Chapter 7
7
A loud alarm blares. My arm shoots out on instinct, slapping about in the direction of my night table, searching for the snooze button. But instead of my phone, I make contact with something else.
“Ow,” a deep voice says, less than an inch away from my ear. “What the hell was that for?”
My eyes swing open. I’m not back home in my apartment. I’m here. In Houston. With Nikhil. And he’s sitting up, clutching his nose with one hand and silencing his phone alarm with the other.
Trapped in this closet, I can’t tell what time it is or how long we’ve been asleep, but it doesn’t feel like it was anywhere near long enough.
“Sorry,” I say. “Reflex.”
He snorts, then winces, lightly rubbing the bridge of his nose.
I watch the rhythmic movement of his fingers for a moment, the way they lightly stroke up and down.
Before Nikhil, I’d never found a nose attractive. I’d never really thought a whole lot about them. Noses are functional. They serve a purpose. But Nikhil’s nose…For some reason, it was different. Large, and strong, and prominent. Right in the center of his face, perched above the wide, ever-present smile he used to wear.
During our fourth or fifth date, he’d told me he wasn’t seeing anyone else. His foot had been tapping underneath the table, the nervous energy thrumming through his body clear, but so incredibly endearing. He’d swallowed and said he wanted us to be exclusive, and I’d never felt so giddy. So light.
“I’m not seeing anyone else either,” I’d said, placing my hand on his knee, squeezing it tight, telling him he wasn’t alone in the way he was feeling. “And I want that too.”
“Yeah?” he’d breathed, and I’d nodded, mutual relief and joy settling into the space between us. After dinner, he’d walked me back to my car, and I’d practically floated that night, the air hot, the sky hazy, with the occasional star peeking through.
This moment…It’s crystallized in my mind. I can still feel the humidity, the way the thick, warm wind had felt against my skin. I remember the press of his palm against mine, the way our fingers intertwined as I thought, This is a beginning. This is something new.
And when we’d reached my car, when he’d pressed my back against the driver’s side door, when he’d leaned down to kiss me good night, I’d felt wild and hopeful and ridiculous.
So, I’d stretched toward him, impulsively kissing the very tip of his nose.
A startled laugh had exploded from his chest, flipping my heart inside out, and I’d reached up and kissed him again.
“What was that about?” he’d asked.
I’d smiled, dizzy with a feeling I couldn’t quite name. “I like your nose.” And you. I like you .
He’d laughed again, then nuzzled his nose into the curve of my neck, tickling me until we were both laughing so hard we lost our breath.
“I like yours too,” he’d said, against my skin. “I like yours too.”
Nikhil’s phone beeps, shaking the memory away, and I realize I’ve spent the last however many seconds staring at him. I can tell Nikhil’s noticed because he’s watching me quizzically, his mouth open as if he’s about to ask me a question.
But I beat him to it. “Why did you set an alarm?”
“I didn’t,” he says grimly. He flips the screen in my direction. “Tornado watch.” A National Weather Service alert is displayed prominently across the top. We don’t have tornado sirens in Houston—at least, I can’t remember ever hearing any growing up—so I guess this is how they share the news.
“What does that mean? What are we supposed to do?” I’d forgotten that tornados could happen in the middle of a hurricane. I hadn’t considered the possibility that we might end up experiencing more than one natural disaster at a time.
“We’re supposed to get on the ground floor when these alerts go out,” he says. “In a room without windows.”
I wait for Nikhil to get up, for him to usher us out of the closet, but he just stretches his arms out in front of him. And gingerly scrunches his nose. “You pack quite a punch, you know?”
“It was just a slap,” I say. “And it wasn’t on purpose.” I look over at him, and hesitate. “It doesn’t really hurt, does it?”
He shakes his head. “No.” He slants a look at me. “But maybe I should have expected something like this. You always were a little weird about my nose.”
A surprised laugh escapes me. “I wasn’t weird about your nose.”
“Please,” he says, the corners of his mouth rising. “You absolutely were. In fact, this all probably happened because you were just looking for an excuse to touch it.”
My face warms. “That is not—”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I get it.” That subtle lift of his mouth grows into a full-out smirk. “I’ve been told I have a very attractive nose.”
I blush even harder, but god, it’s true. He does. He has an attractive everything . Especially when he’s smiling like this, the dimple in his cheek winking in and out. I want to press my thumb to it. I want to say things that keep him smiling, just so I can feel it appear and disappear.
“But don’t worry,” he says, lying back down. “I always liked yours too.”
Without thinking, I lift my hand to touch my nose, and that smirk on his face softens into something smaller. Something tender.
