Kaveh’s fixation with Nikola’s proposal came over him slowly, like a disease. Over the next couple of days, he didn’t answer phone calls or follow up on emails. He ignored texts from his family and spent so much mental energy trying to think of how he was going to tell Cora about it that he hardly paid her any attention at all outside the bedroom. He wanted to tell her about their future adrift in the stars together. He wanted to tell someone, but it was just so goddamn heavy.

And at any rate, Cora didn’t seem to mind how distant he had become. After all, she still willingly had sex with him, and who was he to say no to that? The night after Nikola’s field trip, he found her on what looked like the end of a panic spiral, but she kept insisting she was fine. He knew it wasn’t true, but she was so damn insistent, and after a fashion, it felt patronizing to pry, to say, No, you are very clearly not fine. Instead, he went the route of physical comfort, which, as it always did, led to him inside her within minutes. If nothing else, fucking her seemed to help abate the whole panic spiral thing.

Deep down, Kaveh knew he was deluding himself that this was a healthy dynamic. He knew that indulging her desire to hide from the world, that not getting her any professional treatment, that supporting her with no endgame in mind was not helping. He knew that fucking her every night was not the same as loving her. He knew that she was not “fine,” no matter how often she insisted she was. But the burden Nikola had placed on him was so heavy, he didn’t really want to pick up more of hers. So he deluded himself that, although this situation was not the most ideal, it was much better than any other options she had available to her. He maintained this delusion all the way up to the night he found her balled up in the corner of his shower, covered in her own blood.

It was the thumping that woke him up. He heard it again, thunk, thunk, and was struck with a lightning bolt of adrenaline. He reached for her, but she wasn’t there. Thunk, thunk. Then a muted cry coming from the bathroom. He tore out of bed and tried to open the bathroom door, but found it locked. Wasting no time, he kicked it in, wood splintering all over the floor, and he rushed inside. He couldn’t see her through the water condensation of the glass pane. He tore the shower door open and looked down at the mess on the floor.