destiny I was born to live.

  After the moon has journeyed

  beyond the window,

  I ask her if we should go.

  She whispers in my ear:

  “Let’s stay a little longer.”

  I keep expecting to feel regret,

  a flood of guilt

  regarding the choices I have made,

  and the things I have done.

  It will come—I am certain,

  but for now, I only feel content.

  I whisper back to her:

  “I am yours for the night.”

  elise

  We stay at the park until the sky starts its gradual lightening and the day’s first birds begin their song.

  Mati walks me almost all the way home and offers to go the distance, but I stop him when we’re a block out. My mom will be seeing red by the time I walk through the gate; there’s no need to make things worse by letting her lay eyes on the perceived villain.

  “I hope she isn’t too angry,” Mati says, sweeping my hair over my shoulder.

  “Yeah. I think she’ll be pretty pissed. Whatever Audrey told her would’ve been enough, but now that I’ve stayed out all night…” I grimace.

  “Will you be punished?”

  “What—like grounded? I don’t know. My mom’s style of consequence is usually more the guilt-trip variety. She’ll probably go on about how I’ve disappointed her, and how she worried, and how if I could just be more thoughtful.” I say all this glibly, like I’m unaffected, like the thought of walking into the cottage doesn’t scare me through, but I am and it does. Of course I long for my mom’s approval. Of course I want her to be proud of my choices. Of course her scathing looks and disgruntled sighs will get to me.

  But not enough to keep me from Mati.

  A squirrel scampers across the sidewalk and up a tree. The sky is more light than dark now, a smattering of stars rendered nearly invisible. Soon, the sun will have officially risen.

  “I probably won’t go to the beach this morning. I have a feeling my mom’s going to want to have a conversation.” By conversation, I mean fight, but I don’t want Mati to worry.