. stop loss

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2009 Summer was upon them, nearing the end of the school year as surviving freshmen. They’d been bussed to Griffith Observatory for a science field trip, wandering the halls and exhibits, herded by chaperones who were just as frayed by the year as the teenagers were. Aaron floated dutifully behind his friends but eventually found himself outside with Samira, soaking in the grounds bathed by sunshine, admiring the view from their elevation over the city. She was telling him the latest saga of her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, the three-week romantic venture coming to a head. “Boys are exhausting,” Samira sighed, turning her gaze on him. “Not you though.” “I guess you’re not so bad. For a girl,” Aaron shrugged coolly, still learning to navigate the opposite sex. “Excuse you! I’m fifteen now, I am a woman,” she corrected, her birthday having just passed. “Hey I’m almost fifteen too,” he protested, absorbing a playful nudge from her. “In fifteen more years, we’ll be thirty—eww!” she squealed in horrific realization. “We’ll be sooo old,” he echoed with a disgusted laugh, though he couldn’t wait to be older if that meant freedom. “Hopefully we’ll be rich and famous by then.” “Do you think you’ll ever get married?” she asked quietly, hand dragging along the perimeter wall as they walked. He was following her, always following her. “Probably. Not to Tasha now though, obviously,” he grumbled, elbows scraping into the plaster. His own crush had recently rebuffed him; she didn’t even know he liked her, of course, but it was still heartbreaking that she held another boy’s hand yesterday. “Do you?” he returned, watching the sun play across her features, igniting little wildfires in her honey eyes. “Not to Dillon, obviously,” she huffed, rolling her eyes. He bit his tongue, having never liked the jerk anyway—especially once Samira expressed interest in him. Suddenly he was jealous, confused, resentful…feelings he wasn’t yet sure how to deal with, all surrounding a girl he was deeply connected to. “What if we.. married each other?” he blurted out loud, pretending to look over the edge, nonchalantly anywhere but her. His heartbeat ratcheted up in his ear, still-healing hands vibrating with sudden nerves. “I thought we already got married when we were like, eleven,” she chuckled, running a lock of hair through her fingers. She was beginning to straighten it now, experimenting with how she looked. A far cry from the girl that picked up his hand years ago, said “We’re married now” so they could play house together, to which Aaron happily agreed, thrilled by another home away from home. The same girl who kissed him a year later out of curiosity. “I mean, we’ll be so old. We could just get married. Best friends can do that,” he reasoned, his voice cracking under the pressure of such a promise. “Ok! Let’s meet here in fifteen years if we’re single,” she said, offering her pinky for him to take. When his finger twisted with hers, it was written in the stars.

June 6, 2024 It had been two years since their high school reunion, that fateful evening finding out Samira and Ravi were engaged. With the skyline behind them she all but told him to move on, the sands of their hourglass having long run out. Since then, Aaron’s reintegration into post-service civilian life was more or less successful; he was still living on his own, investing in his work, exploring various hobbies, reconnecting with people. Try as he might, his progress was pocked by the few occasions he was able to see Sami again—a family holiday here, a birthday party there—propelling him back to that conversation on the balcony. As vowed, Aaron sat back and silently endured her loving someone else. Fifteen years ago they had made a promise, something flimsy and youthful that was anchored in his memory ever since, a faraway date dutifully reserved for them. Teenagers yet unaware of what was growing between them, confused by puberty and social hierarchy and rites of passage, tugged every which way by cliques and familial expectations and college testing. Two years later he would be confessing his love to her on the junior prom dance floor, and a year after that they would finally be together, giving their history a shot to blossom into something real. The truth was, Aaron didn’t know if Samira would show up today. In his bones he felt that she would at least remember—but she had not been single for a long time, and that was the caveat of their naïve promise. They had never spoken of it since, no indication one way or another. Maybe it was the rose-colored glasses when it came to their past, or his sentimental grab to all things Samira, unable to let her go, even as she was being ripped away from him. Aaron couldn’t bring himself to imagine the possible outcomes, preferring instead to waver in the present, seated for an hour with a novel split open in his palm and a bouquet of flowers next to him, wondering where he could smoke, listening to the families and couples stroll by, barely escaping the Los Angeles sun. So, once more, he would wait for her. This time, her absence would speak the loudest.

