He shook his head. “Desta, look at me.”

I didn’t want to. I wanted to hide, knowing in my heart this was the end. That once again I had done this to myself. Put my heart out to be destroyed and in the process, brought along someone else who could face terrible consequences.

A sob escaped my throat, and Elias pulled back. “Don’t cry, konjo, please. Don’t cry for me.”

“I’m afraid I’ll never see you again,” I said, feeling so fucking miserable.

“Shhh.” He made soothing noises, looking at me with concern, but still he didn’t tell me I was wrong in thinking we were over. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing my tears to dry, to stop this.

When I looked at him his face was serious, but he wasn’t shying away from what he needed to say. “I can’t make you a promise I do not know I can keep, but it’s not because I don’t love you.”

I couldn’t speak, but Elias went on. “It may not be soon, but we will see each other again.”

I glanced up at him and barely saw him with my eyes full of tears. “What if it’s not the same?” I asked, unable to hold all my doubts from spilling out.

“It won’t be the same. Our time together like this is over. We may have a chance at something different.” He lifted a shoulder, clearly as unsure as I was about any future for us. “But you must believe in what we made together.”

How was he this strong?

I shuddered out a breath. “Okay.”

We embraced again, and our kisses tasted so much like sorrow. Like an ending.

I watched out the window of my room as Elias got in his car and drove away, going home to face his parents and tell his truth. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and grabbed my laptop, which was sitting on my desk, and decided to Skype my mother.

Like Elias, before I could start the next part of my life, I needed to come clean to the person who mattered the most to me. Even if it meant breaking her heart.

Chapter 25

As I readied to call my mom, my mind raced, thinking about Elias and the agony he was clearly going through. Yet he was determined to tell his parents everything before he left Ethiopia. No matter how things turned out, he was willing to face the consequences in order to live his truth. And here I was just days from having to go back to the States, still as lost as I’d been when I got here.