I pull my hand away, only now noticing he’s fully encased in his sleeping bag. I stare at him for a moment, confused. “Are we…We’re not going downstairs?”
“We can,” he says, “but we’ll be better served by getting some sleep. These are going to keep going off all night. And this kind of alert means there’s potential for a tornado. Not that one’s necessarily been spotted.”
“Shouldn’t we just stay downstairs then? I mean, is it even safe to be here?” I hadn’t taken any of this seriously enough before. I’m not making that mistake again.
He rolls onto his side, facing me. His brown eyes appear almost golden in the dim light of the lantern. “We don’t have a lot of options downstairs. The pantry, maybe. Or the guest bathroom. But both are standing room only. And I wasn’t exaggerating, these tornado alarms are going to keep happening. We could run up and down each time they go off, but that’s not exactly safe either.”
“Then what do we do?”
The corners of his mouth tilt up again. Gentle and sweet. And my heart thuds dangerously. I can’t remember the last time we were like this. Face-to-face, lying together in the middle of the night. It’s so familiar. A position we’ve been in hundreds of times before. But it feels new.
Now that he’s close, I can catalog even more changes. Like the tiny nick under his bottom lip where he must have cut himself shaving. And the grizzled grays growing in his stubble.
I’m struck again by the desire to feel it. To see how different the sensation would be now. His skin was always so smooth against mine. The curve of his jaw always so soft—gentle—when it traveled over my neck, my chest, my stomach, my thighs. My cheeks flush as I remember the first time. The way we’d fumbled with our clothes, with buttons and zippers, and then with each other. Somehow, what should have been a little awkward and unsure felt different with him. Learning each other, figuring out what drove the other wild, all of that felt like a joy and not a burden. He made it feel like a joy.
I can still picture his face, the way he’d looked up at me, his hand wrapped around my thigh. His eyes intense, and focused. Like he was studying me.
“Here?” he’d asked after some time, his mouth, his tongue tracing patterns that made it hard for me to think. I’d babbled something incoherent in response, and the way he’d laughed, all bright and sunny and sure. It had warmed me through and through.
“Now what?” I’d said afterward, completely wrung out and content in a way I’d never experienced before.
“We go back to sleep,” Nikhil says, and I blink, trying to make sense of his words from the past echoing in the present. He’s answering my earlier question, I realize. About what we should do in response to the alerts.
My cheeks burn hot, my heart gallops in my chest, and I hope he can’t tell what I was just thinking about. I hope he can’t see right through me, that he can’t figure me out the way he once could so easily.
I nod, and a piece of hair falls over my face. The hair situation has been hopeless since I arrived, and it has only gotten worse with each exposure to the humidity and rain and wind. I usually wrangle my hair into submission with a combination of products and styling tools, but I’ve got none of them here, so my normally pristine lob is a giant mass, completely out of control.
I lift a hand to push it away, but Nikhil’s hand is outstretched too. He’s reaching for the piece, as if he intends to tuck it behind myear.
My heart thuds again, so loud I swear he can hear it. But the touch I’m anticipating never comes. Nikhil freezes, his hand suspended in the air. Then he snaps it back and turns away.
I take a deep breath, trying to make it as quiet as possible. Trying not to let him know how affected I am by all of this. By him.
I turn as well, my back toward his, and close my eyes. Soon, all of this will be over. Soon, I won’t have to think about any of it ever again.
—
Nikhil hadn’t been lying about the repeated tornado alerts. Over the next few hours our sleep is interrupted multiple times by that irritating blaring sound. I ask Nikhil to put his phone on do not disturb mode, but he’s hesitant. Worried that we’ll miss a real, true warning, and it’s hard to argue with that.
But the next time we’re wakened, it’s not by the robotic siren-like noise I’ve gotten used to. It’s a voice. Loud, but staticky and tinny. Like it’s traveling from a great distance away.
“Hello? Hello?” the voice says. “Is anyone there?”
Nikhil shoots up, grabbing the lantern. “This is Nikhil. I hear you. Everything okay?”
“Nikhil, thank god,” the voice replies. “I’ve been trying and trying, but no one’s been answering. I thought I had the frequency wrong.”
“No, this is the right one,” Nikhil says. “What’s the matter? Are you all right?”
“No,” the voice responds. “There’s water in my house. I’m not sure how deep, but it’s well past my knees. Is there any in yours?”
Nikhil glances at me. “I’m not sure, Alan. We’re on the second floor. We haven’t checked.”
“What’s going on?” another voice chimes in.