[samira deol]

6.6 The closer the date had gotten, the more it had been on her mind. A childhood promise now turned something concrete on her calendar, wondering where 15 years had gone. Where the next 15 would go, suddenly staring at her thirty year old features in the mirror. Content with the changes, the smile lines and general self awareness that had come with age and experience. She'd grown into her body even more, filled big shoes of expectations and accomplishments, donned a white coat and a solemn smile and helped to heal what had been maimed. Avoiding the apprehension that flickered in her eyes, the ever increasing knowledge that there were things she hadn't been healing within herself. Things that propelled her into the car now, engagement ring spinning nervously on her finger. Because it felt wrong. Even if it was done in innocence so long ago they were both at an age now where promises like that would mean something. Or wouldn't be made at all, grounded too deeply in realism to even utter something so lofty. Both experiencing death, or loss, in different ways across their years. It had made everything they ever said important. It made surface conversation seem trivial, even if it was what they engaged in at the various times they'd run into each other the past two years. Aaron cordial but indifferent, the wall in front of him all but impenetrable. He'd kept his promise from their reunion, two years ago. Now she wondered if he would keep it now, 15 years down the line. She takes stock in her senses when she reaches her destination. The glare of the sun in her eyes as it bled down the skyline. The gentle scent of wild freesia as the wind blew. The gloss of metal against her fingertips as she tested her door lock. The crunch of gravel under her shoes. The dryness in her mouth as she swallowed years of excuses and reasons and the internal monologue that could take her away from here at any moment. The sound of her heart slowing, then flipping, in her chest when she spotted him. Tucked into a book a million miles away, dropping her sunglasses over her eyes at the last moment to have a tiny piece of armor. For what she didn't know, slowing to a stop a few feet away. "What are you reading this time?”

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 Sometimes Aaron wondered if he knew how to function without the promise of pain. If he purposely set himself up for it, repeating a cycle he wouldn’t wish upon anyone. But it was all he knew: in his memories and very blood, across his skin, soaked through the earliest years only to bleed into the rest. For better or worse it’s what had moved him over the years, the thrill of violence or the anticipation of hurt. This date had been a black mark on the calendar for years, never seeming quite possible until suddenly they had left behind those teenagers, braved through their twenties, and courted their thirties. He had a problem with time—not with aging but the memories that gathered dust or paled in vibrancy, realizing the changes to his body, the societal expectations for this age. Never been in a meaningful relationship, still suspicious of the permanence of buying a house or opening up his own space. Still lagging behind others, all too aware of how the world marched on with or without him. A glance at his watch only reveals that the day is winding away. Maybe they should have agreed on a time, too, he could laugh if his heart wasn’t already in his throat. His eyes ran uselessly over the pages in front of him, acknowledging the words but gleaning nothing, senses frayed in lookout. Maybe it’s her proximity that he can sense, because the shadow that drops over his book is enough to wring the air from his lungs, gaze landing on her shoes, hesitant to look up and be betrayed by someone else’s inconvenience. But it’s her. He closes the book over a finger to keep his place, shows her the cover: Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. “A little somethin for English class,” he answered with the hint of a smile, dog-earing the page and setting down the book next to him where the flowers waited. Aaron gathered himself onto his feet, disappointed to see his reflection staring back from her sunglasses. His eyes drop instinctively to her left hand, a silent curiosity confirmed. Still there. His mouth parted, tongue wetting his lip as he searched for the words, tested the tone, eyes returning to where she was hiding hers. “What are you doing here, Sami?”

