Waking up feels like the total Christmas of my adult life. My present is within arm’s reach — Nooshin, a nearby warmth, naked and lying on her side, hair fanned across the pillows like a cloud of octopus ink. The covers puddle around her waist, revealing the bumpy march of vertebrae, the delicate ridges of her ribcage. A thin arm is extended toward the TV and holding the remote. She’s flipping through the wasteland of Mexican morning television. TV Azteca is giving airtime to a tonsured friar, Canal Once is showing an insipid kid’s sitcom with adult actors, and Telemundo is broadcasting American-style news about tortilla price-gouging and drug cartel shoot-outs. Her voice is a whisper repeating the Spanish she hears, working on her pronunciation.

The first thought that pops into my head — we’re out of condoms again.

Granted, I only bought a six-pack. I figured we could make it last until I visit the government clinic, where they hand out free condoms by the string. That might sound like the prophylactic equivalent of dumpster diving, but condoms are more expensive than tequila in Mexico. Especially when you go through them this fast. 12 hours later and there’s no foil packages left. Damn we’re horndogs.

The second thought that pops into my head — she’s on “her” side of the bed.

I’ve never lived with a girlfriend before, only had them pass intermittently through my bed, so I’m not used to thinking in terms of bedroom territoriality. The whole expanse is mine. Who cares if they sleep on this side or that side? I’m just sharing until they go back home to their own lives, that’s all.

But Nooshin wants to have a side of the bed. The right side, which she appropriated for her very own. She returns to it every time — after we untangle our sweaty limbs, after we lay down for a siesta, after we rent movies to watch on this so-called couch. Yesterday I deliberately tested her by sliding over to the right side while she was in the bathroom. When she returned her face was a quiet agony of dismay. “Hey. That’s my side,” she said softly. Hopefully.

Up to that point I assumed it was reflex. She spent five years sharing a bed with Saman, after all. She probably can’t conceive of beds without sides. But her flash of insecurity tore my heart out. Having a side means having a place — in my bed, in my life. She’s so afraid I’ll reject her, the same way her family and in-laws have rejected her.

The third thought that pops into my head — it’s easy to understand why she claimed the right side of the bed.

That way I glance over and only see her left side. Her “good” side as she calls it. The side without the crooked eye. Thing is, I wish I was facing her “bad” side. I could stare into her eyes forever, especially that perfect straying twin. I’m captivated by its telling independence. How it tends to be restful, barely drifting, when she’s relaxed — or conversely, how it jerks with increasing violence as she becomes tense, alarmed, frightened.

But how do I tell her that? Her life has been episodes of staring, teasing and cruelty — and bonus, now she’s in Mexico and finds herself the human incarnation of el ojo malo, the evil eye. She’s already defensive about her eye. Anything I say would just come out wrong. I don’t want her to think that she’s my favorite circus sideshow.

I roll onto an elbow. “Nooshin. I had the weirdest dream.”

“You finally awake again?” She goes supine amidst the sheets, smiling with shy happiness.

Uh-oh. All the blood sluggishly drifting to my brain suddenly reverses direction. The world is narrowing to a single vista of overwhelming desire — her bare and board-flat chest. I nuzzle into her lazily. “God I love your boobs.”

“Nick!” she half-giggles, half-shrieks. “I don’t even have boobs! I have…bumps.”

“God I love your bumps,” I say, kissing a fat chewy nipple. Then I stop, because she’s murmuring into my bald spot, trying to tell me something.

“How? How can you like my chest? I’m not even an AA cup. I’m nothing.”

I break away and stare at her angrily. “You’re you. That’s the sexiest thing in the world to me.”

Her dark eyes moisten. “I don’t get it.”

“I love your bumps, and your skinny little ass, and your eye, your crooked…eye.” My voice dies into regretful silence. I knew better. I fucking knew better.

Nooshin is already turning away in a flinch of pain. Pasting a smile onto her face. Hiding her sad disbelief — and all that bare skin, suddenly vanishing behind a handful of sheets. “So what about this dream?”

“Uh, I dreamed you were talking on the phone about me, except it was a language I’d never heard before, and…what?”

“That wasn’t a dream! That really happened. Nasrin called this morning, after…” She pauses, maybe remembering how we had each other for breakfast. “And we got in this fight, and you know how her English goes bad and she switches to Farsi, and then I always switch too, so that’s what happened.”

“Fight about what?” Beneath the covers I rest a palm on her hip. “Was she guilt-tripping you about the divorce again? Or about that bride-price thing that your family is supposed to repay?”

“The mahr? No, that wasn’t it.” She sags into her pillow. “I told her about us. In an email I sent last night.”

“You…what?” I withdraw my hand from her hip and use it to massage my scalp, which is suddenly bunching itself into a migraine. “Why the hell did you do that?”

“I had to tell someone. I was so happy.” Past tense. I swim through the sheets, wrapping Nooshin in my embrace. She twists miserably, trying to escape. “No! Nick, stop. Oh god…”

My erection withers into a bag of slush. “Are you okay?” I ask after a while.

“No I’m not okay. I’m cheating on my husband!” Hands rise to claw at her face. “I’m everything my family said I was. I’m daeyous, a faithless adulterer. That’s what Nasrin called me. Daeyous!” Her laugh is a desperate muffled sound. “I never thought I was the kind of girl who cheats on her husband.”

“Hey. Listen to me.” Both of her delicate wrists fit in my palm. I yank them away, revealing her guilt-stricken beauty. “You already divorced Saman. You divorced him when you pawned your wedding ring and took a bus back to San Diego.”

“But that’s not the way it works — ”

“Not legally. And maybe not where the families are concerned. But who the fuck cares about that? This is a decision you made for yourself. You finally left Saman for good. You left him so you could get divorced and begin a new life, right?”

A thoughtful quiet descends over us. Nooshin plays with her bangs, shifting them to cover her crooked eye. “Do you think I’m a good person?”

“Of course I think you’re a good person!” I grope for whatever comes next. “You’re the best person I know. And you’re, uh…” My voice trails off.

Nooshin married a stranger after she graduated from high school. She spent five years as a dutiful wife, contorting herself into a fucked-up traditionalistic ideal. When she finally found the courage to be more American than Iranian, the hostility was so overwhelming that she wound up with a broken nose and not much else. Now she lives in a foreign country where she barely speaks the language, and tries to make this cinderblock house a home, and risks her heart with the living embodiment of white and Christian and whatever the hell else I symbolize to her sister and parents. And Nooshin won’t pretend away her emotions anymore. In fact she advertises them. I’m happy now.

I don’t find that kind of bravery in many people. I’m not even sure I can find that kind of bravery in myself.