Elira Voss & Evren Neri

The first thing Evren learned about me was that Tuesday could be my Friday. I worked changing shifts at a small printing company, and my calendar looked as though somebody had dropped it down a flight of stairs. His opening message on WaBanja asked about a photograph of herbs on my windowsill. I answered at twenty minutes past midnight, during a break, and assumed I would hear from him the next evening. He replied the following afternoon: “Do those plants understand your schedule better than I do?” That was a decent question. The basil, at least, had complaints.

Our first plan was a Saturday afternoon at a café near a busy market. I chose a day when I was certain I would finish early. Then a machine stopped, an urgent order had to be reprinted, and I found myself phoning my supervisor from behind a stack of paper while watching the time change on the wall. I sent Evren a message before our meeting time. He was already on his way. He said he understood, but his reply was shorter than usual, and I spent the journey home deciding that I had ruined something before it had begun.

The next morning, he asked whether he could say something slightly awkward. He had been disappointed. He knew the delay was work, but he had rearranged his afternoon and felt foolish waiting. I was relieved by the honesty and defensive about it at the same time. My first answer explained every detail of the broken machine. My second, written after I put the phone down, said what I actually meant: I was sorry he had been inconvenienced, and I still wanted to meet him. He answered that those were the two things he had needed to hear.

We tried again on a Sunday, grabbing tea before wandering through the public market. He bought tomatoes with unnecessary seriousness. I bought a small mint plant I did not have room for. At one stall, he asked whether I was always this decisive. I reminded him that he had just examined the same onion three times. It was the first time we laughed without first checking whether the other person understood the joke. On the bus home I realised I had not been performing a date. I had simply spent an afternoon with him.

Our disagreements have not all become useful conversations on the first attempt. He can still hear a request as criticism. I can still say “it’s fine” in a voice that informs the whole room it is not. But there is a difference between being annoyed with someone and wondering whether the relationship can hold an annoyance. We have had enough practice now to know that we can come back to a difficult sentence, put it more plainly, and carry on. Usually, one of us makes tea before we try again.

The picture of us under the trees was taken after a family lunch. I wore the floral dress because it was comfortable, and he had rolled his sleeves up before we finished eating. Someone asked us to stand together. We were meant to look at the camera, but he whispered that he had forgotten the mint in his car, and I began laughing at the thought of another plant being dragged through our weekend. That is why our foreheads are touching. We were not having a grand moment. We were remembering an ordinary one.

I used to think a relationship would require me to become a person with regular weekends, clean kitchen counters and messages answered at sensible hours. Evren did not make that version of me appear. Instead, we learned what the real schedules could manage. Sometimes Sunday is a long walk. Sometimes it is a brief visit and the promise of another day. The pots on my shelf are healthier now, although the basil remains dramatic. When I get home late, there is often a message waiting: “No need to answer. Just tell me tomorrow how the day went.”