Dating : Aisha

Him, 2019

He is genuinely trying to be an active part of this new relationship.

She is nice, so nice, and not nearly as complicated as Aisha had been. In fact, Aisha herself had once predicted that he would be happiest with a simpler life partner.

If only she and he seemed as real as he and Aisha. In the aftermath of their bond, everything had a layer of artificiality.

Nights were the hardest. One would imagine that sleep would be easier without the constant tossing and turning of another person in the bed. And the nightmares. Oh god, her need to narrate them to him right when she’d awoken.

Now, he finds himself awake at odd hours, reaching to calm a form that is no longer there.

No more fights. No more weekend cheese runs. No more figuring out what stupid thing he’d said now. No more Aisha wrapping her arms around his back and apologizing for being a little too theatrical earlier.

Aisha. Her name still litters his mind. Even a year hasn’t been enough to eliminate persistent memories. He hasn’t seen her, hasn’t heard from her, hasn’t reached out.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing,” he tells himself.

“What do you want to do after this?” she asks him. Her voice snaps him back to the present.

They are standing in a new pastry shop with a huge selection of croissants.

Aisha would have loved this place. Croissants were the only pastry she ever gave a damn about.

“Try. You have to give this a shot,” he self-chastises.

“Hmm. I’m not sure. We could hang out by the pier,” he responds. Public areas mean less expectation of intimacy.

That’s when he sees her. She seems to be purposefully concentrating on the ground.

“Aisha?’ he hears his voice ask.

They lock eyes.

“Hi,” she says, and he forgets all of his resolve.