Chapter 48
WHEN RAJAN GETS home, he opens his suitcase.
He stares inside, at T-shirts he never unrolled. A pair of shoes stuck into the side pocket. Socks that have long forgotten their partners.
A few days ago, leaving felt like the right decision. Not anymore. Now he wonders if Kat is right, and maybe he doesn’t have to completely start over every time he screws up.
“You’re leaving again?”
He turns to find Yash and his father in the doorway.
It was Yash who spoke, and he looks afraid of the answer.
The story Rajan told Yash about his hospitalization (and he knew Yash would tell Sukha and their dad) was that he overdosed, simple as that.
It was hard to tell that lie. But it was better than the alternative—them worrying about people coming after him. “No. I’m here to stay.”
He directs that at his father, who remains impassive. Then turns and leaves without a word.
It doesn’t bother Rajan as much as it used to. Maybe Kat’s right that his mom’s death had nothing to do with him—maybe she’s not. Either way, his dad’s already made up his mind. But Rajan’s done making that his problem; he’s here for his brothers. He always should’ve been.
Yash exhales. “Really?”
The way his face lights up makes Rajan feel like a tool.
How could he ever have ignored how much Yash wanted him around?
“Yeah. And I’m gonna get help with the drug thing, too.
” That part’s not a lie. Kat hooked him up with an addictions counselor.
Forced OD or not, that shadow on his life isn’t lifting anytime soon.
He kicks his suitcase, feeling awkward. “I’m sorry for being such a shitty brother.
I didn’t think when I was doing it. I never wanted to leave you behind, I hope you know that. ”
“I know,” Yash replies. “You’re not a shitty brother. For that.”
“For that?”
“Well, there was that time you ate the last Oreo—”
Rajan throws a wad of socks at his head. Yash runs away, cackling.
It doesn’t take long to unpack. He doesn’t have a closet, so he drags in a plastic storage bin to fold his clothes into. It’s not the bedroom he had growing up, but it’s something. It’s a commitment.
He’s zipping the empty suitcase when Sukha comes by. Maybe he heard Rajan saying he was going to stay and wants to make his disappointment known. Rajan straightens. “What’s up?”
“Heard you OD’d.” Sukha leans against the doorframe.
“And?”
“Just trying to put it together. You were on your way to the airport that day. You were totally sober. And, what? You just decided to go on a four-day bender instead?”
That was the last thing Rajan expected from him. “That’s what addiction does to you, dude,” he says blandly. “It derails your life. You do things that don’t make sense.”
“So nothing else happened?”
“No.”
“Really?”
The continued skepticism needles him. “Why would I lie about that? You think I’d want anyone to believe I overdosed if I didn’t?
Trust me, I wouldn’t.” Sukha continues to stare.
Rajan feels himself getting angry—although at who, he’s not sure.
He just knows he hates that he has to lie to his brother.
Hates that he has to mislead the one person who suspects foul play.
The one family member who, if Rajan had died that night, might not have really believed he relapsed.
But better this than cause him nightmares. “Go ahead and gloat. Call me an addict. I am one, okay? I am one.”
Sukha’s eyes flicker over him, and Rajan realizes he’s standing slightly hunched. His broken ribs are bothering him. He forces himself to straighten, although it hurts.
Surprisingly, Sukha doesn’t call him anything. He just says, “How much do you remember? About...after the OD?”
Simultaneously relieved and disappointed that he’s dropping it, Rajan answers truthfully. “Nothing.” It’s all a blur after he cracked the Aces’ ledgers. “OD’ing will do that to you. Why?”
“Just curious.” Sukha picks at a thread on his sleeve. “I decided something, while you were in the hospital. I don’t want to become you. So I’m done. All of it.”
Rajan stares, hardly daring to believe what he’s hearing. Did he finally get through his brother’s thick skull? He should’ve tried over-dosing months ago.
“I’m not doing this for you,” Sukha adds. “I’m doing this for Yash. I want to be there for him. The way you weren’t.”
“Guess I deserve that.”
“Yeah, you do. You abandoned us after Mom died,” Sukha says stiffly. “I’ll always hate you a little bit for that.”
