Two weeks later, Willow slipped her hand through Ibrahim’s, guiding him through the graveyard. They wore casual clothes: him in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt (which looked just as good on him as his usual tailored suits), and her in a light summer dress. Houston heat beat down on their shoulders, just a bit less intense than the heat in Rebai.

“I heard from my mother this morning,” Ibrahim said as they walked softly between the rows of graves, Willow guiding him. “She said that they’ll have three empty chairs at the wedding. One for my father, one for my brother. And, of course, one for Paul.”

Willow squeezed his hand, feeling tears glistening in her eyes.

“I used to play house with Paul. I’d pretend to marry one doll or another, and he’d be waiting in the wings, telling me not to get cold feet. But, of course, our favorite part of those silly ceremonies was the end: when I would play whatever cassette I was obsessed with at the time and we would dance and dance. And then, of course, we’d tell our mother that we needed cake. We’d smash it into each other’s faces, cackling. I always expected that he would be at my actual wedding…”

“In a way, he will be,” Ibrahim said, squeezing her hand back.

They arrived at the grave moments later, staring down at the engraving, the words surrounded by drawings of birds and animals.

“He was great at math, but he could also draw whatever he looked at,” Willow explained, her voice soft. “I imagined him as an engineer, maybe, or an architect. He could have done anything.”

“It’s so frustrating, thinking of what might have been,” Ibrahim said, pressing his hand to the small of her back.

He rubbed at it, as if he knew that her muscles were filled with tension. Already, only two weeks into their relationship, they were falling into each other’s cues. They were understanding the nuances of one another’s bodies.

Willow placed a bouquet of flowers at the center of the grave, rubbing two fingers around a soft, dark purple petal. She had hunted around the flower shop for flowers that resembled the roses back at the Rebai palace, but had come up dry. She’d resolved to one day have some of them shipped over to Houston, if only to share them with her parents, with Summer, and with Paul.

After several moments of silence, Ibrahim’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Falling from her reverie, Willow glanced at him.

“You can check it,” she said, nodding.

Ibrahim pulled his phone out, the screen displaying a notification from an online newspaper.

“Ah. They’ve written about that post I wrote…the one about Jayne’s syndrome” he said, his eyes widening.

“What have they said?” Willow asked, surprised.

Ibrahim passed her the phone, gesturing. “They said that from that post alone, we’ve raised over ten million dollars for research. In only two weeks!”

Willow’s eyes widened as she skimmed through the article.

“It says that this could save thousands of lives,” she murmured, hardly able to comprehend the news. “Ibrahim, this is incredible!”

She jumped into Ibrahim’s arms. He lifted her, whirling her in a circle in the graveyard. It was a moment of pure joy, with Willow knowing that Paul could feel this sunshine on his face, that he could feel what happiness this brought her.

When he set her back on the grass, she brought herself to her knees in front of the gravestone and traced Paul’s name. Tears rushed down her face as she whispered to him, “It’s all in memory of you, little brother.”

Willow and Ibrahim began their walk back from the gravestone as the sun dipped lower in the sky, revealing the lateness of the afternoon. Willow’s body continued to buzz with excitement. They’d only been back from Rebai for three days, and she hadn’t yet seen Summer to explain all that had happened.

As they approached Ibrahim’s sports car, she was aware that they would soon have to part for several hours. Ibrahim had a business meeting downtown.

Willow’s chin puckered with emotion. Laughing at herself, she said, “I can’t believe how attached I am to you. I don’t want to spend a single second away from you.”

“I know what you mean,” Ibrahim replied, grinning. He wrapped his firm arms around her, guiding her into his embrace. They held the hug for a long moment, a small forever.

“You’ll see me after?” she asked.

“I have to meet this famous Summer. She’s the one who brought us together, after all,” Ibrahim said, giving Willow that heart-stopping grin.

Willow watched as Ibrahim hopped into the driver’s seat of his sports car, zooming down the paved road and toward downtown. Willow was only a quarter-mile from her and Summer’s favorite taco truck. With a simple text, she knew she could lure Summer from her house.

“Tacos?” she wrote with fast thumbs.

“You’re back!?” Summer replied, mere seconds later. It was as if she’d been waiting, hovering over her cellphone. “You have been killing me with your silence, girl!”

Willow chuckled to herself and shook her head. Time had moved so quickly for her. And now, she had to tell her story: the strangest one she’d ever known.