Delayed Connections
"Their flight to Nairobi is delayed twelve hours. She's visiting family. He's heading to a wedding. They share a charging station, then dinner, then a hotel room. Somewhere over the Atlantic, they realize they don't want to land alone."
"Is this outlet taken?"
He looks up from his phone. Somali—I can tell immediately. Handsome in a tired, rumpled way.
"Help yourself." He shifts to make room. "Long delay?"
"Twelve hours apparently." I plug in my dying phone. "You?"
"Same flight." He sighs. "My cousin's wedding. I was supposed to arrive yesterday."
"Family in Nairobi?"
"Family everywhere." He smiles. "What about you?"
"My grandmother. She's ninety-three. Says this might be her last year."
"She's said that for a decade, hasn't she?"
I laugh despite myself. "How did you know?"
"They all say that."
We talk for hours.
About family, about obligations, about the weight of being diaspora—always torn between two worlds.
"I'm Yusuf, by the way," he says over airport coffee.
"Hawa."
"Nice to meet you, Hawa." He raises his cup. "To delayed flights and unexpected company."
Dinner happens somehow.
Then drinks. Then walking the terminal until we've memorized every shop.
"This is the strangest first date I've ever had," he says.
"Is this a date?"
"I've been trying to figure that out for six hours." He stops walking. "I think it is. I hope it is."
The hotel vouchers come at midnight.
One room each. Standard procedure for overnight delays.
"Want to get a drink?" he asks. "At the hotel bar?"
"Sure."
The bar closes at 2 AM.
We're still talking. Still not ready to end this.
"I should go to bed," I say.
"You should."
Neither of us moves.
"Come upstairs," I hear myself say. "For tea. Just tea."
It's not just tea.
We barely make it through the door.
Twelve hours of building tension finally releasing. His mouth on mine. My hands in his hair. The hotel room becoming something neither of us planned.
"Hawa—"
"Don't talk." I pull him toward the bed. "We have six more hours before boarding."
He makes love like he talks—attentively, warmly, making sure I'm heard.
"You're incredible—"
"This is insane—"
"This is perfect." He pushes deeper. "This is exactly what I needed."
Me too.
We board together.
Sit next to each other—his seat, not mine, but the flight attendant doesn't notice.
"What happens when we land?" I ask somewhere over Egypt.
"We go to our separate families."
"And then?"
"Then I find you." He takes my hand. "If you want to be found."
"I want to be found."
He finds me.
In Nairobi. In London. In every city we pass through.
"Marry me," he says a year later, at the same airport where we met.
"During a delay?"
"No delays this time." He pulls out a ring. "Straight through to forever."
I say yes.
And our connection is never delayed again.