“What are you thinking?” Clay asks. He has the middle seat and Mom has the aisle. She’s fallen asleep, as she always does, moments after takeoff. I knew I would one day return to Afghanistan but hadn’t imagined what that voyage might look like.

Where do I begin?

“Nothing, really. Just haven’t seen this view for a while,” I say.

When we met in the coffee shop, I’d only meant to talk to Clay about the Ai-Khanoum ring. He didn’t need to know how I’d come to be in possession of it, and I wasn’t going to tell him if he asked. But sitting across from him, I had a change of heart. I was tired of holding everything in. I had asked him if, as a journalist, he was obligated to maintain confidentiality.

Well, as a journalist, I have an obligation to protect my sources. But I don’t think I’m here as a journalist. I’ll tell you what. I don’t know where this conversation is going, but I do promise, as a person, to keep my lips sealed. I’m good at that.

I’d hoped for something closer to an oath but found myself reassured by his hand over his heart, a gesture I knew he’d picked up from his time in Afghanistan.

I had told Clay everything while Mom listened. There was no way around it. These were all details of one entangled story.

Clay’s expression hadn’t belied the least bit of surprise. He’d listened intently, but without reacting. He wasn’t patronizing or disbelieving. I started with the coup and moved quickly through the moments that orphaned me. Though I kept my account skeletal, my escape from Arg and my homeland tumbled out of me so easily that I wondered why I’d hidden all of it from Adam for so long.

I didn’t expect Clay to want to accompany us on this trip, and yet here we are. If I had known in the coffee shop that I’d be sitting next to Clay for a ten-hour flight, I don't know if I would have had the courage to tell him quite so much. Now I wonder if I look to him like another casualty of war, if he’s imagining the scars on my psyche, or if he’s going to ask questions that tilt me into dark thoughts. I am not accustomed to such insecurities. They are something between uncomfortable and painful, like shoes half a size too small.

“Aryana,” he says, taking a book out of his bag and resting it on his tray. “What happens if this trip doesn’t give you the answers you’re looking for?”

I look at him to gauge his intent.

“Just making conversation,” he says, putting his hands up defensively. “This isn’t an interview.”