september 7th, 2019, 8:52 p.m.

It was another week before Iman watched her father slip away, his hand going slack in hers as the line of his pulse went flat. It was sooner than the doctors had guessed, but not sooner than Iman had known. She knew her father, and knew he would sooner let go of it all than hang on to nothing.

There, as they lifted the sheet above his head, Iman crumpled, her chest heaving in dry sobs, all her breath, all her words, stolen from her. She remembered his smell, like pine and cigarette smoke, the way his arms felt around her, how the light stubble on his chin felt against her skin. Iman, he had told her once, when she was thirteen, crying over a friend who never cared enough to cry over her. Belief—that is what your name means. Faith. I always believed in you, lovey.

You are so much greater than this world could ever understand.

Now, twenty-four hours since her father's death—only it still stung like it had happened only minutes before—Iman sat on the edge of her and Beck's hotel bed, staring at the wall. It was burnt orange wallpaper, plain, the color of rust. The lights were off, the room encased in shadow save for the sliver of moonlight that slid through the curtained patio door. Iman could hear Beck on the phone with someone out on the deck, though it was background noise, like the warble of voices in a concert hall before the crowd went hush.

His funeral would be next week; Hana, seeing as she was the eldest sister and their mother was too distraught to leave her bedroom, was handling most of the proceedings. In the back of her head, Iman thought she should be helping, too. But what did it matter? What did anything matter, with her father gone to a place she could not follow? She was always the one coming and going, disappearing for hours or days. She wasn't used to being the one who was left behind.

The patio door hissed open, and Beck stepped back into the room, placing his phone back in his pocket. There was brief moment of hesitation before he came around, kneeling in front of Iman, right in her line of vision so she could look nowhere else but his face. He was tired—exhausted, more like it: dark semicircles beneath heavy-lidded eyes, the curls of his hair left untouched, his clothes wrinkled from falling asleep without bothering to change them.

She never should have brought him here. This was not his burden to bear—none of this, not her, not her family, not her time traveling—was his to bear. One of these days, she thought, she would have to release him from this. One of these days, she knew, she would be alone.

"Im?" Voice a whisper, an unexpected breeze.

Iman inhaled, exhaled. "I just can't believe he's gone. A week ago, he was here, and now—now he's not. I wish I'd visited more—"

"Don't even go there, Iman," Beck said, shaking his head. He raised his hands, cupping either side of her face. "Don't. I've been there—all the I should have, I wish I would haves—and it's a very ugly place. Death is life, Iman. There's no predicting it, no preventing it. You were there with him when he passed. Isn't that enough?"

She'd been doing so well—numbing herself, turning the tap of her emotions off—but now, here, with Beck's hands on her face and that ugly orange wallpaper and the faint sound of children laughing somewhere in the hall, the black void that was her father's absence swelled and broke her to pieces.

When the tears came, Beck said nothing. He rose, wrapping her in his arms, her head pressed against his chest as his hand glided across her back, up and down again, up and down again. He did not tell her, It's okay. He did not tell her, Everything will be fine. He held her in a reverent, careful silence, and it was all Iman needed.

Slowly her breath returned to her, and she lifted her head. Beck's sweater—heather gray, Calvin Klein—was a mess of tears and mucus, but he didn't seem to care.

He ran his fingers through her hair, his smile rueful. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know," Iman said, "but I do...I do feel better."

Beck worked his jaw for a moment, as if pondering something. Then, swiftly, with a new purpose, he turned and ruffled through his backpack for a clean shirt. Iman sniffled, watching him. "What are you doing?"

He shucked the ruined sweater over his head and dropped it beside his backpack, accidentally knocking his glasses from his nose. "Changing," he said, putting the new shirt on and fumbling around for his fallen specs.

"Yeah," said Iman. She got up—her legs wobbling underneath her from sitting for so long—and swept his glasses up from the carpet. He reached to take them from her, but Iman leaned forward, setting them upon his nose. "But why?"

"Do you know what I do when I'm upset?" he said, not moving from his spot on the floor, his eyes trained up at Iman. "What takes my mind off things?"

Iman frowned. "Read a book?"

"Well—" He smiled, laughing at himself. "Yes, that. But I mean besides that."

"Then, no. I don't know."

Beck nudged his glasses further up his nose, getting to his feet, and at once reminding Iman of just how small she was compared to him. He rummaged through his pockets, car keys jingling as he lifted them to show her.

Beck grinned, teeth and all. "I drive."

As they drove, Beck told Iman about his mother.

"She was a florist," he said, as the lights of downtown Annapolis streamed past them in blurs of gold and white. One hand gripped the wheel, the other hand resting placidly in Iman's. "That was how she and Dad met, actually. He needed flowers for his girlfriend at the time—he messed up 'bad,' he always says, though I've told him many times before that it's badly, but oh, that's beside the point—but he said the second he walked into Mom's shop and saw her there arranging a bouquet of tulips, he forgot all about the other girl. Sucks for her, right? But yeah, that's the beginning of it all..."

They drove past close-knit buildings, brick and stucco, tall colonial spires and cobblestone walkways. People walking, people laughing, hands in coat pockets or around another's shoulders. Live music bleeding out of bars: jazz, classic rock, blues.

"Are you cold? Hot? Should I let down a window?" Beck let down her window halfway, so she could feel the river's breeze upon her face. "So another thing about Mom, right? She could sew just about anything—made my sister's and my clothes all the time—but she was an awful cook. Once she tried this shepherd's pie recipe she found on Pinterest, but it was not shepherd's pie. It was mush, is what it was. But, you know, all I could do was grin and bear it, because she worked so hard, you know?

