Chapter Twenty-Nine
………………………….
Ily
I COULDN’T SLEEP.
For two weeks, I couldn’t sleep.
In my old childhood bedroom, in my happy family home, I couldn’t sleep longer than an hour before the nightmares started.
The nightmares of serving so many Masters instead of only one. Nightmares where Roland and Ferdinand, Travis and Ian all took their turns because Henri wasn’t there to claim me.
I’d wake in a full-blown sweat.
I’d pace the garden with its veggie patch and windchimes and look at the moon as it cycled from crescent to half-full.
What if he’d never been there?
What if he’d never existed?
What if I’d never seen him at the club and spent six months being broken by others?
I thought I’d hated Henri for those initial pains. I thought I’d been strong surviving him when really…I’d never hated him because I felt him.
I’d always felt him.
Felt his loneliness, his longing, his love.
I’d felt him when he was only half alive—a man with nothing and no one. Would I feel him now if he died?
Would the flames between us turn to ash and cause my heart to crumble?
He’s alive.
He has to be.
I rubbed my chest, tracing the indentation in the centre of my sternum. The mark of death that’d been stopped thanks to Peter protecting me.
Two weeks since I’d been home.
All my belongings from my old apartment with Sam had been stacked in boxes in the corner of my childhood room. Apparently, he’d visited my parents a few weeks after he’d left me in Paris. He’d broken down and apologised for leaving me there. He’d shown he did have a sliver of a soul and had even sent a text to my new phone when the rumour got to him that I’d returned. His apology had been true, the guilt haunting him enough to make him a better person.
I’d texted back and said I forgave him.
My days were kept busy with aunts and uncles who popped by. My cousins—blood and non-blood—did what they thought was best and distracted me with presents, cakes, and conversation.
I found myself craving the same quiet that Krish held so dear.
We’d often lie on the lawn just staring at the sky. Occasionally, Tiger would hop onto our chests and nudge our chins with his exquisitely soft nose. Krish was right. That rabbit had some sort of magical calmness that fed into me the moment he was near.
If it wasn’t for my brother and his bunny, I might’ve gone screaming down the street.
I had so much inside me.
A churning mess that needed to be free.
I didn’t know if I wanted to sob or curse, screech or break.
By the end of the third week, my parents made noises of me speaking to someone. Dad ran a few tests on me at his hospital and thanks to regular home cooked meals, I put on the weight I’d lost. The cut on my neck and hole in my chest healed far too quickly, erasing what’d happened, making it seem as if none of it had been real.
The past eight months took on a strange sort of patina.
A dark haze that grew thicker and thicker, deleting the past until I clung with desperate fingers to memories.
Not because I wanted to recall the pain but because I wanted to recall them .
Peter and Mollie.
Citra and Kirk.
Suri and Dane and Caishen and Rebeca and Nancy and…
Rachel messaged me often from where she’d moved in with her uncle in Madrid. Her parents were too old to have another baby in the house, but her uncle—who she’d always been close to—had never gotten to raise a child. He and his wife had tried to adopt, but she’d died before they’d been approved.
Rachel said she’d never seen him so happy to have her stay even though she still couldn’t decide if she loved her son or hated him for being Victor’s.
“Ily, baby?”
I looked up from pretending to read in the egg-chair on the patio. The winter chill kept trying to push me inside but…I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to hear my mother and her two sisters laughing as they made Sunday dinner complete with malai kofta and banana blossom curry.
“I’d murder someone for a banana blossom coconut curry from my cousin’s restaurant. He runs it with his wife, and I’ve never found anything as good.”
Peter’s voice tore through my head.
The first night I’d arrived at the jewel’s quarters.
The first hint of his sorrow.
I choked on a sob as I looked up at my mother and did my best to hide my tears. “Yeah, Mama?”
“Come join us. I don’t like to see you out here all alone.” She wiped her hands on a tea towel, giving me a sad grimace.
“I’m okay. Truly.” I plastered a smile over my melancholy. I loved my parents too much to let them continue worrying about me, especially seeing as I’d told them—in heavily redacted sentences—about where I’d been and why I hadn’t been able to come home. I hadn’t told them about Henri’s involvement in stealing me away. I didn’t tell them about the sexual nature of the abuse. But I had confessed that I’d found people who meant the world to me, all while we suffered in sorrow together.
Giving me a knowing look, she said gently, “Would you think about talking to someone like your father suggested?”
I closed my book and shook my head. “Not yet. Maybe soon.”
She studied me before nodding. “If you need me, you know where I am.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll bring you a mango lassi. How about that?”
“Sure.” I gave her a grateful smile, thankful she wasn’t pushing me to socialise. “That would be lovely.”
Bustling back into the kitchen, she reminded me a little of May, the cook in Victor’s kitchens. What’d happened to her? Was she back home with her loved ones?
A stabbing in my heart.
For a second, I feared it was Henri.
That he’d died wherever he was in the world…hunting.
I clung to the hope that I’d feel him. That I’d know if he was in mortal danger by whatever unexplainable connection we shared.
I just wished it allowed us to speak telepathically across oceans.
It would be so easy if we could.
Come back.
I’m here.
Waiting.
Ugh!
No more.
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I couldn’t keep hanging in limbo.