“I know.”
“You were selfish.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t come back. Why didn’t you come back?”
Rajan’s throat becomes tight. This is starting to sound suspiciously like Sukha cares. Maybe Sukha knows it too, because he turns abruptly and leaves. Rajan thinks that’s it, and he’s lying back on his mattress when Sukha returns holding something.
His bunny. But now, the eye is sewn back on.
Rajan blinks at his brother, the spitting image of a younger him. “Are you—giving this back to me?”
“Take it before I change my mind.”
Rajan does. He hugs it close and presses his nose to its head. It no longer smells like his mother; but he can imagine her hands, carefully sewing each stitch.
He looks up at Sukha. His brother’s clearly feeling softer toward him because of the OD, and this opportunity might not come again.
“I’ve been thinking about buying a baseball glove or two.
Want to help me practice sometime?” No answer.
“You can aim at me when you hit the ball, if that sweetens the deal.”
Sukha doesn’t smile. “What’s the point? I’ll never be good. I never played.”
“So? You can always start,” Rajan says gently, and Sukha takes a very large, very deep breath.
But he only says, “There’s a girl outside to see you, by the way.”
A girl? Rajan opens his mouth to ask, but Sukha’s already disappeared. He sets the bunny aside. A girl...
He shouldn’t want Simran to be here as much as he does. It’s wrong, a voice in his head warns him—a voice that sounds like his mother’s.
It’s not wrong, says another voice that sounds suspiciously like Kat’s.
He rolls off his mattress, if only to shut up the angel-and-devil routine in his head.
It’s sweltering out, so he doesn’t bother with a hoodie on top of his tee. He pushes through the front door even though he has no idea what to say to her.
But it’s not Simran at all.
TJ Powar stands on his front step with her arms crossed. She looks out of place in this beat-up neighbourhood, in a crisp white blouse, her mouth a slash of maroon lipstick.
Her narrowed eyes instantly find the uncovered tattoo on his neck. Her frown deepens. TJ didn’t like him in high school. He never cared for her either. The only thing they have in common is how much they care about Simran, so he can guess what this is about.
He leans against the doorway. “Are you here to tell me to stay away from your cousin? Because I’ve had about enough of your family.”
He waits for a comeback, but instead, TJ says, “Can we talk somewhere?”
Now curious, Rajan closes the door behind him and beckons her to the swing set next door. “What do you want?”
She perches on the swing next to him. “You’re an asshole.”
Not this again. Rajan stands up. “I’m not anywhere near her. Okay? Get off my case—”
“Sit down,” TJ snaps. “Simran’s not doing well.”
Instantly, he sits. “What happened? Is her mom okay? Are people giving her a hard time because of me?”
TJ studies him. He knows he sounds completely obsessed, but he doesn’t care. “Are you gonna make me beg? Because I’ll beg.”
TJ takes her sweet time answering. “It started after she went to see you in the hospital—”
“How do you know about that?”
“Who doesn’t? She nearly caused World War III at her house to do it. Let me finish.”
Rajan rubs his face, agonized by this information. Why would she make things more difficult for herself?
TJ continues. “She came back and said you told her it was over. And you know what she did next? She went right upstairs to work on some Hillway event proposal. She’s barely sleeping. I think she took on, like, four new projects in the last two days. Like, what the hell?”
Rajan sighs. “That’s what she does.”
“Yeah. It happened when her mom got diagnosed, too. She throws herself into these unhealthy spirals when she’s heartbroken.”
She lets that hang in the air. Rajan’s tired of the games. “Spit out whatever you want to say and go.”
“Fine.” TJ’s nostrils flare in annoyance. “I know about the gang stuff. Her bookkeeping. The stuff you brought her into.”
He cringes. “I never asked her to—”
TJ steamrolls over him. “But the only reason she did any of it was because of what happened to her mom. If it wasn’t the Lions, she would’ve found some other unhealthy coping mechanism.
The Lions just happened to be there. None of that is on you.
She made her own choices, so stop acting like you turned her into a bad person.