“Jenny, it’s Alan. You have a one-story house too, right? You doing okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Jenny replies. “So’s everyone else on this side of the street.”
I picture the street. And Alan’s house. I remember him gesturing toward it. It’s right at the center of the cul-de-sac. The street has a bit of a slope to it, and I’m pretty sure that’s where it dips the lowest. If Alan’s house has only one floor…
“How fast is the water rising?” Nikhil asks. He’s obviously thinking along the same lines I am.
“It was only up to my ankles an hour or two ago.”
A muscle in Nikhil’s cheek jumps. “You can’t stay there, Alan.” He gets up and opens the closet door. He takes the lantern with him but doubles back to grab his headlamp.
“I’m going to check the first floor,” he tells me as he adjusts the strap around his head. He passes me a flashlight, steps out, and shuts the door behind him.
I wait a second, then follow after him.
“Who’s next to you, Alan?” Nikhil asks as he moves swiftly down the stairs. “The Trans?”
“Yes, but they evacuated yesterday morning. Booked a flight as soon as they heard.”
“Anyone else around?”
“No. Laura and Jody are on the other side, but they took the kids and went uptown to ride out the storm with Jody’s parents. Her parents are getting older, and they were worried about the two of them being alone during this. Pretty kind of them, if you ask me. Sometimes I wish I had family in the area. Well, I guess there’s my sister, but you know she and I don’t really get along…”
“Hey,” I whisper, trying to get Nikhil’s attention as Alan keeps going, sharing details about the rift between him and his sister.
Nikhil turns, something flashing across his face when he notices I’m right behind him. Disbelief? Or maybe…concern?
“Go back upstairs,” he says, not offering any additional explanation.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
The first floor is clear. No water anywhere as far as I can tell, which is a huge relief. But even though everything’s fine, Nikhil hasn’t turned around. He’s not climbing back up the stairs. Not retreating to the closet. He’s still down here. And from the grim expression on his face, I can tell he has a reason.
But the moment his mouth twists into that familiar pained smile, I know he’s not going to share it. “Nothing,” he says. “Go back upstairs. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Fire travels through my veins, hurt and anger from the past bleeding into the present. “You know you always did this.”
His eyebrows jump. “What?”
I wave my hand at him. “ This . When something was hard or you got hurt or you were worried, you’d just…brush me off like this. As if I couldn’t tell something was wrong. As if you didn’t think I could be there for you or that I could help. You just pushed me to the side. Like I was too delicate or fragile—”
“That’s not— I didn’t do that.”
“Really?” A harsh sound escapes me. “I guess we remember things very differently then.”
He stares at me, his jaw clenched. Then he shakes his head. “I have to go.”
“Go where ?”
“I’m going to get him,” Nikhil says.
Alan’s still talking, something about how his sister was always the favorite child. How not even going to space was enough to impress his parents. And I’m just watching Nikhil, my mouth slightly open. Judging from the sounds traveling through the window, the intensity of the storm has waned. The wind is quieter. The rain less fervent and fierce. But it’s still no condition to be going outside in.
Nikhil opens the coat closet, pulling out a thick waterproof jacket and slipping his arms through the sleeves. He’s really going to do this.
“How are you going to get there?” If Alan’s house is flooded, I doubt we can just drive right up to it. And I’m sure we can’t walk there either.
Nikhil goes up to the front door but comes to a sudden stop. We’ve boarded up the front windows. He can’t see outside.
“Alan,” Nikhil says, interrupting Alan’s passionate accounting of sibling rivalry. “How flooded are the streets? Can you get a good look at them?”
Though I’d always evacuated instead of staying through hurricanes in the past, you don’t grow up here without going through a number of flooding events. It doesn’t take much to overwhelm these streets. The whole city is flat. Basically at sea level. There’s a system of bayous and waterways and reservoirs that are supposed to help, but sometimes they overflow. I remember some city official on TV during one of these floods saying that the streets are part of the drainage system. I don’t know if that’s really true or just something they said to calm the public, but I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen water flood the streets to the point that the roads start resembling rivers. Sometimes the water is stagnant, and sometimes an actual current forms.
I’d thought it was cool when I was a kid. When I was maybe six or seven, there was a particularly heavy rainstorm, one that flooded our area. The idea of swimming in the street had sounded fun, so I’d asked my sister if we could go out and play. But since she was a good nine years older than me, and therefore wiser than me, she’d just wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Do you know where that water comes from?” she’d said. “The sewer. It comes from the sewer. You don’t want to be out in that.”
“Ew,” I’d said. At that age, I hadn’t fully understood what she meant, but from her tone I could tell it was gross.
