Page 65 of Writing Mr. Right

I trail off as understanding dawns on Aashiq’s face. His expression turns gentle as he whispers, “You can say it to yourself.” He reaches over and plays with a strand of my hair over his finger. “I love my voice, and I didn’t even have one until a couple of months ago.”

I snort but quickly swallow it back to keep from making too much noise. Aashiq chuckles and takes my hand again. “I’m kind of obsessed with holding your hand,” he admits. He runs his thumb along my skin, which shoots tingles up my arm. “I used to think about doing it so much but always felt nervous.”

“You can always hold my hand,” I tell him. I squeeze his fingers. “I like holding yours, too.”

Aashiq presses a kiss to my palm. Then, he leans forward, touching his forehead to mine. He lowers his lids so he’s not staring directly into my eyes. “Why did we waste so much time not doing the things we want?”

My eyelashes grow wet, and I blink rapidly to keep my tears from falling. “I think because we hoped this was going to be permanent,” I reply, my voice tight. “That this wasn’t going to end. I guess it’s another part of being human. Thinking everything lasts forever.”

I don’t want this to end. Me and him, holding hands, standing in the library where my imagination developed. This is where he first began to show me I was an artist, and where I turned to him and decided I could make my own stories. Whowould have guessed, all those years ago as I wandered the aisles, that I’d end up here.

Sadness creeps into the moment, but I don’t want it to stay that way. I pull back from Aashiq but fix a smile onto my face to assure him everything is okay. “We still have some time left in this day,” I tell him. “Let’s make use of it. Do you want to go anywhere else?”

Aashiq hums, and a mischievous smirk curls his mouth. “I have an idea, but you might hate me for it.”

I frown. “I could never hate you.”

“Then I know where I want to go.”

32

Aashiq’s giddy expression as we emerge from the subway tunnels fills his whole face. “I’m so glad you agreed to this, Ziya.”

I keep a tight smile on my face, even though my skin crawls like spiders cover my whole body. “I told you I wasn’t going to deny you anything,” I remind him.

We step into the streets, and immediately I see the shift in Aashiq’s face. His eyes widen as the front of his body practically squishes against the back of a woman who seems like she’s frozen in place, which she basically is, given that sprawled out in front of us is a gigantic crowd filled with people who have been here since 10 a.m. He sucks his cheeks in and turns to me, a quizzical flash in his eyes. “I didn’t realize it’d be so crowded.”

“You wanted to come to Times Square on New Year’s Eve.” I hold my hands out to the sides—well, the best I can when everyone is packed together like sardines. “You should’ve expected it to be busy.”

As a born and bred New Yorker, I do absolutely everything in my power to steer clear of Times Square. It’s a commercialized tourist traffic wasteland—and that’s on a good day. Tonight is New Year’s Eve, so people come out in masses to watchthe ball drop, well before midnight. It’s only 7 p.m. now, but darkness already envelops the sky, setting the stage for the fireworks that will surely come five hours from now.

But even though I’d rather claw my own eyes out than be anywhere near Manhattan during Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve celebrations, when Aashiq told me the one place he wanted to go was Times Square, I couldn’t deny him. The entire time he’s been here, we’ve done nothing touristy, and he gets so much energy from being around other people. So, even though I want to engage in eye gouging, I dutifully brought him here, to my personal nightmare.

A man shoves my shoulder as he hurries down the street. I stumble backward, and Aashiq has just enough time to grab my arms and pull me upright again.

He glares in the direction the man went. “Hey! Watch where you’re going!”

“It’s fine,” I say, brushing my arm where he collided with me. “We’re going to be dealing with this all evening.”

I stay close to Aashiq, but because of the large throng of people, we fall out of step with each other every now and then. After the third person suddenly walks through the space between us, Aashiq slips his hand into mine. His fingers hold tight, and my face warms as he simply stares back at me. He pulls me forward, and I stay firmly by his side.

“Is there anything specific you wanted to see?” I ask.

“Not really,” he confesses. “I just wanted to see this place. Everyone at the office complains about how terrible it is, but I thought it couldn’t be that bad.”

I snort. “Yeah, no self-respecting New Yorker comes here on purpose.” I pause, tilting my head to the side. “Unless they’ve got family in town. And even then, we’ll drag our feet and try everything in our power to stay away.”

“I don’t know.” Aashiq tries to lift a shoulder, but an older woman pushes into him as she walks past. He wavers in hisstep, but he quickly rights himself and gives me a pleasant grin anyway. “I think it’s kind of magical.”

“You think everything is magical.”

“True,” he allows. “But this really is! The flashing lights on the screens against the darkness of the sky, the gray clouds that promise one final snowfall before the New Year, the energy buzzing around us.”

“Yeah, that’s the glow of advertisements and the sweat of rude tourists.”

At his unimpressed stare, I make a gesture for him to continue. He brightens as he goes on. “Fine, then try thinking of it this way,” he says. He dips his chin at the crowd. “All these people could be celebrating the end of the year anywhere else, but they chose to come here.”

“Huh,” I say. I scan the crowd again, this time with his perspective. It is pretty nice to have a space where everyone can come together. Isolation is tough. If the past couple of months have taught me anything, it’s that it’s better to surround yourself with people than be alone.

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