Chapter 21
In Today’s Therapy Session, Let’s Evaluate Why You Love Hypothesizing About Other People’s Lives, Krishna. Shall We?
Prabalmachi, Sunday
After that difficult conversation, I thought I might doze off from exhaustion, but I’m unable to sleep a wink. Priti’s fast
asleep already, snoring loudly, but I lie with my face resting on crossed arms, looking out at the view, AirPods playing soft
songs in my ears.
A few college-aged trekkers from other groups have lit a bonfire about ten feet from the tents. I long to go outside and warm
my hands over the fire, but I don’t want to interrupt what looks like an intimate gathering of friends. They’re laughing and
whispering to each other, seated in a circle, bundled in Solapur blankets clearly stolen from their tents.
It looks like they’re playing truth or dare, because at one point, one of the girls crawls over to another girl seated opposite her, and they kiss, giggling as they pull away. The second girl, the one who breaks the kiss first, looks dazed, a taut set to her shoulders.
I smile to myself, recognizing that look of utter sapphic longing on her face. If I’m speculating correctly, those two girls
are good friends. The bolder one, who crawled over to the other girl, is taking the kiss as just that—a dare. The shy one’s either closeted or hasn’t confessed she’s in love with her yet.
Perhaps I’m wrong about the whole situation and making up stories in my head, but a part of me hopes these two girls get together
one day. There’s nothing that fills me with more buttery warmth than the thought of queer people being happy and experiencing
their own love stories.
I’ve always been like this. Gauging absolute strangers from a distance and making up stories about them in my head. They have
no idea there’s a girl with an overactive imagination looking at them, hypothesizing about their probably wildly different
lives.
The image of the two girls kissing plays in my head again, the lingering touch of their lips, and I shut my eyes, wondering,
not for the first time, what it would be like to kiss someone. I’ve overhyped the thought of it in my head, deluded myself
into thinking the experience of that first kiss needs to be picture-perfect, with the perfect person.
It can be a special moment without having to be perfect. It can be with someone who doesn’t end up being “the one” for you.
Under spur-of-the-moment circumstances. You might like to meticulously organize every aspect of your life, but unplanned things
are best sometimes.
I turn my head, resting my cheek against the back of my hands, eyes closed.
Rudra’s right. I’m giving it too much importance, building it up to a fairy tale in my head.
It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter so much.
Just because it hasn’t happened to me yet doesn’t make me any less worthy or undeserving of love and romance.
It will happen in its own time, take its own course. I know it. I can feel it.
In the meantime, I can try to continue to heal my existing relationship with Priti.
And for that, I need Rudra.
I open my phone and shoot off a You up? text to him, and after a quick back-and-forth, we agree to meet near the edge of the row of tents.
I’m the first to arrive. My feet tap the ground nervously as I wait.
I don’t know what I was thinking shooting off a You up? text like that to him. Everyone knows it’s the pick-up line, the booty call. Luckily, when Rudra emerges from the tent he’s sharing with Varun, he doesn’t look like he thinks much of it.
I hate how good he looks.
“Did I disturb you?” I ask, arms wrapped around my chest to trap some of the warmth and protect my torso against the chill.
“No, I was up.”
For a second, we stare at each other, not knowing what to say, and I turn red, lowering my eyes to the ground. “You want to
go somewhere else? I thought we could talk about Priti and the wedding.” I tip my shoulder in the direction of the trekkers
around the campfire. “Somewhere more . . . private?”
Rudra funnels out a breath from between his lips. He looks nervous. But he nods anyway. “Yeah.”
We start walking away from the campsite, in the direction opposite to the one we came from, where I saw a few of the campers
going. There’s a dirt path that leads into the thick awning of trees.
We pass small, closely set-together houses made of mud and clay, with thatched roofs and tiny glassless windows.
This is where I assume the locals—whose businesses profit off the trekking and camping tourists—live.
I can peek through the windows into the dark interiors, the path lit by the dull yellow bulbs swinging in the wind.
After a few minutes, we leave the village behind, and the dirt path ebbs into the forest again.
“We could sit there,” I say, slowing my steps as I spot a couple of rocks up ahead. Rudra nods, and we sit. The trees rustle
around us, leaves dipping and rising in the wind, branches reaching for the sky, wreathed by fireflies.
