catches in my throat. Perhaps I may not escape whole, but I need only escape with him in any manner for this tale to have a happy ending.
“Leila. If the fates and time conspire against us, remember I love you. Remember I would suffer a thousand deaths for even a fleeting taste of freedom with you. Know that you must continue the journey without me, if it comes to that. And take this.” He hands me a yataghan. It is smaller than most I have seen. The word gülüm is engraved in its ivory handle. My love. My rose. “I had it made especially for you. May it be a talisman for you against harm. May your courage find you, should you need to use it. May you never have to.”
I clasp the handle and pull the blade from its hard leather scabbard. The metal gleams in the night like the moon’s rays have anointed it.
I look into the eyes of the one man who has known me as I am, truth bared. Who has loved me fully and without judgment. I cup his cheek in my hand. “My love. May our separation be brief. May our paths join again at the water’s edge. May God keep you always in his care.”
Ameen.
We kiss.
I have no more words.
Khayyam
On our tiny Parisian island of ?le Saint-Louis, it’s rare to hear a siren—any siren. Across the Seine, sure, but on the island this late in the evening?
I don’t breathe.
I don’t think Alexandre is breathing, either. We’re motionless, waiting for the siren to pass.
“The flashlight on your phone,” I whisper to Alexandre.
He fumbles with his screen, trying to kill the light. I can tell he’s nervous, because his palms are as clammy as mine when I wrap my fingers around his free hand.
The siren doesn’t pass. It stops right outside the building.
It’s completely dark in here save for the faint lamplight filtering in through the dirty windows. My mouth has gone as dry as sawdust. My pulse pounds. All those flashes, the beams from our phones lighting up the darkness in an abandoned old house. God. We’ve been stupidly careless.
What’s the punishment for breaking and entering in France for a first-time offender? I have no idea. But I definitely don’t want to find out. I tug on Alexandre’s hand and head for a door in the back corner of the room, past the dining table and next to a small settee. I feel my way forward in the low light until my hand can grab the knob.
The siren goes silent.
We hear a car door open and shut outside. My heart stops. Crap. Gently, I turn the knob and open the door. Like I hoped, it’s a closet. A narrow one. We slip in. All I can think about is how I don’t take the double-wide coffin-sized elevator at the apartment. Now here I am in a closet crypt. Possibly about to be arrested. Oh God. I try to take a calming breath while Alexandre and I shimmy ourselves into the cramped space. As I maneuver myself into the closet, I get a face full of spiderwebs. Spiders might not bother me, but I don’t want my hair to be a nest for them, and they’re a lot less unnerving when they’re in the full light of my bathroom than in a tiny closet in an eerie abandoned mansion.
Alexandre jiggles his left arm, trying to shake off some of the sticky filaments of broken webs, and inadvertently elbows me in the boob.
“Ow!”
“Ssshhhh.”
“If you want me to be quiet, how about watching your elbows?” I hiss.
“I’m sorry. It was an accident. Shall I kiss it and make it better?”
“Shut up,” I whisper. I can’t help but snicker.
In the filmic scenario of this situation, this is the moment we’d begin making out madly. And as much as part of me is enjoying being smashed up against Alexandre, and as much as I notice how the heat of his hands on my hips sears through my jeans, I am straining against the feeling of the walls closing in on me. My