[samira deol]

6.6 It was the million dollar question, wasn't it? Why was she here? This wasn't like their reunion, an expected and planned return to the past. This was honoring a pact she technically no longer qualified for, casually spinning the ring still present on her finger. Stuck in place for two years, through engagement parties and colleague questions and late night conversations half asleep from long shifts. It's not like there was anything wrong with her and Ravi. They co-existed peacefully, they rarely fought, they looked after Edison. But standing here now, two years from her engagement, would likely open up a lot of questions. If he even found out about it. Her fiancé was at the hospital, blissfully unaware of where she was right now. Of what she was doing, words caught in her throat every time she thought to bring it up and refusing to explore why that was. Instead it had been the secret that crept up over time until it brought her here, eyes darting down behind their lenses to the cover and cheeks brushing the bottom of her sunglass frames as she smiled. "A classic,” Samira comments, her knowledge about the book basically stopping there. Over time her retention of English semantics had given way to anatomy and precision, to steadiness and even breathing and curated playlists for long surgeries. Unfortunately none of that mattered when it came to matters of the heart, features quickly dropping as he stood to study her. Asking the question she fully expected because there wasn't a point in avoiding it. Dancing around an inevitable, arms crossing over her chest as she turned to look over the horizon. Pulling a breath in before she fixed her gaze back, feeling the full weight of his even through her darkened perspective. "We've rarely broken promises to one another,” she starts, knowing she owed him the honesty of her eyes as she pushed the frames over her hair. Unsure what he'd find in them but braving it anyway. "I didn't think we should start now.”

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 In high school they would have been assigned this book. Aaron, too restless to sit down to read anything but one of Ish’s comics, would have gleaned enough of the summary from Samira to wing it through an essay and squeak by with a passing grade. In the last few years he’d started to revisit these old titles, understand why they were called classics and taught to teenagers who couldn’t care less. It was his way of making up for a few lost experiences of his youth, as an adult who now cared quite a bit. “Better late than never, right?” he offered with a shrug, a little too topical if he thought about it a moment longer. But his question stands: why was she here, simultaneously honoring a promise but ignoring its one stipulation? Finally he’s granted a view of her eyes, taking her in, wishing he could reach out to hold her and make sure she was real. That he hadn’t fallen asleep in the sun and dreamed this all up. But that ring is as heavy on her hand as it is in his periphery, the glaring guest to this meeting, representing an even higher promise to another man. Briefly, he wonders if Ravi knows about this meetup, if he was downstairs waiting for her to finally cut this off and relay the news. If he had ever heard about their conversation at the reunion. “I still take pinky promises very seriously,” he assured, taking in a measured breath as he realized their cloying proximity, bathing together in the light. Her beautiful face cut like the facets of her diamond, a woman before him today honoring the utterances of a teenager then. He leaned over to the bench, pulling the bouquet into his grip, extending them to her between where they stood. “These are for you,” he murmured of the flowers, palm ghosting to her elbow in silent invitation to take a walk, approaching a better view. Aaron looked out at the skyline, still as humbled by the grand scale as he was when they were younger. Sure they had grown up, but not enough to rival the size of the city. Just like fifteen years ago, he planted his elbows to the wall and braved a question. “Why aren’t you married yet?”

[samira deol]

