When Talia heard Zaid come home later that night, long after her grandparents had retired to their bedroom, she forced herself back to her room, realizing that maybe he'd just wanted some space today.

Besides, she had a crappy Spanish drama to get back to, which was like watching the off-brand version of Zaid, if he could actually act...(humble).

Despite the comfortable temperature of her room, she'd overheated in the shower, discarding her Sherpa sweater and tucking herself under her sheets in just a cropped tank. The cool of her sheets felt so strangely good on her bare skin, making her eyelids droop the moment she opened the lid of her laptop and typed in Netflix.

It was easier to stay awake when the episode dove into the action right off the bat, opening with the police banging on the main couple's front door. After a few seconds, the noise grew strangely multidimensional, until she hit her spacebar and realized someone was tapping their knuckles against her door at the same time.

Drawing her sheets up to her neck, she uttered a cautious come in, even though she knew who it was. It could only be Zaid, waiting for the night: the only time of day where the world felt like their own and no one else's.

"Your grandparents are asleep, if that helps."

He said these words before doing as much as look at her, knowing her abundant caution, which that morning's conversation with her grandparents had somewhat attenuated. Still, his reassurance calmed the beats of her heart, which she knew would always work a little faster in his presence.

"I missed you."

Talia didn't bother throwing in a snarky comment to prove her point, as that was his expertise. He slouched into the wall across from her bed, hands in his pockets, head tilted back, at just the perfect angle to study every feature on her face but nothing farther down, as her sheets had slipped in her utter absorption in him.

"It might be better not to from now on," he said coolly. Though a small wince followed, he steeled himself. "We have to build up to the distance, don't we?"

"I'd rather take the blow all at once. You can't ease into three-thousand miles."

"Seven-thousand-four-hundred if I'm at home," he said, throwing another brick at her face, "and you are, too."

"Was quantifying it supposed to make me feel any better? Because while I love math, I can't solve this problem myself."

"God, I wish I could solve it," he murmured. "You've somehow made going out boring for me. Because the entire time today I was thinking, 'How much better would this be if Talia were here?'"

"Oh, come on, you didn't actually think that."

No way he was that whipped.

He scoffed, "Trust me, ten hours with Paul did make me think that—about fifty times."

She threw her head back in laughter, despite the tiny part of her that still felt bad for the guy. "Fine, I believe you. Lying is beneath you anyway."

He could have climbed into her bed at that moment and pulled her into his arms, and all she would have asked was for him to hold her tighter. But he stayed still. Her heart twisted, hating her mind for where it was going, that rational portion that told her to count the moments like these they had left.

For now, she reminded herself.

That wasn't much solace to her oddly emotional self. Her chest tightened more, in tandem with the eyes she had to squeeze shut every few moments to block out those thoughts.

Distance, short distance, long distance. She fucking hated that word now, every way she framed it.

When she opened her eyes again, she could barely see in front of her, the world as pixelated as an outdated video game.

"What's wrong?" Zaid asked, lowering himself to the edge of her bed. His thumb swept the skin below her eye, taking away some wetness.

"I-I don't know," she choked out. She swallowed the ball in the back of her throat and pressed her hands together, but Zaid took them in his. "Y-you made me overthink, I guess."

He parted his lips to utter something soothing in response, but the dam had irreparably broken for now. The couple droplets in the corners of each of her eyes turned into sheets of tears, sliding down her cheeks faster than she could wipe them away with the backs of her hands.

These types of tears were hot and heavy, burning her from the inside out. Talia knew the body didn't store up forgone cries, but why did she feel like she was crying for the pain of much more than that of the future? These tears were twenty years in the making, almost on standby since that first night she'd opened up about her childhood to him.

Zaid shifted her and lay down on the empty half of the mattress. One hand draped her over his chest while the other held her face, wiping away whatever he could. Although she found it hard to accept that he was letting her cry into the same crewneck he'd yelled at her for ruining the first day she'd met him, the irony somehow calmed her after a few moments, making her relax her face into his shoulder and embrace what was left of her seldom-emotional self.

His breathing picked up for a moment, almost as if he wanted to scold her, but he stayed quiet and kept gliding his hand up and down her back. By now her soft sobs rattled her chest, and Zaid could surely feel them through the material of his sweater.

No, Talia. Stop. Don't cry. Somehow, she'd told herself those words every time her mind had gone in this direction over the years, but she'd only admonished herself.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, finding her voice again. "I'm not—I'm not crying because of what you said. Trust me."

"Then why?" He ran the tips of his fingers over her cheekbone, catching another few droplets. "I want to know, so I won't have to see you like this again."

Fuck, can't you go back to rude-Zaid? This gentle version was going to make her sob until the morning.

"It just hit me that—" She forced these five words out after a moment, finally having the courage to look up. After a brief pause and pat of reassurance on her back, she continued. "It hit me that everything I escaped from this winter break came back in the form of you...and I don't hate it at all. Every part of who I am that my grandmother made me despise I now like, but everything I now like is fleeting. I feel mocked, Zaid."

"Are you sure?" he asked after a moment. "You say it's all fleeting...but what about yourself?"

She shrugged. "Why does that even fucking matter?"