You don’t have that kind of power over her, get over yourself—”
“Okay. Relax.” He holds up a hand before she can really lay into him. Even if TJ’s right...“That doesn’t change the fact that I make her life complicated. I don’t want to make her an outcast like me. I don’t want her to wake up one day and hate me for it.”
TJ laughs a little, looking down at her strappy sandals. “You didn’t see her,” she says, “when she thought you were dead.”
His heart drops. He doesn’t want to hear this. But he’s also riveted.
“I’ve never seen her like that. Ever. She was unhinged. Screaming at me. Like, she was finally losing it completely. That’s when I knew there was only one reason she hadn’t lost it before then: you.”
He can’t speak.
“Look, I won’t claim to get it,” TJ says. “But you’re special to her. I don’t think the life complications really matter.”
Unwillingly, he’s pulled back into memories.
Simran at his house—the most he’d seen her smile in ages.
Her rolling her eyes and throwing a book at him in the library; that playful side he can only seem to dig out when they’re alone together.
And he remembers her expression when she left his hospital room—like he’d cut out her heart.
Then he thinks back to a certain conversation when he was fourteen and trying to make a promise. Don’t be the reason she breaks.
He wishes he could go back and ask his mother what exactly she meant.
But he can’t. And besides, what purpose would that serve?
Would it matter, what she said? When she’s clearly been wrong about other things—Kat has certainly opened his eyes to that.
She was wrong to buy things they couldn’t afford and wrong to think those things would replace his parents being around; wrong to give up on Rajan when he acted out and wrong to stop defending him.
Rajan loves his mom, he will always love her, and it will always be unfair that she died. But she was human too.
TJ, to her credit, keeps her trap shut while he sorts through this in his head. Finally, he says lightly, “Are you saying you approve of me with your cousin?”
“Let’s not go that far.” She scuffs the gravel with her sandals.
“But lately I’ve realized it’s not my place to tell her what’s good for her.
Sure, people will say you and her will end up a disaster, and that you’ll resent each other.
..but like, how would they know? They don’t know her.
They don’t know who she’d resent.” Her voice becomes soft.
“They don’t know what would make her happy. ”
She’s staring at the ground. Rajan gets the strong sense she’s not just talking about her cousin. “Well, I’m not sure Simran always knows either.”
“But she should be allowed the space to figure that out herself. Are you gonna deny her that chance? After everything she’s been through?” God, TJ knows exactly how to get to him. “If I thought you’d hurt her, I’d kick you to the curb myself.”
Somehow, he finds himself smiling. “What did I ever do to make you hate me so much?”
“Where should we start?” She sniffs. “How about in seventh grade when you said I had a big Indian girl nose?”
Rajan’s grin widens. He leans forward and tweaks her nose. TJ jerks away. “Come on, dude. It’s a pretty nose, I didn’t think I had to tell you that.” She remains stiff, and he clasps his hands together apologetically. “Fine. I’m sorry. Happy now, Bhenji?”
She mock-gags. “Stick to ‘dude,’ please.”
But there’s the smallest smile on her lips.
This is surreal. It means something, that someone from Simran’s family is saying—in her own nasty way—that she approves.
TJ has peered into the relationship between them, one they’re too entangled in to see clearly, and declared there is something good there. Something that deserves to grow.
It just can’t be the only thing going for them.
While Simran’s reaction to his almost-death is sort of touching, it’s scary, too.
Rajan doesn’t want to be the sole reason Simran didn’t lose it.
And not because he thinks he sucks, or whatever, but because everyone deserves more than one thing keeping them going. The opposite of addiction is balance.
Luckily, Rajan has an idea on that front.
He reaches over and twists the ropes of TJ’s swing. TJ, unprepared, shrieks as she’s whipped around. By the time she rights herself, she’s glaring daggers.
“What is your problem?”
She shoves him off his swing. He lets her, falling backward into the gravel-laden grass. “I change my mind,” TJ announces from above, kicking pebbles onto his torso like she’s planning to bury him. “I hate you again.”
“Good.” He grins up at the sky. “Otherwise I seriously would’ve thought I was dreaming.”