He is leaning back on the chair, the back of his head and shoulders resting against the wall. His eyes are closed. Bad sign.

“So you didn’t go on your trip with your friends, then?” I ask.

He opens his eyes. They roam over my bare feet, my legs, my behind—they fix there for a while—my back, my hair, and finally meet my eyes in the window. He smiles as he discovers my trick. He rises sinuously and saunters next to me.

“No,” he says. “If you must know, I’ve spent the last two nights outside your apartment, arguing with myself. I almost caved and broke in yesterday morning but then I saw you with Mr. Solis.” He picks up a tomato and my knife, and starts slicing.

I almost melt at his words, but then I understand his game. He wants to talk about it so that he can tell me his arguments. Hideous thought. “Why do you insist on calling Javier Mr. Solis?” I ask, taking another knife from the cutlery block.

“Because that’s his name.” He moves on to the carrots. He chops them better than Emeril. He probably saw it on the telly once, fifteen years ago.

“Yes, but it’s so formal. He’s family. You know, like a brother,” I say, lest this is still bothering him.

He smiles and sets down his knife. “I know. But remember what Bob said. You have to distance yourself from Javier, at least until your green card is squared away.”

“Bob said to distance myself from Feign, not Javier. I can’t stay away from the Solises. We have salsa nights and I babysit on Antonio’s therapy nights. I live there almost as much as I live here!” My voice is rising in panic.

Aiden’s jaw flexes. He takes my knife, which is pointing at the innocent mushrooms, and sets it on the cutting board. He pinches my chin. “I don’t want anything to jeopardize your immigration status, Elisa. Nothing.” The last word hisses through his clenched teeth.

I cup his face, playing with his stubble. “And I won’t let it. I’ll steer clear of Feign but not the Solises. What if my visa doesn’t go through this time either?” My voice drops to a whisper.

He closes his eyes briefly, looking like he is about to start on a barrage of arguments against Javier, ICE or himself. I change the subject to something that always seems to put him in a good mood. “And anyway, if I distanced myself from Javier, what would happen to your painting then?”

“Now that I know it can risk your future, that painting can wait forever as far I’m concerned.” He picks up his knife and flies through the rest of the vegetables.

Maybe it’s his fast movements or hearing him relinquish the very thing that brought us together but the void flares in my chest again.

“But you were so keen on that painting,” I say, my voice faint. “You said that in there, I would always belong to you.” I pour the chicken stock in the pot because my eyes are burning with unshed tears. Hydrogen, 1.008—

He tips up my face, forcing me to look at him. “And I stand by that statement. That painting is the only place you should belong to me.” He stares at me as his words finally explain his fantasy. It’s not only the eternity he wants. It’s the distance.

Panicked, I search for ways to hold on to him a little longer. Am I always going to be racing against time with him? If not from ICE, from his past?

“The Solises are throwing me a graduation party next Sunday. Would you like to be my date?”

He leans against the counter and folds me in his arms with a sigh. That doesn’t sound good.

“Maria will make carnitas. No one can resist those,” I say, resting my head on his bare chest. His skin is warm, fragrant with sandalwood and us.

“Antonio will tell you all about how great America is and may even erect a monument in your honor if he hears you’re a Marine,” I babble because he says nothing. “And my little sisters will read your ear off with Percy Jackson. Come, it will be fun.”

I look up at him. As I list all the things that make my life here, I want him to come not just for me, but for him. So that he can do something fun and normal for a change. Leave his glass home and be part of the world he fought for.

His eyes are soft but the rest of his face is hard, as though forged in steel. He pushes me away, very gently. “No, Elisa.”

“Why not? We’ll be very careful. I’ll always have my arm around your waist. Benson can come too. I’ll make sure no one sneaks up on you, I promise.”

“No.”

“But you went to coffee with me, and the presentation, and work?”

“Yes, in limited situations I can control—not at a party with children.”

“But what about my graduation? There was a whole crowd there.”

“I stood across the lawn against a tree. Benson in tow.”

“But—”

“No ‘but’, no ‘if’, no ‘and’, Elisa. This is exactly why I’m ending this.”

The air stills. How fast the past can stun the future! With one blink, with one look, with one word, and we are no more than what we were at our worst. I try to breathe as our pasts collide. Because even though it’s his demons this time, with all my guards down, I’m still the girl in that hospital gown four years ago, sleepwalking to the morgue.

“Elisa, baby, look at me.” He twines his arms around my waist and walks us to the kitchen table, setting me down on his chair. He kneels before me and wraps his hands like handcuffs around my wrists.

“Elisa, don’t you understand? If I continue this, I’d be giving you your green card but I’d be taking away the life it can give you. All you’ve worked for these last four years, everything you’ve built with these little hands—” he kisses them and looks up at me, “—you’d lose. Your world and mine cannot coexist. And remember that I’m always more dangerous when you’re around.” His voice hardens on the last sentence.

Perhaps because of that, my brain latches on it and ignores the rest. My breath catches as an idea occurs to me. “But if I calm you, shouldn’t my effect numb the bad memories too?”

He shakes his head. “No. You calm me, yes, but you can’t wipe out mangled kids or my mother’s broken body or m—” He stops like he said one letter too many. The silence is deafening.

“But even traumatic memories can rewrite themselves, can’t they? The neural pathways just need new stimuli, new associations—”

He puts his hand over my mouth. “Over a long period of time, maybe, but mine never have.”

My heart starts pounding as I lead him exactly where I wanted. “So if we spend a lot of time together, then maybe I can help you?”

His forehead locks and his jaw clenches as he wises up to my plan. His nostrils flare. “No!” he says so sharply that I fall back in my chair.

He releases my wrists and stands. He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. It looks like he is counting in his head. At last, he takes a deep breath and looks at me. Instantly, his eyes lighten and now I understand why. They lighten in calmness.

“I’m very sorry,” he says, his voice softer. “I didn’t mean to startle you. But no, you can’t help me. Even if I were to allow you to spend time with me, which I won’t, you would never survive long enough, and even if you did, some memories I would never choose to numb.”

The air stops in my lungs as I finally understand. Not because he says I would never survive—apparently that doesn’t matter. But because he summons these horrors. He preserves them.

“Why not? If it would help you?”

He shakes his head, standing straighter, almost defiant. “Because I don’t want to.”

He stares beyond the window again, like he did when talking about his mum.

My thoughts are a stampede. Why would anyone want to hold on to such anguish? It’s a cruel punishment of the self. Then I remember the list of symptoms I just reviewed. Guilt. But what could he have possibly done to think he deserves this? How can I ever ask him without catapulting him to some horror that already holds him prisoner? A pain different than what I’ve felt before lacerates my insides. For my parents, I hurt because I’m mourning. But for him, I hurt because he is alive, yet buried.