“I appreciate the sentiment, Amala; I do. But right now I can’t even comprehend that being possible. I just need you to know that I’m not harboring any ill feelings toward you over any of this. I want there to be peace between us, and I don’t want you to feel as if you have to hide when I spend time with your family. I miss you. Surely at the very least we can be friends.”

“I’d like to think so,” she said. “I just . . . might need a little more time.”

“I understand,” he said, and there was another taut silence.

“Amala,” he finally went on, “I have one favor to ask of you.”

Her curiosity urged her to look at him, then she wished she hadn’t when the love and adoration in his eyes was so evident. But perhaps part of making peace with all of this was facing both his feelings and hers and accepting what had to be in spite of them.

“What is it?” she asked, not willing to make any promises until she knew what he might ask of her.

She heard him take a deep breath and sensed him gathering courage. “The last time I kissed you, Amala, I didn’t know it would be the last. If I’d known—if we’d known—surely it would have been different. Let me kiss you good-bye, Amala. One last time.”

Amala didn’t know if she could bear it, while at the same time she desperately wanted the very experience he’d just described: one last kiss, knowing it would be the last, with an opportunity to savor the experience and the sweet, albeit poignant, memories it might offer her in the future.

“Promise me it will be the last and not the beginning of more turmoil for both of us.”

“I promise,” he said and stepped tentatively toward her, almost as if he were approaching a wild animal, afraid it would bolt. Considering all the times she had run away from him—both literally and figuratively—she couldn’t blame him.

“Amala,” he whispered and took hold of her upper arms in a way that was so familiar, and she did the same to him, loving the strength she could feel in his arms. “I will always treasure,” he said close to her ear, “everything we shared. I refuse to regret a moment of it. Every kiss, every embrace, every conversation—they have all been rich and precious to me. And I will forever treasure each memory.”

Amala closed her eyes and felt tears slide down her cheeks the same moment his lips came to her forehead and lingered there. “Please find a way to be happy, Amala. I can’t be happy without believing that you are too. I know it’s complicated for you in ways I can’t begin to understand. But please . . . find a way to be happy.”