Chapter 48
JAHNVI
“E verett?”
The fear that rose up to my throat was immediate. I could even call it violent. It was a feeling so forceful that it froze me i n my tracks and all I could do was stare at Everett’s frozen back.
He was dressed in a white button-down and blue slacks.
There was a boot around half his left leg and he was leaning on a crutch, but that wasn’t the issue here.
I already had guessed something must have happened and he might have gotten injured to drop the wedding order like that.
It was just so out of character for him, so I knew it would have needed to be major.
But once again, that wasn’t what had caused my petrifying fear.
Wasn’t there something people always said about the minutes before a hurricane? That it was always eerily quiet and calm before the aggressive storm hit? I’d never been in a hurricane before, but for a second, I almost understood what they meant.
Everett was completely still, looking down at the grass near his feet. There was a sideways cardboard box that had spilled half of its jasmine flowers on the ground.
“Everett?” I whispered, since talking loud seemed wrong “I can, um, I can help you pick them up—”
“No,” he spoke, still frozen. “You’ve...done quite enough.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, moving closer so that I could see his face. I don’t know what I was expecting. Tears? Some type of anger? Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t on his face.
His face was completely wiped of all emotions.
“You. Have. Done. Enough.” He stepped closer to me with his crutch so that he wasn’t too close but his point still came across. “Thank you, Jahnvi. But please, go join the others inside while I clean up my mess.”
“What’s gotten into you?” I guess what I had said was the wrong thing.
“What’s gotten into me?” His eyebrows furrowed and his jaw clenched for a second before he continued speaking in his weirdly calm tone.
“Jahnvi Patel, I have spent the last eighteen years obsessed with you. I let you into my kitchen, I let you take over my mind, and I let you break my heart. And look where it got me, huh?” He gulped, pausing as if he needed to control himself as he kept going.
“It got me a broken ankle because my heartbroken ass couldn’t focus when I was fixing the deep fryer, a lost wedding order because I had to go get emergency surgery because of it, and a reputation in ruins with a bank account in the negatives!
Now, let me tell you what got into me: some fucking sense!
I think I finally got some common sense and all it tells me to do is AVOID YOU ! ”
His voice had gradually gained volume, and he was shouting by the end. And, honestly, I was glad. Anything was better than his complete lack of emotion from a few moments earlier.
The rain had followed his lead though, slowly getting more forceful. There was now a healthy downpour around us, and my makeup was melting away.
I didn’t fucking care.
“So,” I whispered, wiping the wet hair from my eyes. “Do you want me to leave?”
I was surprised to see a smile. He chuckled, looking down again at his dirty flowers, and when he looked back up there were tears in his eyes. “No.”
“You want me to stay?” My voice cracked. Something about seeing him like this, looking so lost and helpless over some fallen flowers...
I didn’t want him like this.
“Jahnvi Patel,” he whispered, looking down again before speaking to my face. “Even after completely ruining me, all I want to do is tell you that you look absolutely perfect right now. And that’s the problem.”
Oh.
“You know,” I said, hugging myself not only because my now sopping lehenga was making me cold, “I get it. I waited by my window all night yesterday to make sure you were okay. I should’ve been furious, and I had made a resolution to put me first and forget you.
But I just couldn’t.” I took a step closer to him.
“I woke up from surgery and all I could think about was how I’d stood you up.” He took two staggering steps closer to me. It hurt me to see him limp.
“Everett, I—” And I was cut off because Everett decided he couldn’t wait any longer. Faster than I thought he was capable of moving in crutches, he latched his free arm around me, and his lips were on mine before I could comprehend anything.
Suddenly, to me the rain went quiet.
I wasn’t cold anymore.
And I barely registered the fact that Everett’s crutch had fallen to the ground.
The ground was suddenly swept from my feet; I was airborne. With strength I didn’t know he was capable of, he lifted me onto the hood of his car so that I was taller than him.
I cradled his head, kissing him roughly, and he matched my energy.
