“So am I,” Jimmy said. “I’ll remember it’s your starlight filling the cracks and the broken parts of me.”

Tara unclasped the small silver capsule she wore on a thick black thread around her neck and put it in Jimmy’s palm, folding his fingers over it. “It’s the Ayatul Kursi. The Throne of God prayer from the Quran. May it keep you safe, Jimmy Daly,” she said and smiled.

He clutched his fingers tightly around the amulet. “May the road rise up to meet you, Tara Jahan.”

Tara and Jimmy stepped to the door, her Rumi and his Yeats, together, under her arm. He opened it enough to stick his head out. The hall was empty. He nodded at her.

Neither of them moved. Could such strong feelings seize her in a single night and then leave her, before dawn awoke, with a heart utterly shattered? She wasn’t sure if this was madness or tragedy or foolishness. She wanted to stop time and the earth and the stars. She wanted all the things that could not be. She wanted a different universe where there were more possibilities for a girl like her and a boy like him.

Tara gripped Jimmy’s hand. She didn’t want to be the first to let go. Nor, she felt, did he. But one of them had to. And since she was the one leaving, the terrible task fell on her. She pressed herself close to him and inhaled him one last time—the cardamom from the chai mixed with sharp scents of his boot polish and shaving cream. They stared at each other until the door closed between them.

Days passed. And nights. Tara kept Jimmy’s book of poems safely tucked under her pillow in Shimla and in Hyderabad, and when the tears came, she found herself reaching for the pages, hearing his voice recite the words until, weeks and months later, the echo of his voice slowly passed into a dimly lit corner of her memory. The longing faded, too, until the wounds simply became shiny scars. Until the sharp pain became a dull throb and eventually just a pinch. Until the raging bonfire of feeling a mere ember that she guarded and kept glowing.