Chapter 18
18
“M y turn to read one,” Minty said, grabbing a paper that wasn’t just folded but tacked on with a copper paper clip that glinted like a jewel in the moonlight. As if the person writing it had taken extreme care with it.
With… his words and the object of his desire.
Minty unfolded the note with utmost care, taking thirty seconds where she needed only three. “Phew…we’ve got a romantic here, lovelies,” she said, skimming down the note. “A real unicorn among men, if I can say that.”
Everyone cheered.
Chaaru’s nape prickled, her skin feeling too tight around her buzzing body. After what felt like an eternity to her quickening heartbeats, Minty lifted the mic to her mouth, cleared her throat loudly. “It’s a poem.
In a dim-lit bar, two souls did meet,
One waiting for love, one with a heart to greet.
Unaware their destinies entwined in this gloam,
They sparked a debate in the cover of the foam.
An argument sparked, passions set alight,
Over cricket’s finest, they debated the night.
With every fiery word and spirited jest,
His heart whispered softly, feeling blessed.
Strength and fire, a force to behold,
In her eyes, mysteries untold.
Yet, amidst the banter, love did bloom,
In the midst of chaos, a silent, secret room.
As the evening waned and the stars did gleam,
His heart whispered, “This must be a dream.”
But reality struck with a bittersweet twist,
Their moment together, a treasure amidst. ”
Utter silence descended over the group as Minty finished reading with a lilting cadence. Chaaru’s heart raced, her hands and feet, her entire body felt large, cumbersome. Extraneous to the feeling inflating inside.
“It has to be for you, Char,” Mona said softly, breaking the silence. Her smile stretched so wide and shone so brightly that it could be sighted from outer space.
“Wait, DP wrote that? I thought he was an accountant?” Mona’s other friend Nadia asked, peering up at him through her thick bifocals. “Not that he looks like what I thought an accountant would look like.”
“Clearly, the man is more than just wet-dream material,” Kash announced with a sigh and a wink in Char’s direction.
Chaaru wanted to cover him up with her not-so-slender shoulders until no one could look at him. He’s mine , she wanted to say again. Maybe she’d get a stamp made that said, ‘Chaaru’s Property, Don’t Look’. And every morning, she’d stamp it on his forehead before he stepped out into the world.
But unless she admitted her love to him, there would be no steamy nights or warm, cuddly mornings beyond this week. Nothing but her cold, empty bed and boring, safe life.
When the ribbing subsided, and the group moved on to the next letter, Chaaru crept towards Minty, took the carefully folded paper from her along with the copper paperclip and shuffled back to their lounger.
This was her treasure. As if they could understand her wonder, Mona and Kash squeezed her fingers as she passed them.
DP’s brown eyes held hers when she returned to the lounger, his square chin raised in a subtle challenge. Outside of the tense little bubble around them, Nadia was reading Dev’s letter to Minty.
But all she had eyes for was this man.
Tension poured from him and yet, he had chosen to put that poem out there. It sounded like a declaration, but she knew it wasn’t. With DP, it was simply a statement of fact. Like the sun was big and hot, the moon was silver, and pubes could turn gray.
“That was about the first time we met,” she stated blandly, one knee on the lounger. Every inch of her longed to touch him and sink into him, and yet she was afraid.
Afraid that she might never stand up to the Chaaru he saw, that she might never be ready for the impact of everything he was.
“Yep. Before he walked in.”
“I remember,” she added, and realized that it sounded like she was trying to make that evening more than it had meant then. She’d been so utterly in love with Ravi. But with hindsight, she’d realized she hadn’t even known the true him.
She’d been in love with the adventure she was beginning in a new country. Excited to be away from her controlling, conservative parents. Enamored of all the possibilities life with Ravi could unfold.
“It’s okay if you don’t, sweetheart,” DP said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. In a tender voice that pretzeled her heart into so many new shapes.
