“I feel as if I have always known you,” he said, “always been close to you, always loved you. Nothing would give me greater joy than to have you stay here, living with me, healing with me, being with me. I believe that together you and I could change the face of human suffering. But I know that you are his handmaid, and I know you have a dream. I want nothing more for you than that you fulfil that dream, and find your own perfect joy. I want you to live the life God dreamed for you – to walk the highest road, do the work you were born to do, and be wholly the person you were born to be. Your fulfilment, your satisfaction, and your happiness mean far more to me than anything I could have for myself. But I love you, Elsha, with a love as powerful almost as my love for God. This love frightens me, it causes me fear and ecstasy and pain and a thousand other things I never knew I could feel. It terrifies me, leaves me wounded and open and vulnerable. But I want you to know it exists. And I want you to know that if there ever comes a day in your life when you want my love, then it is here. I will be here. Always. That is all I want you to know.”

He kissed me, gave me a smile, and turned to go.

“Teraj,” I said, but he turned back and shook his head.

“Say nothing,” he said.

“I have to!” I was laughing, crying, overwhelmed. “Teraj, you can’t tell me all that, and then go.”

“Why not?”

“Because a love like yours demands an answer.”

He came back to me, slowly. “It demands nothing, Elsha. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. If I asked you to stay, you’d feel torn between me and the Firelord, between me and your dreams. And a torn person cannot be a whole person.” He took my face in his hands, and kissed me again. “If I have you at all, Elsha, it will be in the right time, when you have no other dreams calling you. There may not even be such a time; but if there is, you and I will both know it.”

He smiled, and added roguishly, “Besides, I’m a fraud and a hypocrite. There’s a distinct possibility that you don’t even like me.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he laughed softly and kissed me, then went out.

15 My Home, My Almost-Love

15

My Home, My Almost-Love