This Way Out

by Tufayel Ahmed

He gave me the breathing room to re-enter society at my own pace, book in hand like a security blanket.

He was a chef, he said. And I was starving.

He radiates body heat no matter the season; in winter, he is my personal radiator, keeping me warm through the night. In summer, though, he becomes a furnace, threatening to turn me to cinder by morning light. And yet I can’t sleep without him. If I am to burn, so be it.

I don’t know your family but if they’re anything like you, Amar, I feel like they couldn’t possibly be so blindly hateful just because you love a man. I don’t believe a family that has you in it, the man I love, could be like that.’

Brits have colonised so many different parts of the world over the centuries, and this is the best that white people can do?

He used to read so rapaciously . . . almost tearing through the pages. I sometimes felt the urge to just take his hands in mine and show him how to turn the pages delicately. You too. A book is a beautiful object. Each page should be treated with love and care.’

Love is companionship, feeling content and safe in the arms of another person. It is the mundane moments when you know the other person is there but you don’t need to speak – their presence is enough, the meals shared, the walks taken, not just sex.

Opening up a book unlocks the imagination, it transports you to a different world, it inspires, it teaches you about people and cultures you might not otherwise know about.