She continued: “Maybe,” and Ayanna had never heard her voice be so cold and measured, “you were just fun for her for a summer. She was bored, and she loved the attention you gave her, but not you. Maybe she just liked sleeping with you but thought you were annoying as a person. She knew you wanted someone to love you and it made you easy to manipulate.”

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“I don’t like you calling me Liana, sending me those weird notes, telling me to kill myself.”

“It’s romantic. We can be together. I’ve been waiting so long for you, Liana. I can’t believe you chose to be reborn again without me.”

No one had ever spoken to Ayanna with so much need.

“I never had a family,” he said. “I had you and only such a small time. I wanted years together. I wanted children. I wanted holidays.”

The wind rustled the entire woods. He shook with it, moving from solidish man to cloud, and back. Above, the moon was a fingernail clipping left for someone to find in the navy quilt sky. I wish I was home, Ayanna thought. I wish there was somewhere that felt like home. I wish I was someone who was worrying about midterms or rush or my weird roommate instead of all this. I wish I was the one who died. I’m so tired of feeling.

And then she thought of all the years before, when she had loved being complicated, had happily thought of adventures and discoveries, had read biographies of explorers, and had dreamed of other worlds filled with not just golden paths and indigo meadows, but all the creativity and glory the universe might hold. She had wanted to discover without colonizing or cruelty. Ayanna immediately apologized to the person she had been. At heart, she still wanted to be brave, to be relentless, to be in a pursuit of knowledge, to feel the thrill again of seeing a new vista, to want to approach living with an open heart. And if not that, despite her intrinsic dislike for Matthias, Ayanna thought of his face when he felt certain he had saved someone’s life.

“Liana, you’re ignoring me,” he said.

She hadn’t realized he had been talking.

Ayanna reached out to him. Touched his wrist and felt it soften beneath her grasp. She avoided his eyes. “I need you to stop.”

He stepped closer. Moved his head to her own, leaned down as if to smell her hair.

“No,” he said, and disappeared.

19