Once it got into my head that chasing after Elias would only end in disaster for both of us, I’d forced myself to try to shut him out. It felt mean and shitty, but I was no longer able to do things halfway with him. If I let him in, he would be all the way back in, and that was madness.

So I kept my focus on my work and only turned the phone on at the end of the day to check if I had any messages from the Addis office. It had taken me a few weeks, but I’d finally gotten my head where it needed to be. I hated it, and hated that I missed him so much already, but I had brought this on myself. Lucía had been right—I did this, and I needed to stop.

On Wednesday evening as we pulled into the hotel, exhausted from almost ten hours of uninterrupted canvassing, I saw Elias standing by a white Land Cruiser talking to Tsehay. As soon as I saw him, my vision shrank to a tiny pinhole where only his face was visible. I closed my eyes, gripped the seatbelt strap with both hands, and took deep breaths. The need to go to him so strong I was lightheaded.

I worked on forcing myself not to jump out and throw myself at him—which would be very stupid in just about every way possible—as the truck came to a stop. So much for my “doing the right thing,” since it only seemed to work when Elias was three hundred miles away.

A knock on the window startled me and I opened my eyes. I turned my head, still trying to get my breathing under control, and noticed Zebene was giving me a weird look. He probably thought I was carsick or something. I was about to tell him I was fine when my door opened and the now-familiar smell of Elias’s cologne filled the space.

My belly fluttered, and that slightly nauseous feeling I got whenever he was near overtook me while I sat, hoping whatever I said didn’t out us both. After giving me a radiant smile, he braced one arm on the frame of the door and stretched the other toward Zebene in greeting. They gripped each other’s forearms in the manner I’d seen Ethiopian men do with each other as I sat there, mildly dizzy from Elias’s proximity.

“Zebi, are you driving properly? Desta has very high standards!” Elias’s jovial tone was only diminished by the weary look in his eyes.

Zebene laughed and looked over to me, presumably hoping for a response, except I had nothing. All my mental energy was occupied in trying not to be super obvious about how much I wanted to press my nose to Elias’s neck, which at the moment was like, five inches from my face.