Page 59 of Diamond

He points to the bottom of the blade. "This is when you are ready. You are still too young."

Hearing him say this again feels insulting—like he is infantilizing me—but I try to figure out where we are miscommunicating.

Because that's the only explanation once I push aside my pride. He has never lied to me.

I shake my head vigorously and throw the blade of grass away. "I am not living my entire life being aroused like this and unable to even touch you, Kuret."

He lets out a breath. "I want to hold you tightly against me and make you happy for as long as I possibly can, Nasrin. You do not know the torture it has been watching your beauty and not being able to say the things that I really think and—"

I don't let him finish. "Then why don't you say them? Why do you continue to pretend like you don't feel all the tension between us?"

I raise my hands up to my cheeks as I talk, exasperated, and also embarrassed that I have been so pushy with him.

My family would be appalled to see me acting so shameless.

Can't he see we can't go on ignoring this?

"Because you are far too young for a donor, Nasrin! You will die after it, and I couldn't live with it. I will live as far away from you as possible if it means that you get to you live your life and be happy."

I take a deep breath. "You have spoken about donors before, but I don't know what they are. Can you at least tell me?"

There is still so much I don't know about him, but I genuinely don't care about all that; I just want to know why he is torturing both of us this way.

He swallows thickly and I watch his throat bob up and down. Why am I finding such weird things about him attractive? Is this how these things work? I wouldn't know. I have never been around men outside my family I felt anything but anger and disgust around.

I have never had any crushes, and I told my family I would never marry and become one of the greatest teachers our country had ever seen.

Babawould joke about how it saved him the stress of having to kill any man who looked my way.Mamanwas much less happy about it, scoldingbabafor encouraging my silly words and telling us that she wants grandchildren from me.

The memory of them saddens me again, but Kuret speaks and I divert all my attention back to him.

"There is one time in a woman's life when she sees a man. The donor is the man who she sees."

I frown. "I am seeing you right now, am I not? And you can see me, so what do you mean?"

The patterns on his cheeks start pulsing, which means he must be embarrassed, and his eyes meet mine for a split second before he looks away nervously.

This seems hard for him to talk about, I realize, but it is a conversation that must be had.

One of his hands goes to rub against his shoulder and I watch as the same green patterns dance over the skin of his exposed arms."That is not what I mean. They touch each other," he places emphasis on the wordtouch, like I am supposed to understand what he means.

"You are going to have to give me more information than that, Kuret."

My hands are folded over my chest and my foot is tapping impatiently on the ground.

Kuret sighs again and presses his hands over his eyes. "It is the time when she wants his seed."

The words come out in a low grumble that I almost don't hear, but I piece together the words after a moment and it dawns on me that he is talking about sex.

I cannot blame him for having such a difficult time talking about sex like this, since my mind is trying to shut this conversation down, too.

But why would they wait their whole lives?

Sex education back home is nonexistent, and the best explanations of sex most women are given happen days before their wedding night, when the older women tell them all the ways to please their husbands. It is either that or they have conversations with their friends who were "defiled" before their wedding nights.

I step forward, reaching up to I place a hand on Kuret's face and he leans into it, his eyes finally meeting mine. "Kuret, at the endof my life, my body will have no use for the seed of any man. I will be too old then."

He looks down at me, his face a mask of confusion, but I don't care to clear it up. I just want him.

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