“You,” he said. “And Siti.”
I bit my lip. “Where will you sleep?”
“With Azmi,” he said, but didn’t break my gaze. “In the other room.”
Away from me.
The heaviness of the moment sank into my bones. Tomorrow, this would all be over. I’d be on a plane back to my dad, who would never let me leave the house again. This—sleeping in separate rooms, being watched by Siti and Azmi—this would be our last night together. We’d barely gotten started, hardly even scratched the surface of being together. I wanted ten more alleyways in the rain, twenty more talks by the muddy river bank, a million more rides on the back of his motor, clutching him tight with the wind pressing me to him.
No.
This couldn’t be over. Not yet.
“Don’t go,” I whispered.
He gave me that devastating grin, and I nearly melted on the spot. “You have special plans for us?”
“Maaay-be…”
He moved closer, his eyes burning into mine in the dim light. “Ibu and Bapak. They are here. Siti will return after her prayers. And Azmi will be waiting for me…”
And yet, he moved even closer. Close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. It was like something in me snapped, and my heart tripped over itself trying to get to him. I ran my palms up his chest, feeling the smooth muscle beneath his shirt. He shuddered and closed his eyes, and when I traced my fingers up his neck, his jaw, and tangled them in his hair, he moaned something under his breath. I wanted to kiss him. And after that, I wanted the whole night together, but all we had were a couple of minutes, and I wasn’t going to waste them. I pushed up onto my tip toes and—
“Marry me,” he blurted out.
I pulled back. “What?”
He pressed his forehead to mine, eyes wide, his voice hushed but urgent. “Sienna, marry me.”
I searched his eyes, expecting a twinkle of humor or something that said he was teasing. Instead, I got dark, intense eyes, staring right into my soul, just like the day we’d met.
He was serious.
Serious about wanting me.
I gulped. “Marry you?”
“Yes. I will work hard, I will save money, I will fly to America. Then we will get married.” He hesitated. “If you will marry me?”
Wait. What? How could he want to marry me? Didn’t he have to marry an Indonesian girl like Siti? Was it just because I was new? Different? Then again, who would stop him? He was an orphan. Maybe he could do whatever he wanted?
And then a possibility I’d never dared to hope for hit me like a ton of mud.
Maybe Deni loved me.
Maybe Deni loved me like I loved him.
Oh my god. I love Deni.
My knees wobbled. This wasn’t a crush. This wasn’t a “travel hookup.”
This was real.
Something clanged in the other room. Our time was running out.
His hands tightened on my waist, clutching me to him. “Sienna?”
My heart stuttered in my chest and I…I knew my answer. With a shaky smile, I slid my hand under his shirt and traced my fingertips up his back. “Yes, Deni. If you come to America, yes.”
Groaning something, he kissed the hell out of me, my face, my neck. Before I could catch my breath, he pulled off my hijab, and my hair tumbled down around my shoulders.
“You are so very beautiful,” he breathed.
My knees wobbled. The way he looked at me—like I was something he couldn’t live without… I’d never dreamed anyone would look at me like that, let alone when I was still in high school. By a boy I’d just met. What did he see? A silly American girl who’d followed him to his destroyed country, or something more?
Did I even care?
When he kissed me again, I put as much of myself into it as I could, hoping he could feel everything I didn’t have a clue how to say.
In the other room, something else clattered.
Deni sucked in a shaky breath. “I must go.”
I wasn’t ready. Not for the night to end, and not for the flight that would take me away from Deni. Maybe for good. I clutched his shirt. “I don’t want to leave you.”
His eyes softened. “Wherever you go, I will find you. I promise this, Sienna.”
“Okay.” But I wasn’t okay. Not in the slightest.
He grinned. “Sleep well, my rambut kuning.”
I love you, my heart whispered back.
Chapter Thirty
Roosters and the call to prayer woke me at dawn.
My neck was sore from sleeping on the hard mat. Siti snored quietly beside me. After I finally pried my fingers loose from Deni’s shirt, I laid awake in a hot sweat for hours, thinking of him. Remembering his hands on my skin. Remembering his lips on my neck, his proposal, his promise.
I will find you.
I’d never considered the possibility we could be together. We lived in two totally different worlds, not to mention Dad would never approve. Bev would think we were living the greatest love story of all time. And Spider… I wasn’t sure what he’d think.
But now, like Deni, I had hope.
Hope for someday.
No one else was awake yet, so, yawning, I stumbled out onto the porch. The sun was so strong, it already felt like noon. I pricked my neck with the pin trying to rewrap the hijab around my head and cursed under my breath, but forgot the pain when I remembered Deni unwrapping it the night before, watching my hair fall around my shoulders with heat in his eyes.
I shivered.
How long would it take for him to save the money to come to America? Months? Years? I could get a job and help. And maybe I could convince Team Hope to come here again. Back to Aceh. There was still so much work to be done. Maybe I could fly back next summer after I turned eighteen? Or maybe Deni could do an exchange program and we could go to college together?
I rubbed my temples, swamped with an overwhelming mix of joy and misery. Joy that I would see him again, but misery knowing it’d be harder than Deni probably thought to make that happen.
