What Lies Between Us by Munaweera Nayomi

Author:Munaweera, Nayomi [Munaweera, Nayomi]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781466842281
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

In these early days I wonder if it is possible to be heartbroken with happiness. Yes, a cliché, but in the cavity of my chest, in the embrace of my ribs, my heart unfurls. There had been a whorled shell around it, like a ripple-edged, tightly closed clam. My heart had been a pearl in the center of it. He had slid a knifepoint into a crevice and prized with all his strength, and this covering had cracked open. The heart muscle, freed now, expands and fills as if with tide-pulled liquid. The sound of his voice, the silk of his skin—these are the sum of my treasure. I calibrate my days around his presence; I weave my life around him. This is what he does for me: he breaks my heart with happiness.

In some far part of myself, I know that it is dangerous to love like this. I know that this love has meant letting him occupy the space of my spirit. But my spirit was a room I had left long ago. Letting him reside there, letting him be the whole of my interior, is to feel my ghosts rise and leave. Pain retires to the far shores; it is a glorious and complete inhabitation.

* * *

We have six months in our kingdom of two. It is everything I’ve ever wanted and I could have lived like this the rest of my life, but one weekend morning he says, “We should go out and meet everyone!” I don’t want to. I haven’t returned calls for months, and now my phone barely rings. I have him. Who else do I need? “We need friends,” he says. “You should call yours. I’ll call mine.” I don’t, but he does, and quickly I learn that there are many people who adore him. We go out with them. They hug him tight and ask, “Where the hell have you been?” and he introduces me and they say “Oh!” with surprise in their eyes.

Now I see the ease with which he fits with these people. I witness their delight in shared memories, the way the conversation rolls off their tongues, the loud laughter. These are folks he has collected throughout his life. There are a few from high school, who escaped the same dreary little hometown and came west; a whole contingent from his art school years; and some other friends he’s made in adulthood. They are mostly American, mostly white. They have a kind of perfect belonging, a knowing of where their earth is, where their roots sink. Next to them I feel like a hydroponic plant, roots exposed and adrift.

We go to parties, dinners, bars—a whole series of events to make up for the six months they refer to as his “kidnapping.” A term that makes me feel like the kidnapper. As if those first glorious months had not been mutual, as if I were the aggressor and he the taken. I don’t like sharing him; I dread these nights. It never feels easy; there is always some discordant note.

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