Chapter 13
The Next Night…
“Oh my God,” Tempest breathes, looking at me in the mirror. “This has to be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She’s referring to my maang tikka, an Indian wedding jewelry that you wear on the parting of your hair. You place it in the middle of your parting and secure it with a little hook. It usually has a pendant that drops down to the top of your forehead that’s all sparkly and lavish. The one I’m wearing is made of gold and is studded with red stones. My biji helped me pick it out for the play.
“I know,” Wyn breathes out as well, her eyes glued to the crescent-shaped sparkly pendant.
“Are you kidding?” I have to jump in here. “That is the most beautiful thing ever.”
I’m referring to the sparkly princess cut diamond sitting on Wyn’s finger. Because guess what, she got engaged!
Yup!
Conrad popped the question—yay—and they’re getting married. I’m so, so happy for her. This is super exciting and of course, the happiness on my new friend’s face is a sight to behold.
We take a few moments to admire her ring before Wyn goes, “But back to you. I so want that for my wedding.”
Meadow is next. “I know. Me too.”
“How about we go shopping for it?” I suggest from where I’m sitting on the dressing room chair.
This is the first time I’ve gotten a chance to actually sit down and focus on my makeup and costume. Since the play has an Indian backdrop—yup, I came up with the idea—I’m the one helping everyone. Not that I’m an expert, of course. I hardly understand Hindi, but I have a great tutor, Biji.
In the beginning of the semester, our professor had asked us to write a script and imagine a set we’d like to work on. Hypothetically. Because not in a million years we could’ve imagined putting on a show with the dismal budget we had. Anyway, of course I took inspiration from all the movies I grew up watching and wrote down a loose script based on one of my favorite movies. I detailed the kind of costumes that would go into it, the kind of stage setting, the background music I’d like and so on.
We had so much fun discussing it in class and doing a table read. And I thought that was the end of it. But then the dean managed to find some extra money in the budget and our own efforts brought in some cash, and together it was enough to be able to do one show.
And everyone unanimously picked my play.
Since then, we’ve been developing it—the script, the costumes, the set, everything—and since it’s largely my vision. I’m the one who’s been responsible for most of the elements.
Meadow’s eyes are wide. “You think so?”
I turn to face her, all my jewelry tinkling. “Of course. We can hit up my biji and she’d totally be down with that.”
Before Meadow can speak, Tempest chimes in, “I’ll take you up on that offer.” Her gray eyes roam over my jewelry and my red saree. “I would love to get a saree too.”
“Let’s make it a shopping date,” Wyn suggests.
My heart feels all light and warm. “Yes, I’d like that.”
Tempest beams. “Okay, now we’re going to leave you alone so you can focus, and, you know, do what you actors do before you go on stage.”
Honestly, I don’t even know what actors do because this is my first time. And I’m so thankful that they all showed up in support. Not to mention surprised because I wasn’t expecting them at all. But they all said that Shepard texted them early this morning and told them to go because he wasn’t going to be there.
He is the world’s best boyfriend, isn’t he?
I can’t wait to see him tomorrow.
I haven’t talked to him since last night and I miss him. I so, so miss my boyfriend.
But first, I have to do this.
I have to go on stage.
After all my friends leave to go find their seats, I do last-minute lines with my cast members, and then fifteen minutes later, it’s time for us to take our places on the stage. I stand on the chalked cross and close my eyes for a few seconds and open them when a bright light shines upon my face.
What happens after that, I don’t remember.
I don’t think I could ever be able to tell what exactly happens around me. Who moves. Who speaks. If the light is shined where it was supposed to shine. If the violins peaked where they were supposed to. If the audience laughed at the spots we predicted them to or if they gasped where we thought they should be gasping.
I don’t remember any of those things.
All I remember is that I’m burning.
I’m burning because I’m fire.
I’m flowing because I’m the ocean.
I’m flying because I’ve grown wings.
It’s transcendental. It’s sublime.
It’s an aphrodisiac.
It’s how I feel when I’m with him.
I couldn’t stop that thought even if I wanted to. I couldn’t stop thinking about him in this moment, his gleaming eyes and his dark hair; a cigarette dangling from his rose mouth and his deep voice calling me Dora.
So when the play’s over and the lights of the auditorium come on and I see him, I think I’m imagining things. Among the audience who just stood up to their feet to clap and cheer and whistle, he’s standing all the way in the back, by the exit, as he always does.
But somehow, I know it’s not my imagination.
Even though it’s highly unlikely for him to be here, he is and there’s no way I can look away from him. He’s the center of my focus as I take the bow with the rest of the cast members. Like I’m the center of his as he claps like the rest of the people.
Actually no, not like the rest of the people.
He claps slowly. Deliberately as if.
And he claps just for me—somehow, I know that too—and not the rest of the cast.
How’s he here?
What is he doing here?
Just as we finish taking our bows and the applause has started to die down, he turns around and leaves. He pushes open the door to the auditorium and walks out. And I have no choice except to run after him. We’ve finished with our formal bow, but people are still on the stage, waving and laughing and hugging each other, but I break away from them.
I dash off stage, push past startled people lingering, just off the curtain, and come out into the hallway. Except for a few stragglers, it’s empty. For a couple of seconds, I stand frozen, thinking that maybe I did imagine him. After all, he should be with the team. There’s a game tonight and he needs to be there for it. There’s no way he missed his game, missed his job—for me, no less—even though soccer really isn’t his thing.
Still, I make myself move and go in search of him even though I have absolutely no idea which direction he went in. But apparently, I picked the right one because a few steps in, I get yanked by the arm and pulled into the prop closet.