Clasping his hand, she pushed her face into his touch. “We argued about who was the world’s greatest cricketer. I ate all your peanuts, and you bought me beer with your fake ID. I nearly choked on it, it was so bitter. The bartender thought we were talking about baseball. I kept saying batsman, and he said they are called batters. Then added it was a good thing I was so cute. You corrected him with such a glare that he was afraid of approaching us for the rest of the night.”
“I think I won the argument.”
“No way,” Chaaru said, leaning into him. She felt like she’d been running all her life towards this moment. And yet, running away from herself too. So basically, running in place, not knowing that what she needed was within reach. “You…were stunned when Ravi walked in and introduced me as his fiancée.”
“It felt like a truck had run me over,” he said, his broad chest rising and falling. “For the next few days, I walked around in a trance. Even my mom commented on it.”
Apparently, he would not hold back anything anymore.
Her heart was a thundering beat in her ears. It was a marvel the whole world didn’t stop turning at the sound. She looked away, past their friends and the hotel, toward the obsidian ocean. But not even that brilliant sight could distract her. “What did she say?”
“She asked if I was okay. I told her I’d almost touched a rainbow.” His mouth turned rueful. “She hugged me tight and told me to never change. It’s one of the last things I remember her saying to me.”
“DP…” Chaaru said, trembling all over.
Words were mirages, and life was one unending replay of that night and God, so much time had passed. A million moments gained and lost, and yet, his love for her had sustained, deep and abiding.
That evening at a bar had been two decades ago. Had he loved her all this time? How was she to hold on to it?
“It’s not a demand or a declaration, Char.” His rough hand clasped her cheek, and she sank into his touch, into him, as if he were her only lifeline. “Just a memory I turned into a poem.”
Her knees gave out and she fell into him, giving herself over. And he caught her, as he’d always done. As he would always do, however messy and imperfect she was.
She looked up and the sight of his broad face with square cheekbones and thick lips and that honker of a nose…every inch of him was so familiar to her. But now, it was all new, as if she’d unearthed a rare treasure among her cheap trinkets. “I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”
“I write bad poetry,” he countered with a self-deprecating grin. “If you read it again, you’ll see it.”
“Bad or not, it was beautiful. Did you-”
“Nope. Not in fifteen minutes. Though I attempted one as an homage to your body. Decided Mona would have my hide. Honestly, it’s damn hard to find words that rhyme with pussy.”
Laughter burst out of her, leaving her breathless and shaking. “You didn’t work hard enough then.”
“Chaaru’s Pussy, music like Claude Debussy…” he started with an exaggerated serious expression.
“That’s that great classical composer and you’ve reduced the poor guy’s genius for my…”
He grinned and gathered her to him, his fingers pressing tightly into her flesh. As if he knew that she needed to be held, even as the storm wrecking her was him.
She wrapped her arms around his middle, her legs propped over his, and gave him what Kaasi called her Squid Hug. He smelled like pine and sweat and whiskey, a cocktail of scents she would forever associate with love. Her home and her adventure, it was all him now.
“It’s a gift,” he said, dragging his mouth across the top of her cheek. “Can you accept it?”
She buried her face in his neck. “It’s the best gift anyone’s ever given me. And that includes Kaasi’s fifth grade Mother’s Day card that gave me coupons for three hugs and six kisses.”
He laughed, and she stole that sound for herself. Though she was beginning to see that she didn’t need to hoard them like a thief. She just needed to woman up and claim them all.
“That girl you met that evening at the bar…she was a na?ve fool. If only…”
His fingers in her hair tugged hard, sending heat prickling over her skin. “Don’t you dare say that. That girl was young and innocent and so achingly brave. So full of life. And the woman she’s become…”
“Tell me, please,” she begged, needing his praise more than she needed air.
“The woman is all the promise and potential of that girl fulfilled beyond anything I could imagine that night. There will always be parts of that girl in you, Char. And I adore the woman as much as I adored her.”
Tears filled her eyes and this time, Chaaru didn’t stop them. They drenched his neck and her soul, washing away the clinging remnants of shame she’d hidden away about that girl.
The shame had never been hers, anyway.
Just as this man had always been hers in one form or another.