Chapter 68 2018
“I think ten more,” Tiny said.
I pulled ten more potatoes from the canvas bag and absently started to peel them, my thoughts a million miles away, on a boy, who was possibly on a boat, possibly in a kitchen, and possibly also peeling potatoes.
His gold-and-green plaid flannel jacket was in my room draped over the chair of my desk.
I looked at it often and sometimes wore it despite the oven-hot heat Somalia had experienced over the three months I’d been home.
Dylan had left it in the hotel so I wouldn’t be cold, and I’d made far more of the kindness than it probably deserved.
The morning after the most wondrous night of my life, I woke to find him dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. On the desk were three empty mini bottles of vodka.
“Morning,” I said as I stretched my arms over my head.
“Morning,” he said, looking back at me.
The night had been extraordinary and strange. He was well experienced, and I was not.
“You’ve never?” he said when he realized it.
A blush rose in my cheeks. After all, I was twenty.
“Are you sure?” he asked, looking down at me.
We were naked, and the room was overly hot, so sweat slicked our skin. His long gold hair draped down. I smiled and nodded almost eagerly, and he laughed, which was really quite wonderful, since I was nervous and he was so unsure.
I felt a brief flash of pain that ended quickly, and the rest was weirdly unremarkable.
This thing I’d made so huge in my brain and which I’d craved and dreamed about for so long lasted only a few short minutes and barely left an impression.
It was the before and after that were astounding and wondrous and that stayed with me.
The way he kissed me and how we laughed.
The surprise of exploring each other’s bodies.
And how he looked after, at peace in a way I hadn’t thought possible, his fingers painting idle circles on my shoulder, his eyes closed, a thin, wistful smile on his face.
He fell asleep, and I watched him for a long time. He had a tattoo over his heart, his mother’s name and the date of her death encircled in ivy vines.
Tattoos have always fascinated me, the idea of people purposely marking their bodies with ink and how it’s not considered abhorrent in the least, while a nevus or other birth defect is spurned and reviled.
I set my hand over the tattoo to feel the pulse beneath his skin.
Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump. I drifted away to the beat, wondering if the night was only a dream, the two of us cocooned in a tiny hotel room, cloistered from the world, and if it was a dream, if I might go on dreaming forever.
But then I woke, and there he was, sitting on the edge of the bed. I made a move toward him, but he tensed, so I stopped and moved back to my side of the mattress.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, his eyes sliding shamefully away.
“Oh. Okay.” I hated the way my voice quaked.
He took a visible breath and pushed to his feet, then, without a glance back, walked out the door.
On the chair was his flannel jacket.
“Dhoola?” Tiny snapped, and I realized I’d stopped peeling.
I focused intently on the potato in my hand and did my best not to think about the post I’d seen on Instagram that morning: a photo of him and Heddy laughing somewhere lush and green.
They were sitting on a slope of grass beside each other.
Her long tan legs were stretched out in front of her, her ankles crossed.
He wore jeans, his knees bent and his hands resting on them.
Heddy had followed me on social media several years before, and I had followed her back, not thinking anything of it. At the end of our time at Gaines, though not exactly friends, she was decent to me.
I knew the post shouldn’t upset me so much. After all, I was the one who’d told Dylan that our time in Pyeongchang was only for that moment. But in my heart, even as I’d said it, I’d hoped it would lead to something more.
When I first got back to Somalia, I was so busy with the post-Olympics hoopla over my performance it was easy to pretend I wasn’t obsessing over whether he’d text or call.
There was a parade held in my honor, and the president of Somalia awarded me with a plaque.
Nike started a new campaign starring me titled “I Am Enough,” and the internet blew up with people revealing their “beautiful bits”—quirks and eccentricities that made them uniquely them.
Sports Illustrated chose me as their athlete of 2018 and featured a close-up of my face on the cover.
It was a remarkable photo, my gray eyes so vivid you could see the flecks of silver in the slate, and my nevus so sharp each hair and crevice was clear.
Even during that busy time, I looked at my phone every five minutes, checking my emails and texts as if waiting for news of a kidney donor that could save my life.
After a month of nothing, I vowed to look only once a day, a promise that fell apart immediately.
I simply couldn’t get past the idea that he’d showed up the way he had, and that we’d spent that remarkable day and night together, and that he then dropped out of my life entirely.
I made up stories in my head to explain it.
I told myself he’d been arrested or had been in an accident, that he was working on a remote island with no internet or cell reception, that he’d become a monk and needed to give up electronics.
But then, that morning, there he was, laughing with Heddy—carefree, unmaimed, and his long hair unshorn for the monastic brotherhood.
“Give it here,” Tiny said irritably, holding out her hand for the half-peeled potato. “Go sit with Gato. Maybe that will help.”
I moved to the window, where Profe’s old cat was lounging.
I petted his long gray fur, feeling worn out in a way I hadn’t felt since Profe died.
My joints were achy, my head pounded, and I felt a little sick.
I understood what I was suffering from was garden-variety heartbreak, the same thing poets and novelists had been writing about for thousands of years.
But knowing my affliction didn’t help. Because I also knew, from those same poems and stories, I may never get over it and that my life, from that point on, could remain full of painful longing.
Boodo rushed in, and Gato and I both lifted our heads. In her hand was an iPad.
“They did it,” she said, breathlessly. “They’re hitched.”
She turned the screen toward Tiny, who nodded and said, “She’s a beautiful princess. I liked her when she was on Suits.”
“Officially, her title is duchess,” Boodo said, carrying the iPad over to me.
I looked at the photo of Meghan Markle in her wedding gown holding the hand of Prince Harry in his navy military uniform. They looked very happy and in love, and it hurt deeply to look at them.
I lifted Gato in my arms. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to lie down.”
Boodo set the back of her hand on my forehead. “You’re not warm.”
“Must be something I ate,” I said.
“That’s the third time this week you’ve complained of a stomachache.” Her head tilted, and her eyes went wide a moment before they slid from my face down my body to my waist.
I looked down with her, unsure what she was looking at, but only for a second. The elastic of my sweatpants was stretched taut.
“Oh,” she said at the exact moment I shook my head and said, “Oh no!”