We’ve tacitly accepted all the abuse, the weight of all the projects that never worked. We’ve paid taxes with money; worse, we’ve paid with the future, indebting ourselves with what doesn’t even belong to us. That’s not what I want to be, Jaime, I tell him. I’m a division, but also an integrated difference. I want to be the communion of everything. In my Raizal blood, something vibrates to that rhythm, and in my Arab blood and mainland blood, too. I recognise it. I’m entire migrations, histories of wars and longings I’ll never fully know; that’s what we all are when we take off our masks, when we stop seeking safety in the falsely static. Everything has always moved – Jaime looks at me and I keep going – my grandparents, everyone’s grandparents, children, great-grandchildren, borders, power. We belong to the Earth, and that’s what we need to honour: this rain that’s been everywhere for millions of years, the air we breathe, the ocean that’s the womb of absolutely everything. It’s true. I’ll never know the whole truth about my ancestors, the mind can’t connect the dots; that’s an impulse of the heart.

A radiant flash heralds a deafening roar of thunder, interrupting me. I look at him steadily, startled.

‘Hey, do you think I’ll be able to make it home tonight?’ he asks me suddenly, serious, looking out towards the patio, now looking at me.

‘And why would you want to make it home tonight?’ I respond, hypnotised.

Jaime’s eyes turn to sparks and he opens his mouth, draws a breath as if to say something, then changes his mind. He takes the sweated glasses from my hands, steps closer. I feel his feet graze mine. The bass line of the reggae song mingles with the throb of the rain, and if it weren’t for that – the rain – I’d be able to hear his heart beating in his chest. Out of sheer mischief, I stay silent, and I don’t touch him until he’s so close that I let out a nervous sigh despite myself. We find ourselves swaying slowly, as we did to the reggae at the blockade. This time his hands don’t encircle my waist, but rise to stroke my face, which incites me – he doesn’t kiss me, but the press of his hips betrays how much he wants to, and I feel a flash of yearning to touch him everywhere, to feel all the way into his soul. Jaime bends his knees and presses closer, and that’s when the intent is clear – my mouth drifts towards his and it drives him mad, he bites his lip, bends his knees a little more, draws me into a deeper dance. My fingers brush his neck and the kiss is slow at last, very slow, searing.