"Because you take yourself everywhere you go," he said, looking up at the ceiling. Or maybe the sky. "People leave you, Talia. Some betray you. Others... Others pass away while you hold their hand and refuse to let go. But you... You take yourself everywhere you go. And think about how much you've changed. Nothing can take that away from you, so as long as you hold on to it."

She swallowed a gulp, reaching out a shaky hand. "Are you saying you're going to leave me, then?"

"No," he rasped. "Hopefully no matter how many miles separate us, I won't only exist in your head. But my words stand true, regardless of my presence—or the absence of it."

Talia ended the longest streak of not laughing around Zaid in some time, trying to form some words through tear-gripped chuckles. "You're just waiting for me to say you're right, aren't you? Because somehow, you always are."

She couldn't even imagine acting the same way she had over Thanksgiving break, when she'd vehemently refused any part in her parents' trip overseas. Maybe she still felt the same way about the people over there, but somehow in less than two-and-a-half weeks Zaid and her grandparents had wiped away most of the profound aversion for all that encompassed who she was, replacing it with a keen interest in making up for so many years lost to self-loathing.

"And maybe... Maybe that's the only thing I hate about you," she added softly.

He grinned at last. "What a good quality to be hated for then."

***

Zaid refused to let her sleep until he was sure her eyes were dry.

He distracted her with light, meaningless conversation, about the unseasonably warm weather on the way, their favorite sources of news, their predictions for the upcoming election, until they realized neither of them relished small talk. They liked to pick each other's brains, complementing each other with their robust yet contrasting stores of knowledge, and end the conversation always yearning for more.

"Did you experience any culture shock when you first came here?" Talia asked, folding her hands over her chest. They lay parallel to each other, each staring at a different square of white on the ceiling. "There are a lot of notions about this country—some good, some not so good—but you can't tell fact from fiction until you actually live here."

"I wouldn't describe it as culture shock," he said, folding his hands behind his head. "I'd visited quite a few states before coming here last August, but this is definitely the longest I've ever stayed in the US. But...some part of me was a little worried at first."

"Why?"

He didn't mince his words. "Suspicious-looking foreign male with a very Arab name not hint enough?"

She threw her head back, laughing a little too loudly for how late it was. "Has it really been that bad?"

"It hasn't," he said, smiling now. "Truth be told, whenever I tell people where I'm from, most don't even know what part of the world I'm talking about. Or they give me a nice anecdote about a friend from a foreign but unrelated country, like India or Greece, to which I smile and nod, but once again dream of having a pocket-size map on hand."

"You know, that ignorance was kind of why I broke up with my ex," she mumbled, rolling over onto her side. "My hometown was pretty diverse growing up, but there were always those people who showed their inner...thoughts. Made me aware of that deliberate ignorance with the tiniest bit of disdain for where I'm from...like my ex's brother." Her skin crawled as Brandon's lecherous eyes materialized before her, forcing her to meet Zaid's pure gaze for reassurance. "Sometimes I feel like I overreacted. I usually say nothing in these moments, and it's not like what he said that night was racism... So, why did it make me so goddamn uncomfortable?"

"Maybe not racism," Zaid said, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "But insolence. Can be equally damaging."

"I would agree, but I don't even know what that word means."

"When's your birthday, Talia?"

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "October twenty-fifth. Why?"

"A dictionary will be on the way in nine months."

She whacked his arm with the back of her hand and rolled over a couple inches, much like an embittered child.

"My apologies," Zaid said. "I'm also sorry your ex-boyfriend's brother is a piece of shit. It's okay to admit that."

"I'm over him and his brother," Talia mumbled. "I'm actually angrier that people like him all my life made me wish I was from anywhere else. And..."

"And what?" he asked.

"And...that I had to lie to myself that I'm not at all hopelessly attracted to men that look like you." She paused and stared into his eyes, watching that cheeky twinkle return. She pulled back. "Oh God. You're not gonna let me live that one down, right?"

"Well, now that you've seen the light, how could I possibly make fun of you?"

The rest of the night, Zaid satisfied a hidden undying curiosity of Talia's, bringing his small book of poetry to her room. He began reading page after page, finally offering her some understanding of one his favorite pastimes, although "understand" was a gross overstatement. She understood maybe one in every twenty words, yet it was still satisfying to zero in on the rise and fall of his voice, the pauses at the end of each line.

"Wow," she breathed, once he'd tired of the book and set it on her nightstand, on top of The Prophet. "That had to be the largest collections of qafs I've ever heard."

He threw his head back and laughed a sweet, melodious laugh. "Why did I know you were going to comment on that?" At her growing smile, he rolled over onto his side and reached out a hand. "That word you kept hearing was qalb. Heart." His fingers traced the fuzzy sweater material covering her chest and then stopped.

"What?" she asked after a moment, noting his intent stare.

"Does your heart always beat this fast?" he asked, flattening his palm. His tender touch only exacerbated the reaction she wanted to hide, but it was involuntary. "Or...can you blame it on me?"

"On you," she whispered, giving him the truth. She removed the space between their bodies and looked at him from underneath her eyelashes. "Are you flattered?"

"No," Zaid said and gripped her hand. Slowly, he guided it to the left side of his chest and pressed down. A small gasp escaped her lips when she noticed his heart pounded in sync with her own. His voice was barely above a whisper as he finished, "Make what you want of that."