When dawn had broken, and the city began to wake, Nadya and Salman went back to the hotel. They held hands, as they had done all night. But before it had been in hope – as though they were holding on to try and feel closer towards one another. Now it was in true closeness; in acknowledgment of how they both felt.
At the top of the elevator, she knew they would part. She would go right, to her suite-within-a-suite, and he would go left, to the master bedroom. She saw it in her mind’s eye as they rode, and the image brought with it a sharp pain of separation.
But when the elevator reached the top, this didn’t happen. They both went left.