As their eyes locked, Naush hoped he had said something different. Something like: “Let’s get our stories aligned.

I want us to have a history comprised of train tickets purchased out of good bad decisions, condom packages tossed passionately over but never in the bin, and unfinished rolls of Kodak films neither had the patience to flush out.

I want us to journey through Yvoire on a Sunday evening because we wake up too late for les caves ouvertes at Lavaux but need a getaway. I want us to pay for that bottle of Bordeaux rosé just fifteen minutes before the Sun dips in le lac Leman and dyes our backdrop lavender. I want us to breeze into a boutique store too out of depth for our pockets but still within the shot of our iPhone cameras. I want us to drift down le Rhône with 2.3-franc beers in our hands on the two-pax flamingo floaties knowing damn too well we would not enjoy the ride back home, and the plastic pink bird would be collecting dust soon enough on our shelf. But most of all, I want our stories aligned.

I want our dazzling white shoes to be scratched by the same curb outside a techno club we both detest. I want our brand-new shirts to be smudged with the same sauce that our favorite restaurant makes. I want our extremities to be dotted with bites from the same cluster of mosquitoes on a stroll 30 minutes into nature. I want our skin to be darkened under the same brutal UV rays filtered through the leaves during an unintentional fiesta in le jardin botanique. But most of all, I want our stories aligned.

I want our stories aligned, so we would be each other’s alibi; the alibi from life, and the lullaby at night. At night we’d come alive, and at dawn, we’d make love under the light. So what does our story hold? I hope you’d be in sight; given all that there’s been, and all that we’ve done; the hikes that we’ve concurred, the borders we’ve crossed; would you still have stuttered, if I draw the cross? When history is made, would you come across?

So, could we please get our stories aligned?”