It’s one of the few childhood memories I have of my sister. Sheleft for college just a few years later, and shortly after that, had Ritu.
In a lot of ways Ritu feels more like a sister to me than my own sister does. I’ve definitely spent more time around her. In high school I used to rush home at the end of the day, so excited to see her. She’d toddle around with the funniest expressions and the sweetest giggles. I have so many memories of us playing together. I have only vague memories of my sister coming by our house to drop her off and pick her up. Of family dinners where things were tense. Where I often excused myself, offering to watch Ritu instead.
Alan’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “Yeah, I’m looking at them now,” he says over the radio. “The streets aren’t passable. They look like they did during the Memorial Day floods.”
“Shit,” Nikhil mutters.
I echo the sentiment in my head. I wasn’t here for those floods, but the images made national news. Water higher than I’d ever seen it. Whole sections of highway transformed into giant lakes. Cars abandoned everywhere. Videos of people wading through neck-deep water to get to safety.
“Nikhil,” I say quietly, not wanting Alan to overhear. “You can’t do this.”
His eyes meet mine, his gaze hard.
“Stay put, Alan,” he says. “I’ll be right there.”
He turns away, and I follow after him.
“You don’t have to do this. There are rescue teams,” I say. “People who are actually trained for these situations. We just call them and…”
“They won’t come out.” He’s brisk, in both tone and movement. Still walking away, but at least he’s responding to me now. “Emergency services will be slammed,” he continues. “Maybe they make it in time, but I don’t think they will. Not with the rate the water’s rising…”
“Why can’t someone else go?” My voice comes out high and screechy. I hate it. I hate how desperate I sound. How desperate I feel. Alan needs help. I get that. I want him to be okay. But I also want there to be another way. Some alternative that means Nikhil won’t have to leave. That means he can stay here. I don’t let myself examine why I want that so much. Why the idea of him going out in the middle of this storm terrifies me. Why it makes dread spread through my body, turning my insides ice cold.
“There’s no one else, Meena,” Nikhil says. He stops for a second, grabbing a key chain hanging in the hallway, then he takes off again.
He comes to a halt in front of the side door that leads to the garage. He flips the thumb-turn lock and wraps his fingers around the handle.
“Nikhil…don’t go,” I say, giving it one last attempt. “Please.” My voice cracks halfway through the word.
He goes still, and for a second I think I have him, but then his shoulders rise and fall dramatically. In time with a loud exhale. “I have to. But I’ll be right back. You’ll be safe in the closet. It’ll be okay and—”
“I’m coming with you.” The words slip out of my mouth, soft and hesitant. Because I’m not going to sit here quietly while Nikhil risks life and limb conducting some grand rescue. If he won’t stay back where it’s safe, I’m going with him.
“I’m coming with you,” I repeat, firmer this time.
And finally, he turns around. His brows are knit, three strong, deep lines cutting across his forehead. “What?”
I say it again. “If you’re going, then I’m coming with you.”
His mouth parts. Only slightly. But it draws my attention just the same.
“Why?” he asks a moment later, once the apparent shock has worn off.
“Because,” I say stubbornly. I cross my arms, fully intending to let that childish answer stand alone. I don’t owe him an explanation. But without my permission, more words rush from my tongue. “I’m not going to let you do this alone.”
The lines bracketing his mouth soften. But the swallow he takes is hard. Firm. Flexing the muscles of his throat. Making mine go dry.
“Okay,” he says. But instead of opening the door, he retreats, back toward the coat closet. Hangers clang against one another as he reaches inside, rooting around for a few seconds before he pulls something out. “But I have rules,” he says, shaking out a jacket similar in size and color to the one he’s wearing. “One, you stay in the boat.”
My eyebrows jump. A boat? He has a boat?
“Two,” he says, gesturing toward me and spreading his arms wide, telling me I should do the same, “we stick together. And when we get to Alan’s house, you don’t wander off on your own. And I won’t either. Got it?”
“Sure,” I say, as he slips first one arm and then the other into the sleeves. “The buddy system. Makes sense to me.”
“Good.” He moves to my front, clasping the bottom ends of thejacket. He begins to zip me up, his face tense and solemn and entirely too close to mine. I take a step back, waving his hands away.Idon’t look at him as I pull the zipper the rest of the way to the top.
“And rule number three?” I ask.
“Right. Yes. Number three is…is…”
He falters, and I shoot a glance his way. “Don’t tell me you’re all out of rules already.”
He glares. “You need to take this seriously.”
“I am,” I say. “In fact, I have some rules of my own. Like…no barking instructions at me.”