6.6 She was still learning. About her practice, about the surgeries, about the outcomes and heal times and final inspections. But she was also still learning about people. Emotions, particularly fear, ran heavily through their wing. Fear for procedures gone wrong, or conditions impossible to fix. Hospitals meant dread to so many. Long hours and paperwork that made you realize how your life was being put in someone else's hands. Not entirely unlike war; one wrong move, and there'd be no coming back. But it was her job to heal. To explore all outcomes, to offer all choices. Bound by code to do everything in her power to spare a life, something she tried to uphold outside of those sterile halls. So why did this feel like such a loophole? The answer hung heavily on her hand, slipping under the anxious weight of her thumb. This wasn't a choice she could make. Or something she could heal, or a life she'd be saving. It was Aaron, his history and their matching scars and the face so familiar she could draw it from memory. Maybe he'd been a loophole her entire life. An exception to her rules, someone she'd blindly trust without a second thought and as much a member of her family as her own blood brother. The reminder that she'd kept this secret from him stings again under her skin, the chasm of a reason that kept them apart. Noting another exception at their current physical proximity she did nothing to fix, dark gaze choosing to trace the curve of the shadows against his brow versus send out a warning. She could end it now, at any second. Honor their promise and turn away, finally open that binder and plan the wedding everyone had slowly stopped asking about. "As do I.” The thought never even enters her mind. Instead she cradles the wildflowers in the crook of her elbow, following when he reached. So in tune with the waves in which he requested or required touch. Always soft at first, then gripping in others, when he'd needed someone to hold on to through rubbing alcohol swipes or bone sets. Never understanding to this day how he'd withstood it all, how he'd kept going... Samira shakes her head, ridding the darker thoughts as she kept pace with him down the trail. Refusing to falter at his question, gaze set down the winding path, bringing the bouquet up to her nose to catch the perfume they emitted together as she kept her composure. "Residency's busy,” she eases, a truth. "We didn't realize just how busy it would be. And then our schedules have been so different that we don't get a lot of time together. It's been...” Quiet. Disconnected. Disheartening? "Difficult.” Not an entire truth. "So we're prioritizing time instead of planning a wedding.” A lie. It feels sour on her tongue, asking her own question to dismiss the taste. "Have you been seeing anyone?”

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 Was it enough to reenact their conversation from fifteen years ago? To be in the same place, the same time, all but buried in their memories? Or was he a fool clinging to the scraps of something long gone—that if he dared to open his fist he would see there was nothing in his palm but a fading, bittersweet fantasy? Their footsteps crunch over the trail, settling to the same vantage point from fifteen years ago. Once the question leaves his lips, a world of possibilities opens that rivals the cityscape rolled out beyond them. The skyscrapers, the haze of the horizon, the patches of parks and colorful rooftops and Mount Hollywood yellowing in the summer sun. It’s a grand stage for them to be looking inward, a vantage point that somehow offered clarity through its disconnection from the city, as if they were in some faraway place untethered to their current realities. Like she didn’t have a fiancé and he didn’t have a promise to honor. She’s speaking, but she’s doing that thing where she talks a lot only to say so little, explaining herself. Once more Aaron isn’t sure he can believe it all, excuses almost too quick and rehearsed, he wonders how long she had been prepared to say them. Samira was used to busy, that’s all she had been since she started her schooling in pursuit of this dream. Classes, exams, graduations, externships, never a dull moment in her life whether or not he was there to witness. Even Ish could never hope to capture all the details he relayed, playing both sides of the fence for longer than either of them might realize. This, however, was the only secret kept from him. With weary amusement Aaron entertains her question, letting her believe she’s off the hook. It’s a deflection and they both know it, because a lie can’t grow roots unless it’s left to grow long enough. Running a hand through his hair, Aaron kept his eyes on the city like it might close in on them if they’re not careful. “Same old same old: I was, and now I’m not,” he answered vaguely, features steady. It’s not that he necessarily kept other women a secret, but so few rarely stuck around long enough to become a fixture in conversation or even an introduction, his frustrating reticence about the vulnerability required to forge a connection. Or, to Aaron, no one else could measure up. “It's hard to come up with twenty years of history with somebody I just met,” he drawled, dragging his pale eyes to her. “It never works because they’re not you.” He can’t let either go, her or her excuses. “The Sami I know wouldn’t take two years to do anything. Especially not something you really want,” he started, stuck on the clinical way she spoke about her engagement, like she was reading it off a patient’s chart. “Hell, you would’ve sped up med school if you could,” he chuckled in memory. Dragging his hand across the wall, he enjoyed the bite of the textured plaster into his skin, a brief relief to calm his erratic heart. It always felt like a last opportunity with her, this could be it; but she was prolonging it and he had to know why. “No dress, no date, no venue…” he trailed off, intel of course from Ish in passing, always wondering if she would suddenly be married and he would be none the wiser. “Almost like you’re not planning anything,” he murmured, bold and damning and a risk to it all. “I don’t think you’re marrying him, Samira.”

