I had put love into each stitch in each passport’s binding. I just hadn’t known that was what it was, because the only love I had recognized as given to me was the kind that clutched tight, and never let go.

“I can’t marry you,” I said.

Aden’s face looked as though I had slapped it. “You don’t mean this.”

“I thought I could marry you,” I said. “I thought I should, that it was enough that I care about you and that we are friends. But it’s not enough.”

The fading light, as it always did around Aden, lingered on his skin, sifting in from the window of his home to touch him lightly, to brighten his wounded eyes, to gild his shocked mouth. “I’m not enough for you?” he said. “Who is?”

“I don’t think you want to marry someone who can’t love you.”

“Answer my question. Or do you think you don’t even owe me the truth? Who are you? What is this?” His fingers twitched the blue silk at my shoulder. “Of course you think you can break the law and never pay. Of course you think you can break my heart. That foreign woman has made you believe it.”

Once, I would have said, She has nothing to do with this.

I would have lied because I was afraid. I would have hidden the truth because I knew it made him angry.

“I don’t want to break your heart,” I said, “but it’s either yours or mine.”

“So selfish,” he hissed. “I should have known. You killed a man, and I bet you don’t feel bad at all about it, just like you have no guilt whatsoever about hurting me.”

“You’re right that I don’t feel guilty about killing him. Not anymore. He would have dragged me to my death to get what he wanted.”

“What are you suggesting? That I am like him, that I intend to drag you to your death when all I want is to make you happy, to build a life with you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It’s what you mean.”

“Well,” I said, “it’s true. You are a little like him.”

“Listen to yourself! How can you be so cold? How can you say such a cruel thing to me?”

“You said it.” I remembered my earlier thought about how it wasn’t wrong to want, how it was necessary. But of course nothing is as simple as that. Wanting something doesn’t always mean it is owed to you. “I know you love me, but that doesn’t mean I have to give myself to you.”

“Let me guess. You’ve given yourself to her.”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s disgusting.”

“I disagree.”

“It’s against the law.”

“Then I’ll continue to break it.”