“I haven’t been barking instructions at you—”
“Really?” I scoff. “What would you call it then?”
“Trying to help . Trying to keep you alive.”
“I don’t need your help.”
He laughs then, but the sound is dry. “Right. Of course. Of course you don’t.”
I blow out a breath. “I just mean…I can help too, you know. I can help with this.”
He watches me, his brows creasing, and I sigh.
I don’t know much about sailing in storms like this, but I imagine we’ll have to work together to get through this. And at this rate we’re going to capsize the second we climb on board.
“What kind of boat do you have?”
He blinks, his expression clearing. “Calling it a boat might have been a bit of an overstatement. It’s really more like a canoe.”
“ Like a canoe or it is a canoe?”
He rubs the back of his neck. “It is a canoe.”
I stare. When Nikhil had said he had a boat, I’d pictured something with a motor. Nothing too large or fancy, but something that would help propel us along.
“It’s a good canoe,” Nikhil says, no doubt taking offense at thedisbelief that must be etched across my face. “A strong canoe. I made it.”
That doesn’t surprise me. Nikhil was always making stuff. When there were leftover materials from job sites, he’d bring them home and turn them into something new. Wood scraps became bookshelves. Or coffee tables. Or the desk he made for me. And once, he’d transformed spare metal into a garden trellis. It was like alchemy. Pure magic.
He’d tinker away in the garage after dinner. Sometimes for hours. I’d found the noise soothing. From my little hidey-hole in the guest bedroom, while I pored over wills and estates and the intricacies of secured transactions, I’d hear the buzzing of the saw, the dull thud of the hammer, the shh-shh ing of the sander. It was the perfect background noise, clearing my mind, helping me to focus. And on the rare occasion the noise broke my concentration, it made me feel safe. Like no matter how stressed I felt in that room, no matter how overwhelmed and worried and lonely I might be, I wasn’t actually going through it alone.
“Why did you make a canoe?” I don’t remember him having one. I don’t remember him ever wanting to have one.
Nikhil lifts a shoulder before responding. “So I can go fishing.”
“You…go fishing?”
“Yeah. Sometimes. I have a…There’s a place by the water I like to go.” He’s back at the side door before I can finish my interrogation. The man I knew used to say that fishing was boring. That he could never imagine sitting still for so long. That he’d much rather move. Be active. Do something with his hands.
He always was good with his hands.
I mentally slap myself, cursing my quippy, traitorous brain.
I step into the garage as Nikhil unlatches the canoe from the wall. His craftsmanship has always been impressive, and if he hadn’t told me he’d made this, I would have assumed it was store-bought. It’s beautiful. The shape of it. And the color. A glistening dark green.
He pulls out a pair of paddles and hands one to me. “Do you know how to use this?”
“Of course.” Because really, what kind of question is that? You hold it, put the paddle side into the water, and push. I may not have canoed since I was a middle schooler at summer camp, but I’d learned this once. I’m sure it’ll all come back. Like muscle memory.
“You sure?” he asks, and his voice is so sincere it makes me wonder whether this is more complicated than I thought.
Before I can respond, he’s demonstrating. “The paddle goes like this. The blade, this flat part right here, needs to stay like this when you push it through the water. That’s what’ll propel us forward.” He stops, twisting the paddle in the air. “And usually, you’d alternate. A few strokes on the left, a few strokes on the right. That’s what helps you stay in a straight line. But since there’s two of us, I’ll do one side and you do the other, okay?”
I nod. It’s not as simple as I’d imagined, but it seems doable.
“We need to be somewhat in sync,” he says. “With the paddles. We’ll want to stroke at the same time.”
Nope, I warn my mind. Don’t go there. Don’t even think it .
I think it anyway. A brief image flashing behind my eyelids. But it’s not something my mind has created out of nothing. It’s a memory. One I’d been thinking about not too long ago. One that makes my skin burn. Makes my toes curl inside my shoes.
“Stroking at the same time,” I repeat automatically. “Got it.”
Nikhil startles, as if he’s just heard the implication. And I want to melt into the floor.
A second later, he clears his throat. “And if it gets too hard, I can always do it myself.”
Great. Now my brain is hearing innuendos in everything.
“I was planning to paddle solo,” he continues. “Before. So, if you’re having a hard time with it, just let me know.”
“Yeah. No worries. I will.”
Nikhil nods, lifting the hood of his jacket over his head. I do the same.
“The garage door won’t open since the power’s out. So we’ll have to carry this outside.” He hoists one side of the canoe and I move forward to carry the other half. And together we awkwardly waddle our way to the front door.