[samira deol]

6.6 Samira did not believe in fate. Thought it to be lofty and lacking pragmatism, rooted deeper in her values than she was the divine. Choosing science over religion, facts over fables. But standing here now, after waging an inner war with herself all day about this opportunity, she'd followed something blindly and chosen this time to go. The same one he had. With no warnings, no reminders, no deep thoughts or conversations about the topic lately. How could she even explain that? The thought troubles her, as much of this path of conversation does. Knowing that the way she hovered around the topic would be shattered by one smart mouthed drawl. He'd never minced his words around her and up until two years ago, she'd honored to do the same. It must have been startling now to encounter, his face drifting to something calculating, awaiting the inevitable blows. Understanding that his hesitance always led to something profound, refusing to unravel her rigid posture even as the confession fell. To this day it always awed her how easy it seemed. How honest it felt, coaxing the temper only he knew how to stoke. For better or for worse - vows she'd need to be able to recite, right? The thought strikes deeper, eyes narrowing in bristled frustration. "You know, you cannot have history if you don't try to build it,” Samira clips, as if their twenty years had drifted out of thin air. As if they hadn't experienced longing or loss or the slow realization they'd drifted so far from one another, ring spinning, spinning, spinning on her finger. "And I don't appreciate how you seem to use your love for me as a weapon.” She knows he can't help it, but sometimes it feels like a stranglehold on her own choice. A continuous force pushing her to admit she'd made the wrong one, pursued the wrong purpose in life. Growing only in clarity as he cooly dismantled her defenses, made quick work of her platitudes. Sami shifts her arms around her chest at the vulnerability, feeling so blown open at his raw reasoning, the updates he'd likely gleaned from her brother. He'd seen right through her but she wouldn't dignify him with the acknowledgment, only pulling to a halt when his last choice of words strike hard. Wavering in the silence, biting her tongue until it bled, then choosing to strike harder. "That doesn't mean I'm going to marry you, Aaron!” It's impulsive and unkind, regret flooding the second it fell from her lips. Not because it was dishonest...she truthfully didn't know, one of infinite possibilities before her. But because it was mean, and loud, holding her left hand up in gently apology, mirroring it on her mouth. "I'm sorry, I'm so...you didn't deserve tha- oh.” Her eyes drop from his face to the transfer of weight on her finger as her hand fell away, watching in mottled silence as her engagement ring twisted down her fingertip and toward the rubble below them.

