Instead, we stay in and we celebrate Sevda under Marrakech’s night sky. We celebrate the life she has lived and the life she will live. We celebrate the past she has overcome. We feast on Moroccan oranges and an assortment of baklava. Widad sings a song about leaving, and we sing along because goodbyes are always bittersweet; we will miss Sevda as we miss all our sisters. As I miss all of them. Even the ones I can’t remember.

I want to miss Valentina, too, but she refuses to leave.

Ghufran puts on music and Valentina dances in the orange lamplight. The night kisses her curves and makes me jealous I don’t have any. When we have sung and danced our fill, we sit and talk about the times we have spent with Sevda, the places we have been, the memories we have created. She will forget them all. She will forget me. Eventually, all of them will forget me.

Then the girls slip away, one by one or in groups, leaving me alone with Taraana on the rooftop under a sky heavy with stars. We sit on a roofed swing, curled up under the same blanket, gazing at the immensity of the Atlas Mountains, dark in the distance.

Somewhere, a clock strikes midnight. In the street below, someone laughs.

Midnight has a scent in Marrakech. It smells like oranges with faint notes of panic. I take a deep breath but fail to find the peace I am looking for. I haven’t planned this out, but I can’t keep it in any longer.

“Taraana?”

“Hmm?” He sounds sleepy. This is probably not the right time. Maybe I should wait. No, if I wait, I will throw up all the dessert I ate, and that would be a shame. He opens his eyes and looks at me. “What is it? Do you have to throw up?”

How rude. He doesn’t understand a girl’s heart. “I have an answer for you,” I tell him.

“What? Wait. What?” He sits up straight and stares at me with a panicked face. Good. I’m not the only one panicking right now. Hah.

“Do you want to hear it?” I can’t believe I’m doing this. I haven’t been a teenager for a long time, on the inside, I mean, but it feels like I’m one right now. My heart is about to give up the ghost, all the ghosts that haunt me, any minute now. My hands are cold and my mouth is dry. This might be the stupidest idea I’ve ever had.

“Yes. No. I don’t know!” he says helplessly.

“Fine. I will keep it to myself,” I say, and sniff. I am secretly glad, though.

“No, no, I didn’t mean that. I want to know.” He catches my hand. There goes my secret gladness. “Please?”