Not grieving. Not moving on. Not accepting the one person’s death I just couldn’t acknowledge.
Peter.
Henri was still alive.
But Paavak…
I stiffened. What if no one had told his family about him? What if they were still in limbo like me…waiting for him to go home?
Oh God.
Grabbing my phone from the blanket bundled over my legs, I typed Paavak’s name into Google. I didn’t hold out hope that it’d be as easy as finding him on social media. But…his name wasn’t that common, and I added Leeds to the search.
He said he’d moved to Jaipur to be near extended family, but his parents had stayed…
Immediately, a bike repair company popped up.
Run by Arun Chauhan.
Beneath that search was another for a remembering service for his son. A service to say goodbye dated three years ago.
Screenshotting the address, I ripped off the blanket, flew into the house, and shrugged into my rose gold puffer jacket. My grey sweatpants would have to do. My brother’s hoodie that was two sizes too big for me was not visiting attire.
But I couldn’t wait.
I’d waited for far too long.
“I’m going out! I’m taking your car, Mama!”
“Okay, baby! Be safe!”
I didn’t tell them I’d be gone a while.
That the drive between my home and Paavak’s was almost three hours.
I just shot out the door and went to break his parents’ heart. Just like he’d broken mine.
* * * * *
His family home was so similar to mine, I had to bite the insides of my cheeks from sobbing.
A quaint front garden, little cobbled path, pansies in the window boxes, and a red tiled roof. Tudor style white and black cladding with the telltale wavy roof line that showed its age and the fact that the foundations might have sank a little over the years.
Through the left window, a man and woman sat down to dinner. He kissed her on the head as he went to take his chair. She looked up at him with a smile.
Even from here, I knew I’d found the right place.
His mannerisms reminded me so much of his son. His smile as he looked at his wife. The way his eyes crinkled with affection and gratefulness.
My entire body jittered and ached.
The tears I’d bottled up for far, far too long made me sick and horribly sad.
Don’t do this.
They look happy.
They said goodbye three years ago.
I clutched the steering wheel.
I grabbed the keys to wake the engine.
I should go…
What right did I have to hurt them with his death when they already accepted it?
“You’re worried about me because you want to be my friend?” I eyed him warily.
He laughed under his breath. “Well, you did let me perve at you when we first met. You didn’t condemn me for asking for something to get me through the day, so yes…I would like to be friends.”
I folded over the steering wheel, choking on a sob.
The flashback.
The offer of comfort.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t let him die without sharing just how incredible he was.
He deserved to be mourned and not forgotten.
Before I could stop myself, I ripped out the keys, wrenched open the door, and ran up the garden path.
The bing-bong of the doorbell echoed far too loudly.
The seconds that ticked past scratched up my spine until every tear I hadn’t allowed myself to fall clung to my eyelashes.
And when the door finally opened, and I stared into soft brown eyes, so similar to Paavak’s, and studied the face of the man who’d raised my soulmate, I couldn’t hold them back anymore.
I dropped to my knees on their doorstep.
I broke apart right there at his feet.
Every hardship and hurt, every pain and panic unravelled, and I couldn’t stop.
Paavak’s father cooed under his breath and shouted for his wife. With gentle hands, he helped tug me to my feet, then wrapped his arms around my quaking shoulders and guided me into their house.
I felt no fear as the door closed.
I shuddered in the arms of a stranger.
But he wasn’t a stranger.
I felt my friend in his arms.
I heard Peter as a child in the walls and saw his ghost standing at the bottom of the stairs.
His mother dashed around me and patted the couch for her husband to place me down. They sat on either side of me, both arms wrapped tight around me, rocking with me as I broke and broke and broke.
“It’s okay. There, there. What on earth happened, beta ?”
I broke harder.
Even his voice reminded me of Paavak.
I’d lost Henri and Peter.
I’d lost my innocence and happiness.
But in these strangers’ arms, I found the strength to smile through my tears and study them.
Paavak’s father wiped my tears away with his thumb. “Are you safe? Are you hurt? You can tell us. We’ll look after you.”
“Did someone attack you?” his mother asked softly, her voice so soft and sweet. “We can call the police for you? Your family? What happened?”
“I…” I sat taller and gathered all my courage. “I-I’m a friend of your son.”
Both parents froze and shot each other a look.
“Paavak?” his dad asked. “But he’s been gone for—”
“H-He saved my life.” Touching my chest that would always have a small indentation from where the bullet had shot me, I spoke through my tears. “Your son protected me without any hesitation. He stepped in front of me and…” I clung to his mother’s hand. “He…he died last month saving me and…” I hung my head and couldn’t continue.
His mother started to cry.
His father got up and paced the lounge.
I didn’t know how much time passed but eventually my tears dried up, and I accepted a hot tea that his father placed into my hands.
“It’s been five and a half years,” he murmured, crouching on his heels before me. “We’ve missed him every day. Yet you tell us he’s been alive this entire time? Can you...can you tell us what happened?”
I clutched the warm mug and winced. “It’s not an easy story to hear. But…I’ll tell it if you want.”
“I’d like to know,” his father said. “If you can share it with us.”
“What do you want to know?”
His mother dabbed at her tears with a pretty mandala handkerchief but her smile revealed she was far stronger than me. “Everything. We want to know everything.”
And so I told them…
Everything.