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 Love as a weapon. That wasn’t as foreign of a concept as it might seem. Unfortunately for Aaron, a history of love was intimately tied with pain. People who loved you, who you loved? They could hurt you. Early on he had learned they were the first to do so—in fact, they were best at it. Worst of all, people could hurt you and still claim to love you; could say it as they struck you, that it was for your own good. People could love you then leave you, disappear overnight in rescue of themselves. People who loved you could sometimes do nothing to help you, only bear witness and pick up the pieces—usually bloody and bruised—but stand as helpless as you. His love for Samira was like holding a grenade with the pin looped around his finger, more damning than any engagement ring. A weapon against himself, wearing a shield no one else could ever penetrate. A refusal to lay down his defenses, having built up too much armor to keep everyone else away. It all feels too familiar: same play with a rolling backdrop, promising the same end. Veering so far away that he fell right back into it, his upbringing inflated and organized into a military branch. But Aaron doesn’t want to hear any of the platitudes: you’ll find someone, there’s plenty of fish in the sea, just give this one a chance. The blind dates and being fixed up, relationships without labels; nothing working better than someone nameless for one night. A finite amount of love already spent years ago. What he says is bound to strike a nerve. He knew it, waited for it. Felt the razor of the words as they left his tongue, relished the pain it might cause both of them. Because he could read her better when she wasn’t lying to him. Or herself. Fast reflexes were one of the few superpowers of his upbringing, able to snap in an instant, body reacting before the mind. It’s how his palm claps the ring to the plaster before it can bounce to an unknown fate below, feeling the diamond cut into his skin. He peels his hand away, captures the ring with the other, admiring its sparkle in the sunlight. Who knows how expensive, how rare. “You really shouldn’t play with these things,” he exhaled carefully, turning it between his fingertips so that it spun the way it did off her own finger. Gingerly he picked up her left wrist, suddenly aware of their proximity again, her apology lost to his ears. “May I?” he asked quietly, angling the ring to the exact finger, blue gaze transfixed. “I'm gonna ask you again,” he breathed as the ring seated to her knuckle. “What are you doing here, Sami?”

[samira deol]

6.6 She didn't have to hide, around him. It was the most damning fact she could muster, vulnerabilities and lies shed the moment he'd allowed her to drag his t-shirt away decades ago now. Fraught back then with too much belief in innocence, coming face to face with proof that monsters didn't only exist in fairytales. Now face to face with the stark reality that she'd put herself at a crossroads. By choosing to come here she'd narrowed her direction down to two paths. One, years of support, of partnership and a family unstitched but holding on, uncertain where a next step, if any, make take them. The other decades of sweeping tides, ebbing and flowing with distance and volatile emotions. Swelling to a fever pitch now, going all but numb at the wild scenario playing out in front of her. He'd caught her ring, now all but mirroring what it might have looked like had he been the one to propose. An alternate reality that she'd begged for when they broke up, distraught and confused and wondering why he'd left her. Why he'd made that choice, why he'd begged away the second he'd heard he deserved otherwise. Wondering now if he could just as easily be talked out of it. By the right person, at the wrong time, still paralyzed aside from the hand she flexed his direction. Eyes pinpointed and sharp on the diamond light scattering, on the serious set of his brow. Waiting, dangling on the precipice of him pressing it flush against her skin and sending her mind scattering for him. Confirming what he wanted to hear, breathing out the words she'd dreamt about before. But he hesitates. And the words don't come. At the last minute Samira presses her thumb against the base of her ring, stopping him from progressing it any further. "Because I love you,” drifts from her lips as the price, the words right but the tone carrying the weight of reality that hovered, ever present, when she remembered to breathe. Feeling the tears form and fall, tense posture giving way to crumpled resignation. "But I can't just destroy my life for a...a fairytale.”

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 Years ago, he should have asked. After that visit to Duke, instead of feeling defeat he should have felt the fire of decision right then and there. But that motivation to be better was tinged with the blackness of his father’s evil, steered toward what would break him further, what would simply continue Luther’s work long after his absence. Aaron didn’t know it then, foolishly hoping for the thousandth time that his father actually cared. Instead of wringing out hope from his predicament, Aaron signed into an eight-year contract gilded with good intentions but flecked with fine print that his life was suspended as he knew it. He'd never wanted to leave her. Until it seemed the only option to be worthy of her. There’s no worse catch, knowing someone can be better without you. His heart is in his ear again, breath rattling through shivering ribs, a miracle his hands were even still steady. The ring stops short of her knuckle, his forehead tipping against hers in defeat. She loves him, she finally fucking says it. Six years of waiting, six years ago without Ravi and the shadows cast by his presence, six years before the looming skyline of Iraq when they both changed. More than that, a barrier beyond gold and diamond. “A fairytale?” he asks through a laugh, rendered breathless in disbelief. They are anything but, and they both know it. "It was always going to be us, Sami," he echoes. A cautionary tale, a nightmare, a necessity borne of codependent trauma? But it is better than lying. A myth, a farce. “So you’d rather pretend?” he demands, breath harsh against her ear, pushing away her hair to hear him better, memorize the slow, gravelly cadence of his words. “Pretend you love him…” he started. “Pretend you’re marrying him…” he continued. “Pretend I don’t have a ring in my pocket…” he promised.