I waited outside while the family rolled out their mats, preparing to do their morning prayers. Deni sauntered out of Azmi’s room with a knowing smile on his face that heated me from the inside out. He caught my eye through the window, and I blushed.
I leaned back against the wood slat wall and a giddy little laugh bubbled from my chest. That boy—no, that man—was mine. No matter how long it took, he was worth waiting for.
When the call ended, he rose from his mat, opened the front door, and greeted me, taking my hand and kissing my cheek. Then, closing the door halfway so no one could see, he ran his fingers down my forearm and explained in a low voice, “Ibu has bought a special breakfast of Dutch treats for you. The chocolate bits are special desserts for Indonesians.” He squeezed my hand. “I am happy to introduce you to my family.”
I blinked. He’d already introduced me to— Oh. Our first conversation, when he explained traditions, he said that if a boy brought a girl into his home to meet his family, he wanted to marry her.
This was Deni’s family now.
And he was planning to introduce me as the girl he proposed to.
And then it dawned on me—he already had.
Breakfast was set up on a low table: steaming coffee, a white loaf of bread with the crusts cut off, and a bowl full of chocolate sprinkles like the ones we use to decorate cupcakes with at home.
“Thank you, Ibu,” I said, feeling a little anxious because it definitely felt like we were celebrating. Did Deni tell his new family that he’d proposed to me? Or had they already known that was his plan when he’d brought me home and introduced me the day before? My brain swirled and spun as I tried my best to stay calm and focus on behaving politely and calmly over the breakfast that seemed to be in my honor.
Spooning a bunch of sugar into the coffee, I accepted every refill offered until my hands were shaking.
Azmi and Bapak excused themselves to go fishing right after bre
akfast. “The fish do not bite as much as before the wave came, but we work hard and we will sell at the market today,” Bapak had said.
“Thank you,” I said to Azmi, just in case I was already gone to the airport by the time they got back.
His eyes flared with surprise. “I will see you,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I said, anxiously.
“Deni is my brother. I am sure.” He flashed me a hang loose and left.
My mouth dropped open. They knew. They had to! That was probably what Azmi and Deni had been talking about so intently when we got back to the house last night. My cheeks flushed. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or thrilled.
When Siti and her aunt disappeared into the kitchen, Deni slipped his arm around my waist.
“How did you sleep?”
“Terrible,” I groaned. “You?”
“Also terrible.”
I glanced back toward the kitchen. “I missed you,” I said.
“And I missed you. Soon,” he said, touching my face.
Shivers raced down my spine as I nuzzled my face in his neck. Soon. Like in the marriage hut in my dream. Soon we’d have the whole night together. No interruptions. Just the two of us. Talk about an incentive to get back to America, work hard, and save money to fly him out. We would see each other again. This wasn’t goodbye, not by a long shot. We would be together. But first we had to find out the truth about his dad.
“Deni,” I said quietly, “I hope we find him today.”
“Me too,” Deni said, squeezing my hand. “Me too.”
Deni, me, and Siti sat in back of a three-wheeled bicycle called a becak. The driver, a teenage boy, sat behind us, pedaling along at a slow, easy pace. We cruised through dried mud streets past yelling street vendors, motors, and oxen carrying wares. I asked Deni to take a picture of Siti and me posing with the driver, who struck a hang-loose pose like Azmi.
Deni then asked Siti to take one of him and me together. He put his arm around my shoulders, shocking me speechless. With the proposal, did he feel like it was okay to touch me in public? I still wasn’t used to it. Flushing, I noticed Siti raising her eyebrows as she clicked, but she didn’t say a word. Had she heard us last night? What did she think about the two of us?
After the ride, we decided to split up again. I needed to head back to the orange reproductive tent to talk to the mysterious woman, and Deni headed for a few places that had asked him to come back, too.
We planned to meet up in an hour for a cold drink.
“Today is the day,” he said to me with optimistic eyes that seemed so much brighter today than yesterday. Deni had a future now. Even if the worst happened with his dad, he wasn’t alone: he had Azmi’s family. And he had me. “We will find out about my father.”
“And either way it will be okay.”
He nodded like he believed me. He looked at me the way he did in the alley in the rain the night of our first kiss: like I was his life raft, and he wasn’t about to let go.
It was a weight I was more than happy to carry, especially now that I knew he felt the same way about me. I took a deep breath, ready to face whatever answers we found. Deni and I were together now. We were invincible.
I slipped back through the slit of the tent. It was a different person at the counter—she looked about my age—wearing black cotton pants and a flowing white blouse. Her hijab hung loosely around her head, and long, stray hairs fell across her heart-shaped face.
“Can I help you?” she asked. She had wide brown eyes and a soft smile.
“Yes. I was here yesterday talking to a woman? Is she here?”
“Sorry, she is not here today. Only me.”
My heart sank. “That’s weird,” I said, looking around. “She asked me to come back today. Will she be back tomorrow?”
“Yes. You are an American?” she asked me, her voice calm and even.
