Finally Right

Imon barely waited a breath before responding. “If you will allow it, I would like to kiss you, Yani Kazemi.”

Yani laughed, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes for some reason she didn’t quite understand. “I want to kiss you too, Imon.”

She threw herself forward, into Imon. She didn’t care that those hydraulic fingers were tangling in her hair, or that smooth white metal wasn’t the most pleasant texture to kiss. All that mattered was the person inside. That it was her person inside, her god who she loved. Who loved her so much that she changed the world for her, and broke every rule. They were together now, and Yani finally understood. She didn’t have to be afraid, because no matter what happened with anyone else in her life, they couldn’t tear the two of them apart. Yani and Imon would never have to be afraid again.

*

All it took was one call to June to hear “Of course you can stay with me!”

Yani felt a wave of relief. “Thank you, June. I promise I won’t stay for too long- I don’t want to bother your family, or anything. But it would just be a huge relief.”

“You would never be a bother! But, you know…” Yani could hear a conspiratorial smile in June’s voice, even through the phone. “I’ve been thinking about moving out for a while, and Kohl and I have been looking at apartments if we want to make it official. This city is so expensive, though!”

June continued. “So if you think you could stand living with a silly ex-Godsinger, who gave it all up for some stinky boy, I think you would be a wonderful roommate.”

Yani laughed, in a way that also brought tears. She didn’t understand why she kept doing that. “Yeah, I think I could.”

*

Her family was a little bit more complicated. The first thing she did was message Naira.

I love you so much, but I can’t live in that house anymore. I’ve found something that makes me truly happy, but I don’t want to leave you alone. Can you promise that if I do leave, we’ll see each other again? Will you be okay by yourself with them? If you won’t, I can figure something else out.

To her shock, Naira called her. “You really want this?”

“I do. I think it’s all I’ve ever really wanted.”

“Then do it.”

“But you’ll be okay without me?”

“I will… be good.” Naira’s words were slow and deliberate, chosen with a weight to them. Yani knew she would be okay, but they meant something more than that. They would both be good. Not according to their parents, but to themselves.

*

Before she broke the news to her parents, she messaged Blain one last time. She figured she owed him a heads up. He may not have understood her, but he was facing his own troubles. Unfortunately for both of them, Yani wasn’t the right person to help. She wouldn’t be there, but she hoped he would find someone else who could.

I’m telling my parents today that I won’t be going through with our engagement.

There’s not anything I can do to change your mind, is there?

There isn’t. I’m free now. But I want you to know that I want that for you too. There is a way for us all to be free, even if it seems hard. The more people who stepped in around me, the more I’m starting to understand that.

In that case, I wish you the best of luck. We’ll both need it after this.

*

Blain wasn’t wrong. Yani stood in front of her door, waiting to knock. She marveled at the difference a change in perspective could bring. This didn’t feel like her own home anymore. Just somewhere she was ready to say goodbye to.

Imon had offered to go with her, but Yani turned her down. Outside of the commotion she was sure Imon’s body would cause in public, this was something Yani felt she needed to do alone. She was severing the ties to her past, so that Imon could be her future.

Her mother was the first to answer the door, but she didn’t even let Yani speak before saying “I’ll get your father.”

Once they were both there, Yani explained. Not everything- they didn’t need to know Blain’s or Imon’s secrets. Those were theirs to keep. But she explained that Yani’s life was her own, not something she owed to her parents. She didn’t ask to be born, and she was not their property to be guilted and prodded and traded away.

Her father was furious, of course. He blustered up a storm. He told her all the ways she was throwing away her life. What would she do? She couldn’t be a Godsinger forever, and once she fell in love with some boy and got kicked out, she’d better not come crawling back to him. That part almost made her laugh. He asked her what he was supposed to tell Madame Atori, and was incensed when she dared to suggest “the truth” as an option.

Her mother didn’t speak, but there was something in her eyes that Yani couldn’t quite place. Later, she wondered if it might have been somewhere between envy and pride. She had never stopped to consider how similar she and her mother might have been before this. But she hoped that there was some small part of her mother who was still fighting. Who was proud of her daughter for stepping away from it all.

*

Everything had changed, and it was terrifying, but it was right. Yani had given up so much to have the things she wanted, and it had been worth it. She would live her life a hundred times over if it meant that at the end she would still be here with Imon, living in a little place with her best friend, and that best friend’s boyfriend of one week(!), and a little cat they found on the street, and the great love of her life. As she walked to the shrine each day, she knew that everything was finally right.