[samira deol]

6.6 It's not a cathartic confession. Nothing magically clicks into place at the mention, Samira feeling as despondently lost as she had a moment before she'd said it. Staring at a reality she'd dreamed of once, blurred by the one she existed in now. Snared by the tangle of a home and entwined jobs and a daily routine, unable to say she was unhappy because in reality she wasn't anything. Not happy, not miserable...just a little lost, unsure how far she'd walked down that tunnel until she'd arrived here. Realizing that he'd taken the same dark path. Lovesick is her first thought, as his laugh reads hysteric. Aaron never did anything in halves, dancing on a razor's edge of passion and danger that could blur if it was stepped on just right. Looking for things to hurt to feel something. Looking for things to love like salve on a wound. So set in his conviction that it reads like some spiritual truth he'd discovered in their home, growing up. A pillar she'd skipped in her studies, meant to be, eyes drifting shut to try to brace herself. Chills roll across her skin as his voice lowers, choosing to stand her ground and filter out the almost sinister implications. He'd never threaten her, never hurt her...but it all reads wrong, eyes flying open when he finally hits his mark. Samira draws in a deep breath, hand coming up against his chest. In support or in warning, she can't truly say, now refusing to be careful around him. If that was what he wanted, it was what he would get. "Stop, please.” It aches, coming out of her mouth. But she doesn't want it to be like this, doesn't want them to continue tumbling further into the shadows they'd been collecting over the years. "I can't just put you in Ravi's shoes and pretend like it fixes everything. It won't - I don't...we have a life together still, Aaron. Is it perfect? No. That's why I'm here. Will we get married? I have no idea right now. But to turn this into a...a threat isn't what I'd want either. And you know that.”

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 Aaron had plenty of time to imagine other lives, but the difference between them was that he did not. He clung to their memories during his time in the Army, reminiscing about a girl waiting for him back home, counting down to a return to a life that had long since passed him by. He just didn’t know it until he got out. Samira had college and family and real life at her disposal, growing beyond Aaron for eight years while he lived for phone calls, unsent letters and static pictures curling on the shelf of his bunk. He preferred the comfort of his memories while she flourished in the present, growing into the years they were separated which his shadows left hollow. She used to live in his extremes, no gray spaces between his choices, his moods, his opinions. Precarious on one edge or another, a coin flip easy to predict. Rescued so many times from her windowsill like a stray animal as hurt as it was ready to sink its teeth in you. Still operating on the battlefield, feeling the grains of sand slip between his fingers, a war that was never finished. There’s a hand on his chest, drawing him out of his thoughts with a vengeance. “A threat?” he breathes ragged in repeat, wanting to double over at the blow. To stumble away from her reach, leave the betraying warmth of her hands. They had never scorched so much before, hurting as much as they healed depending on her vow. “I’m not here to be Ravi.” His hand sent to her wrist, supporting the blast to his chest, almost wishing she would dig deeper. If she’s going to rip out his heart, it might as well be with the ringed hand in another’s man’s honor. “I’ll never be a doctor, Sam. I might not impress your friends or make as much money, but you’ll never have to wonder a day in your life if you’re loved,” he vowed, a promise as serious as two years ago, what little he felt there as to offer not in titles or numbers. “And if I asked you to marry me, I’d waste no time. We’d be married tomorrow,” he assured, taking back a step to stand before her in the sunlight. “If that’s a threat then so be it.” Maybe he was a fifteen-year-old timebomb. A twenty-year-old time capsule.