"She and Dad coached us in basketball, too. Wendy's much better at all that stuff than I am, but it was still fun. Couldn't make a free throw for my life, but Mom and Dad made me forget about all that. Just play, she used to say. That's the thing about sports, Becky! They're not just about winning!"

Despite herself, Iman chuckled at the idea of Beck dribbling anything. She'd watched him play intramural soccer before, after all, and it hadn't taken her long to figure out why he didn't care for sports. "Could you make things that weren't free throws?"

Beck shot her a side-eye. "What do you think?"

Iman laughed again, the sound bubbling up in her chest and out of her mouth before she could stop it. It felt good to laugh again, like stepping back into her home after a long day away. She was returning to herself—slowly, painfully—returning to everything.

Downtown fell away behind them, the roads stretching longer, emptier. Beck kept talking, and Iman was content with listening to his stories, about his mom's favorite dress and about her favorite bedtime story ("I almost think she enjoyed reading it more than I did") and about how she got grumpy if she didn't have her earl grey tea in the morning. Beck talked, and Iman watched him as he did, the way the edges of his mouth turned up, his eyes softening as he described his mother's coiled hair ("Nappy was her favorite way of saying it"), and how she had taught him to love his, as he described her honey brown eyes, as he described the scent of her: "Like a garden. Not one flower in particular, but like, all of them."

By the time the words slowed, Annapolis was far, far away, the roads rising into the mountains, making Iman's ears pop. Beck dragged his SUV to a stop at a vacant scenic overlook, only the trees to watch as Beck climbed out of the car. He came around, pulling open the door for Iman and offering her his hand.

"Beck," she said, raising an eyebrow at him. "What are we doing?"

"Looking," he said, the moonlight glinting in his glasses. "It's a scenic overlook. That's what we're supposed to do."

Iman rolled her eyes, but nevertheless followed Beck to the edge of the overlook, leaning against the railing.

Her breath hitched in her chest. Below them was a sea of yellow lights, most stagnant, some twinkling like grounded stars. Ahead of the lights was the Chesapeake Bay, a tranquil black-blue mass, peppered with white where the waves broke along the shoreline. If she squinted, Iman could make out the cars moving through the streets of the city, ever slowly, like the shadow of water through a straw.

An unimaginable feeling washed through Iman, like she was everything and nothing at the same time, like the world was this big, big place and she was so lucky to live within it.

It should have been discouraging, looking down at the city from the top of this mountain, watching it all go on without her father. Instead, it was oddly comforting. The world hadn't stopped; the universe went on. She could, too.

"I really wish she could have met you, Iman."

She turned at Beck's voice. He was bracing himself against the railing, all the lights of Annapolis reflected in his glasses, something in his face suddenly grave.

"Who?" asked Iman. "Your mom?"

He nodded, then pivoted his whole body towards Iman, folding her hand into his. His hands were bigger, his palms wider, a writer's callus on the inside of his index finger. His pulse pounded through his skin, Iman noticed, his fingers ever so slightly quivering. Before she could ask, Beck went on, "She really would have liked you; I'm sure of it."

"Beck..."

"Iman, I love you," he blurted, then made a face, as if rethinking every word he was about to say. "After my mom died, you know, I got really used to being alone? Like, I thought: this is how it's going to be from now on? My sister, my dad, yeah, but no one else—and you just, wow. I met you and I have realized, wow, what a massive lie that is."

Now Iman was shaking. "Beck...?"

"Everyone has a person, they say. A soulmate, if you will. I wondered for a long time what that would even look like. I thought, probably if you feel like a piece of you's missing when they're not there, then that's it. Or if everything you see—even little things, like...like how every time I see a ladybug it reminds me of that time you stopped everyone in the hallway just so you could get that one ladybug out of the way?—anyway, if everything just reminds you of them for some reason, then that must be it. If you can sit in total silence with them and still have the most fun of your life, then that's...that's it."

Iman's heart raced, thundering against her ribcage. She kept her eyes down at where Beck's hand held hers, tracing the fine lines of his skin with her gaze, rubbing her thumb back and forth across his knuckles.

"Every time you...travel somewhere, and I don't know where you are, or if you're okay, I feel like I'm drowning," said Beck. "Then you come back, and only then does the world start turning again. Jesus. I'm not making any sense. Iman?"

Stopping. Fumbling in his pocket, fingers clumsy, breath getting shallow.

Beck's hand slipped from Iman's. He lowered himself, slowly, to one knee.

A tear slid down Iman's cheek.

"I guess what I'm...what I'm trying to say, Iman, is that..." He shook his head. "Is that I think you are my person, and I love you, and I don't ever want to let you go again."

Another tear rolling down her cheek—Beck flipping the box open—diamond a lucid white, like a dream—

"Iman Patel," Beck said. "Will you marry me?"

She wanted to speak—needed to speak—but her heart was hammering and she felt so out of breath, so terribly out of breath—something in her stomach was airy, like she was floating away—

She dropped to her knees, crushing Beck in a hug. "Yes," she cried, and when she looked up into Beck's eyes, starry, like the night itself, she noticed his face was wet, too. "Yes, Beck, yes—"

He laughed, stopped, laughed again, taking her hand in his, sliding the ring onto her finger—

Iman's world caved; she vanished.

The ring clinked against the asphalt.