I nodded, glancing toward the door flap. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, and I needed to talk to Deni. She seemed nice, though, and it wasn’t her fault her co-worker was a flake. So I asked, “What about you? Are you a volunteer?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I work here. I am from Aceh. I was here the day the wave came.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I glanced toward the door again.
But the girl kept going. “I fell off the back of a motor trying to escape the wave. I stayed far away in another village for months afterward. A family cared for me until my strength returned.”
She laughed then—awkwardly, nervously, like the kids at the pesantren after they told their sad tales.
“It sounds like you got lucky,” I said.
“Yes. Now I am here.” She spread both arms in the air. “I am fortunate most of my family survived, and this clinic also is my family now. So many lost their children in the tsunami. We are here to help women and children get healthy again.”
I glanced around at toddlers playing together in a corner, women deep in conversation.
“It seems like a neat place.” Time to leave. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to go. Please tell the other woman that works here that my friend—Deni is his name—will be back tomorrow to ask her if she knows anything about his father. I won’t… Well, I won’t be here anymore.” My voice cracked. “But hopefully, she’ll be able to help him.”
“Deni?” the girl asked.
He was probably already waiting for me. “Yes,” I confirmed with a nod, and headed toward the slit in the tent. “Please tell her Deni will be back tomorrow.”
I ran as fast as the heat would allow toward the meeting place.
Siti was sitting alone, her head in her hands.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
I sat down next to her, wiping my forehead with the back of my shirt. “It’s roasting today. I’ll get us some drinks.”
She started rocking back and forth, sobbing.
“Siti? What’s wrong? Are you sick?” I asked. It was so hot. “Come on, let’s find Deni and we’ll take you home.”
“No,” she said, but it was more like a wail than a word.
“What is it?”
She raised her head, tears pouring down her face. “The wall.”
“What wall?”
She pointed out a decrepit wooden building, and a gnawing, sick feeling grew in my chest. It must be something really bad to make Siti so upset. Squeezing through the thick crowd of people, I came face to face with a wall covered in hundreds of Polaroid snapshots.
As I got closer, I gasped. Dead people. Grizzly, horrible pictures of hundreds of dead people. The worst pictures I’d ever seen in my life. Close-ups of bloated, cut, puffy faces, most with their eyes closed. They looked exactly like Deni’s description in the back of the Land Rover on our way here from the airport.
Bile rose in my throat and I had to look away. “What is this?” I managed to croak out.
“The wall of the dead,” Siti said quietly from behind me.
Oh my God. Deni. “Where is Deni?”
“Deni is gone.”
“What happened?”
She pointed to a picture on the bottom row of a middle-aged man with chiseled features and a short beard. He looked just like Deni.
“Deni’s bapak,” she whispered.
“Deni just saw this wall?”
She nodded and started sobbing all over again.
I wanted to shake her fragile little shoulders. “Did you know about this?” I demanded. “Did you know he was dead?”
“I did not know!” Siti cried. “We never saw the picture!”
Deep breaths. “Siti,” I said in my firmest voice, “I need to find him. Where did he go?”
Siti pointed down the street, and I took off at a run.
Away from town. Away from the picture.
Toward the sea.
A friend of our family lived in Manhattan, close to what used to be the World Trade Center. She said after 9/11, after the buildi
ngs fell from the sky, there were photographs of people who worked there. Missing people. With notes and phone numbers and contact information for strangers to read. She cried every day when she passed the wall, imagining the people hanging those pictures and writing those notes. Hoping someone would call with information about their loved ones.
I had to find him.
Catching sight of his back ducking around the corner of a tent, I yelled, “Deni!”
But he couldn’t hear me. There were too many people. Too much noise.
“Deni, wait!”
He reappeared on the main path, walking fast, practically running, away from the wall, away from me. I didn’t know where he was going—I only knew the hope he’d been clinging to had just been ripped out from under him.
His father was dead, and now he knew it for sure.
And no matter how badly I wanted to, there was nothing I could do to help.
I was halfway down the crowded, gummy road when someone grabbed my arm.
“Sienna? What happened, sweetheart? What’s wrong?”
It was Amelia. She had on a World Doctors T-shirt, and her short hair was sticking up in front with sweat.
“I…he…” I burst into tears, and though I tried to squirm away, Amelia firmly guided me into her clinic through a makeshift curtain into a private room.
“Tell me what happened,” she said.
I sat on an exam table and when she hopped up next to me, everything from the last week came pouring out. All of it.
“I need help, Amelia,” I said. “I don’t know what to do about Deni. I have a plane to catch, and I can’t leave him, but I also can’t stay.” I broke down all over again. “Everything is such a mess.”
She stroked my hair and talked to me in a soothing voice until my sobs faded to sniffling hiccups. The way she spoke to me, touching me, reminded me so much of my mom.
“Do you”—hiccup—“have any kids?” Hiccup.
She shook her head. “Not yet. But we hope to. When we finish this trip, we’re going to try.”
“Good. Because you’d be a great one. A mom, I mean.”
“Thanks, honey.”
“My parents used to work together. Like you do. They only went out for two weeks a year after they had me. They didn’t want to stay away long.” I got all choked up again thinking of them together, remembering us as a family.
Where I Found You Page 20