[samira deol]

6.6 Samira couldn't tell whether they were flickering in the past, present, or future, all worlds colliding as they bled with one another. Scathed with raw honesty, debts repaid, balance sheets cleared as they came face to face again in this world. Both with convictions in different directions, his built brick by brick in the past until a solid foundation formed of his love for her. Hers steadily crumbling in the future, looking over her shoulder and wondering where the new wall had come from. The one she feels like she's knocking against now, his touch curled against her wrist. He could break it, if he wanted to. Eight bones, two rows, one twist. It's a terrible thought but a brutal reality, swallowing it down as she held firm. Trying to tether something, someone, whether it be him or her to this reality they existed in now. It wouldn't be easy, something he seemed to be driving at. Maybe it wouldn't even be at all. "I'm not asking you to be him,” tears from her lips, elbow extended to push away but anchoring her grip further on his shirt, eyes searching. "I'd never ask that because it's never what I wanted from you. You...you never needed to impress me, or do something to earn me. You had me, but we let go.” She can't blame him for what he did. Only his father, whose existence was a footnote in the lives he'd destroyed. One she saw wavering now, requests outlandish as her eyes widened further. Unable to tell if he was spiraling, if this was that long tamped anger, finally letting go in muted incredulity. "Aaron, you sound insane right now. 'We'd be married tomorrow?' What am I, some prized cattle? No choice for you, Samira, go along and do as I say?” It scorches something deeply within her, having never been chided for her strength and independence, especially by him. She needed a partner, not a master, scoffing at his demands until allowing the wind to steal away her malice. Fighting fire with fire only combusted the flames, Samira biting her tongue until she knew she could soften her voice. "Look...I don't think this was how either of us wanted this to go. I'm not saying No, Aaron. But it's not as easy as a Yes right now, either.”

[aaron eklund]

June 6, 2024 There’s a glitch in time where he’s simultaneously fifteen and almost thirty. They’re still on a fieldtrip, their teacher not far off, Ish looking for them from the exhibit hall. Like a mixed radio signal in his brain, interference making static of the present. His excitement can show up with the same intensity as his anger, still a struggle to discern between emotions the stronger they became. It’s how Sami always balanced him, his anchor point when he felt like he was spinning control, her perspective the only one to latch onto when he lost it. “We let go.” He wishes it weren’t true, that he could point a finger away from himself, but truthfully they both saw the writing on the wall when they finally called it quits. Love was already hard from hundreds of miles away, let alone thousands. Love didn’t translate well through satellite phones or from across multiple time zones. He didn’t like missing her big days, and she didn’t like Googling his unit late at night when she was worried. “But it’s different now,” Aaron asserted, “we’re different.” Maybe one of the reasons for the split was now an evolved proof that it could work, if it had survived through them both for this long, all the changes be damned. The changes were better these days: reflection, therapy, work. Bad habits shaken, better choices made. “I’m here for good, you’re out of school... What if we have a shot?” he asked, one of countless what-ifs over the years that wrapped him up at night. Sometimes in anxiety, sometimes in hope. “Jesus, Sami,” he clipped in exasperation, trying to keep his cool. “I’m sorry.” Show her how you’ve changed, you’re not a loose cannon anymore. “All I mean is we wouldn’t drag our feet for two years. I’d be so fucking” (he forgot there were children and families afoot, ducking sheepishly at the realization) “excited to marry you I couldn’t wait,” he explained, a boyish smile claiming his mouth. “Like this isn’t insane?” he willed himself to laugh, gesturing at their surroundings, this date, this secret. As far as the world was concerned, these two only existed here now. “I said I’d sit back,” he clarified, gathering her hands from his shirt and into his. “Not that I’d stop having feelings for you. That’s never gonna change. I love you and I’m in love with you, Samira.”