He kissed me so hard, I saw stars. I moved my hand from his face to his soaked shirt. The feeling of his wet clothes around my arms and the ridges of his skin was causing the warmest type of heat in my lower stomach.
Our combined tears mixed together along with the rain water.
When his lips finally left mine and I was finally able to open my eyes again, I blinked slowly to the most breathtaking view I had ever seen in my entire life.
Everett’s face, hair wet, eyes red, and mouth open in shock, was only centimeters from mine. I could see the few stray eyebrow hairs that were imperfect, the pores on his nose, and every little detail that I thought I’d never see.
That I thought he would never let me see.
And yet, here he was. Here he was in the most vulnerable situation, crying in front of me with my arms roped around his neck. Here he was, standing so close that I could see his Adam’s apple bob when he gulped, clearing his throat.
“Jahnvi?”
“Everett?” My voice broke. I suddenly realized I was sobbing too. I was sobbing very hard actually, a string of tears pouring down my face. I felt a cough rise up in my throat.
He wiped the tears from my eyes with a gentle finger, pressing a soft kiss on my cheeks afterward.
“Jahnvi...” He said my name again.
“How,” I sniffed, “H-how did you break your ankle?”
He smiled slightly, still wiping tears as they came and smoothing down my wet hair. I felt bad that he was taking care of me so well, but he had no one to wipe his own tears.
So, I used the edge of my chunni to wipe his eyes. He flinched at first and I felt his whole body go rigid against my legs.
But he let me.
He spoke softly as I fixed his wet collar, “I was thinking about you when I accidentally let the deep fryer fall on my ankle. It was a quick surgery, and I can take the boot off in two months.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me this on the phone?”
He suddenly caught my fingers that were on his chest. “Because...Because you scare me, Jahnvi. I wanted to call you the second the anesthesia wore off. I wanted you to be the next person to know after my grandma. And that’s horrifying.
” He squeezed my fingers. “It scares me that I need you so much. I guess I was also mad at myself. Mad that I can’t be the guy you deserve.
Hell, I couldn’t even show up to one date. ”
“I need you too,” I whispered back to him, squeezing his hand without missing a beat. “You already know that; I made it perfectly clear. I probably would’ve gone to every hospital in Illinois to find you and get an answer.”
“Doesn’t that scare you? What if you couldn’t find me? What if I was gone?”
I shook my hand free from his grasp and before he could catch it again, I put it on his cheek. I raised my other hand so I was cradling his face. I shook my head, smiling softly. Everything made sense all of a sudden. “I’m not scared. I’m not scared at all.”
“Jahnvi, I’m not planning on going to a college next year.” He shuddered against me. “You’re not always going to be there right next door, and I won’t always be standing across from you.”
“I know, and that doesn’t scare me.”
“How?” His voice broke.
I bent down to kiss his forehead. “Because one day, Everett, one day in the distant future if everything works for us, we will be together. Once you have established a thriving restaurant and have hundreds of people working for you, then you’ll come find me wherever I am.
And I will be waiting for you.” I felt his skin move as he broke out into a huge smile.
I laughed a bit while I spoke. “We will have all the time in the world, okay? We will have all the time in the world to go to the movies hundreds of times, go on cute dates without you worrying that a newbie is going to break your deep fryer, and be that couple who everyone is jealous of. Someday, it will happen. Do you trust me?”
He nodded.
“Good,” The rain around us was starting to lessen.
“So, let’s keep trying for now, okay? I know this is part of any movie or book where we’re supposed to have figured everything out.
We would’ve gone through our big character arcs and figured out how to balance each other and our lives, but we just haven’t figured it out yet.
And it’s okay—that’s what being young is for, I think.
It’s going to be messy, and we’re probably going to get mad at each other often.
But it’s okay. Let me help you the way you help me.
And one day, Everett, I promise you it will work for us. ”
“It will,” he repeated, nodding. He wrapped his arms around me, and I slowly bent down and cradled his head on my chest, letting my head rest on his shoulder.
“Jahnvi?” he whispered to me.
“Everett?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.” My arms protectively tightened around him, “I love you so, so much. And I always will. I always will.”