“So what’s the plan?” he asks, leaning toward me with his elbows resting on his thighs. I appreciate it when people sit like
that when we’re conversing; it makes me feel like they actually care about what I’m saying.
“Before we get into that, I just thought I’d let you know,” I say softly. “Priti came out to me.”
Rudra’s eyes widen. “Oh.”
“I know that she’s after the bride, not the groom. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her about our plan. That’s still a secret.”
I scan his face, thinking about how I misread his emotions for Priti and interpreted them so wrong all this time. The love
and care were there, of course, but they were platonic and familial rather than romantic. I let my cousins’ gossip lead me
astray.
“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner,” Rudra says. “I couldn’t out her until she was ready for you to know.”
“That’s okay. You know I understand.”
Rudra smiles. “Of course.”
“It’s the same reason why I asked you not to tell her about me—because I wanted to be the one to do it.”
“I hope it goes without saying that even if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have broken your trust.”
“Did you always know Mansi was Priti’s ex?” I ask, hoping I’m not prodding too much.
“No. Everything else I told you about Priti was true.” Rudra sighs. “I knew she was dating this girl from Powai, that they
broke up, and she’s been heartbroken for a while. Her cousins were right about her being secretive, but I knew she would’ve
told me when she felt ready. Only then, her relationship ended, and I didn’t see a point in asking her about it when it seemed
like the last thing she wanted to talk about. I didn’t realize until today that Digha knows.”
“You overheard them too, I guess?”
“Yeah, and it kind of stings, but I’ll reconcile with it, because at least Priti is talking to Digha. Sometimes we need different
things from different people, and she deserves to have someone to share this with.”
“You have, like, grad school–level emotional intelligence,” I joke, even as my throat is choked with emotion. Priti was right.
She was so right. Rudra is an amazing guy, with such a large heart.
He’s making me miss something I’ve never had—and now, never will—with him.
Rudra shakes his head. “It’s just decency, honestly.” We sit quietly for a while, letting our conversation steep in our minds,
before he asks, “So what’s the plan now?”
“Amrit told me the shaadi is at sunset on Monday, in a beachside resort in Calangute.” Which is tomorrow, because it’s just
past midnight.
“So it’s in North Goa. I’ve been there before.”
With whom? Priti? Other friends? An ex? I want to ask, but it doesn’t make sense to pry in the context of our current conversation. The thought of Rudra having an ex makes me squirm, but there’s nothing I can do about his past. He’s single now, or I think he is.
Wait.
What if he’s not single?
You’re being paranoid, I assure myself. He is very single, and it shouldn’t matter to me even if he weren’t, because I’m not hoping for anything
with him. Or at the very least I’m trying not to.
“I think we should get Mansi and Priti alone sometime during noon, so we can give both of them the time to gather their emotions
and make a decision in the right headspace,” I say. “This isn’t going to be easy for either of them, and there’s no guarantee
Mansi doesn’t actually want this wedding. She might’ve moved on, unlike Priti.”
“I doubt it,” Rudra says. “They didn’t break up that long ago. There’s a good chance that whoever this Mansi is marrying is
a rebound. It’s not even been a year since she and Priti ended things.”
“We still can’t tell Priti about our plans,” I say. “She doesn’t want us interfering in any of this, or she would’ve told
us—at least you—the real reason why she’s been so desperate to get to Goa on time. But we’ve got to help her out.”
“See, Priti might bow out at the last moment and decide to not go to the wedding at all. So we will need a contingency plan.”
“What do you mean?”
“If she tries to back out, we’ll need to let her in on our plan to sabotage this wedding so we can convince her to take the
plunge.” Rudra’s jaw sets. “You should also probably get in touch with Amrit and learn more details so we don’t screw anything
up. If we’re going to help Priti, let’s do it right.”
I chew at my lower lip, my mind going back to the message Amrit left me.
I can’t text him asking for details about the wedding and completely ignore the still thinking about you message he sent me last. Do I reply with a simple me too and make up an excuse even though it would be a blatant lie at this point?
It’s not right to raise someone’s hopes and lead
them on like that, is it?
“I’m going to bonk my head into a wall,” I mutter, not knowing I’ve said it out loud until I find Rudra looking at me, a confused
expression lining his face. “Sorry,” I add hastily, “I’m just stressed.”
“Because you’re meeting Amrit soon?” Rudra asks, his eyes darkening.