She was the kind of person who, if asked for a favor, would reply, “anything” and mean it. I have never met anyone who could truly be called good. Who—if you believe in such things—makes you imagine that this is what God strove for when he created man. That everyone else it just an attempt, and this, this girl with dark skin and darker eyes, was the final product: perfection. That’s what she made me think. Perfect is a word that has been proven false, a dream that escapes us even in sleep, but when I was with Amira the word hovered constantly just outside my consciousness.

By it’s own nature, love must bring pain. Love is the wish for forever, and just as perfection belays existence, forever will always elude our grasp.

It was this thought of inevitability, this knowledge that all things must end, that held me back. That made me look into her honest face and swallow the words that threatened to burst forth without my consent: the I love yous and the be mines and the always and forevers She did not say the words either, but hers was a different fear, an uncertainty of her own desirability. I could tell by the way she avoided any conversation about looks, or the way she flipped through magazines, commenting casually on the beauty of these women, with their light skin and large round curls.

I know she loved me. Maybe loved me less, or more, or maybe just as much; it doesn’t matter either way. It wasn’t fear of rejection. It was the fear that eventually her love would fade, or—even worse—mine would. That I would wake up one morning an not want to immediately go to Amira, not want to see her smile or hear he laugh. That I wouldn’t want to lay with her and watch legal dramas, our bodies barely fitting on the narrow couch. The thought that this thing that is such a part of me now will one day be lost. It was unbearable, and in some away I imagined that if I never allowed anything to start, it would never have the chance to end.