An emotion of great delight

You’re too close. I can’t talk to you when you’re this close to me. I can’t even breathe when y—”
I gasped when he leaned in, pressed his forehead to mine. His hands were at my waist now, reeling me in, and I sank against his body with a sound, a kind of surrender.
He said nothing for what seemed like an eternity.
I listened to our hearts race, felt my skin heat. I felt desperate for something I could not articulate, for a need I could not fathom. We were standing this close and still light-years from where I wanted to be.

Ali’s head lifted slowly, his spine straightened slowly. He unfurled before my eyes, turning toward me not unlike a bloom in search of the sun.

“Please,” he said, gesturing at me. “By all means, say something. For the love of God, say something.”

He had the darkest eyes. Thick, inky lashes. There was a depth in his gaze, a collapsed star that beckoned, tempted me to peer inside, lose myself, and if not there—here, in the elegant lines of his face, in the sharpness of his jaw, in his smooth, dusky skin

(…)instead I racked my mind for an answer, for a solution to this madness, and seized upon the first stupid thought that entered my head. I spoke recklessly, hastily, before I’d even had a chance to think it through.
“Then maybe—maybe it would be better if we didn’t see each other. Maybe we just shouldn’t be in each other’s lives anymore.”

He waited for what seemed an eternity for me to speak, to take it back, but my lips had gone numb, my mind too stupid to navigate this labyrinth of emotion. I did not know what I’d just done.

I realized, as I cried myself to sleep that night, that I might’ve hurt him less had I simply driven a stake through his heart.

Because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t see you every day and just pretend this isn’t killing me.”
“You have to.”
He went suddenly still. I watched it happen, watched him stiffen, then straighten, in real time. And then, two words, so raw they might’ve been ripped out of his chest:
“I can’t.”

“For the love of God, Shadi, just tell me what you want. Do you want me? Do you want to be with me? Because if you do, that’s all that matters. We can figure out everything else.”

I couldn’t help it when I whispered, “You look like a Renoir painting right now.”