All Chapters of 43 MINUTES : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Saturday morning I woke up to a text from Eli.Good morning. What are you doing today?I smiled at my phone. My hair was messy and my eyes were still blurry from sleep and I had a crease on my cheek from the pillow. But I smiled so wide my face hurt.Nothing important, I wrote back. Maybe reading. Maybe cleaning. You?Thinking about you. Which is becoming a full time job.You should ask for a raise.I would settle for seeing you. Are you free this afternoon?I was free. I was always free now. I had stopped making plans. Stopped scheduling my days down to the minute. Something had shifted in me since the bus stop. I was still Nubia, still the focused student, still the girl with the five year plan. But I was also someone else now. Someone who left space in her calendar for a man with tired eyes and a sketchbook.I am free, I wrote.Come to my apartment. I want to cook for you.You cook?Poorly. But I try. Come at two?I agreed. Then I called Amina."He is cooking for me," I said."Cook

I went home that Saturday night with his touch still on my skin. The snow fell around me as I walked, light flakes that melted on my cheeks. I felt like I was floating. Like my body was not my own anymore but something new. Something awakened.He had touched me and I had shattered. He had said my name while I came undone. I had never known it could feel like that. I had never known my body could do that.And I had not touched him back. Not all the way. He had said there was time. He had said next time.Next time. The words became a drumbeat in my head. I wanted next time to be now. I wanted to go back to his apartment and finish what we started. But he was right. There was time. We had so much time.Sunday I could not concentrate on anything. I tried to read for my Wednesday seminar. The words swam on the page. I tried to clean my apartment. I ended up standing in the middle of the living room, staring at nothing, thinking about his face when I slid my hand under his waistband. The so

He kissed me.Soft at first. Then deeper. His hands were on my face, then my neck, then my shoulders. I could feel the slight tremble in his fingers. He was nervous too. That made me feel braver.We stood beside my bed. The candles were not lit yet. The playlist was not playing. None of my careful preparations mattered now. The only thing that mattered was him. His mouth on mine. His body warm against me through our clothes.I pulled back first. Looked at his face. His eyes were dark in the dim light from the window. The sun was setting outside, painting the room in shades of gold and pink."I want to light the candles," I said."Okay."I lit the candles one by one. My hands were shaking. The matches kept going out. He did not rush me. He just stood there, watching, waiting.When the candles were all lit, the room glowed soft and warm. I turned on the playlist. Quiet music filled the space. Something with a pia

The weeks that followed were the happiest of my life.We fell into a rhythm. I stayed at his apartment some nights. He stayed at mine other nights. We cooked dinner together. We watched movies. We studied side by side at the library, our feet touching under the table. We made love in my bed, in his bed, on his couch, once in the back seat of his car when we drove out to the lake and the stars were so bright we could not bring ourselves to go home.My body learned him. The shape of his shoulders. The taste of his skin. The sounds he made when he was close. I learned how to touch him, how to move with him, how to read his breathing and know what he wanted before he asked.He learned me too. He learned that I liked slow kisses on my neck. That I liked his hands in my hair. That I liked when he talked to me while we made love, low words in my ear, telling me I was beautiful, telling me I was loved, telling me I was safe.We were insatiable.

The end of the semester came like a storm. Final papers. Final exams. Late nights at the library where Eli and I sat across from each other, our books spread out, our feet touching under the table. We kept each other accountable. He worked on his architecture portfolio. I wrote my final paper on oral histories of Black women in the Reconstruction South. We took breaks for coffee and kisses and sometimes more, sneaking into the library's private study rooms like teenagers.I submitted my last paper on a Friday afternoon. When I hit send, I felt something lift off my shoulders. I had done it. My grades were not perfect. I got a B in one class and a B plus in another. But I had passed. My scholarship was safe for another semester.Professor Harding wrote me a note on my final paper. Excellent work. You found your focus again. Do not lose it.I called my grandmother that night."Baby," she said, her voice crackling through the phone. "I have