As soon as I hear the sharp thud of the door being closed, I come to stand on my tiptoes.
With anticipation.
With eagerness.
Even though for the first several seconds all there is, is darkness and silence punctuated by heavy breaths. In the back of my mind, I realize that maybe I should be screaming right now, struggling against the grip around my bicep.
What if it’s not him?
But I know it is.
I recognize him from the bite of his fingers on my flesh, how sharp it is.
How hot and stinging.
I know him from the way he breathes, all thick and noisy. I know him from the scent of the air that leaves his lungs, smoky and spicy, marshmallow-y.
And I’m proven right when he lets me go and pulls the dangling switch to the bulb, flooding the cold and damp closet with yellow light.
Before I know it, I’m taking him in.
I’m taking in little nuances of his face after weeks and weeks of just long-distance phone conversations. I’m taking him in without the screen between us. I’m gorging on his face, eating up his hard cheekbones and that clean-shaven jaw; biting the center of his pouty mouth and licking the stubborn line of his nose. I’m tracing his thick eyebrows, his chocolate brown hair that’s polished back. I even focus and try to count his countless forest-y eyelashes.
“What are you…” I whisper, trying to calm myself down. “What are you doing here?”
Up until I spoke, he was taking me in as well. Probably in the similar manner as I was, but at my words, he looks into my eyes. “I had to come.”
His voice is deep and growly, familiar, but there’s a quality to it that’s foreign.
Which is when I realize that he wasn’t looking at me like I was looking at him, no. His gaze, like his voice, has a different quality to it too. It was there when he was clapping back at the auditorium. I was so flustered at his sudden appearance that I couldn’t figure it out what it was.
I know now.
It’s awe.
He’s looking at me with awe.
Like he can’t believe I’m real.
And if I am, then he can’t believe that he gets to look at me.
“B-but you have a game tonight,” I remind him, my skin breaking out in goose bumps, not from the chill lingering in the closet but from his awe-filled heat.
“I had to see you.”
“You have a game in an hour,” I insist.
“I took the night off,” he says like an afterthought.
“You took the night off? You never do that. You… The game?—”
“I need you to promise me something,” he cuts me off.
“What?”
“Promise me you’ll never let your dream go.”
My mouth parts on a breath. “What? I?—”
“Just promise me,” he commands urgently. “Promise me that no matter what, you’ll always, fucking always, go for it. You’ll always seize your destiny.”
“You think this is my destiny?”
“Fuck yeah.”
I look at him for a few seconds, my body overcome with all these emotions before nodding. “I will.”
He lets out a breath of relief. “You were…”
When he doesn’t seem to pick up the trail he left, I ask, “I was what?”
He licks his lips. “Luminous.”
My heart thumps. “L-luminous.”
A frown furrows his brows. It’s light and it’s curious. “No, you were… I don’t…”
“You don’t what?” I prod when he trails off again.
He shakes his head slightly. “I’m trying to think of a word to describe you, but I can’t…” Another shake. “I can’t find it.”
My throat is going dry. “Luminous is good.”
“Luminous is not enough.”
“I—”
“Radiant. Dazzling. Scintillating. Resplendent. Incandescent. Luminiferous…” He licks his lips again. “I don’t… I can’t find words.”
He looks so lost then.
So lost and God, so adorable.
A word that I never thought I’d use to describe him. And without volition, my hand rises up and goes to his harsh cheek. I cup his angular jaw and whisper, “It’s okay. You just did. You used”—I count in my head—“seven words to describe me.”
The muscle on his cheek beats under my palm. “None of them are right.”
“I liked luminiferous.”
“Fuck luminiferous.”
“It wasn’t all me, though.”
“It was all you.”
“No, really,” I tell him. “I had help. Everyone chipped in. Everyone?—”
“Fuck everyone.”
I rub my thumb over the crest of his cheekbone. “You helped me.”
“Fuck me too.”
“You helped me run lines,” I swallow, blushing. “You practiced with me.”
In the beginning when we’d started, I was shy. Even though I wanted to share a piece of myself with him, I still felt some reluctance. This play, this role is so very close to my heart. But he was patient and nonjudgmental. He was encouraging even.
Not in a gushing way; of course not.
It’s so very rare for him to use more than two sentences together—well, except when he talks about his books, but still—but in the way he looked at me through the screen. How his eyes lit up when I’d deliver a line and how he kept taking longer pauses between the cues, so he could stare at me.
It made my heart race. It made my breaths flutter too.
And when I went to sleep, I dreamed about him. Not that I already don’t, but last night, it was so vivid. So real.
So wonderful and so painful.
That I decided to put it out of my mind. I decided to put him out of my mind.
But he’s here now.
He came to see my play. He flew in early to come see me.
He took the night off to come see me.
“Maybe,” he rasps, his eyes roving over my features, breaking into my thoughts, “but I wasn’t the one making magic on the stage.”
There are flowers in my heart. “You think I made magic?”
“I think that’s the least of what you did, but yeah.”
I smile. “That’s it. That’s the word.”
“Yeah?”
“Magic.”
“You like that?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t think that’s correct either.”
“But—”
“Fire. Glorious, bright, hot. You were fire.”
“Fire,” I whisper.
“The kind that can melt the Arctic. The snow outside.”
“You?”
“Me.”
The way he says it, with a smoky voice and a heavy-lidded look, makes me swallow. It makes me blurt out, “I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“No?”
“No.”
Something flickers in his eyes, all over his features first. “Okay.”
I dig the pads of my fingers on his face. “No, seriously. I won’t sleep with you. I’m serious, Stellan.”
“I can see that.”
“I won’t…” My breaths are choppy as I take in his calm expression. “He does my homework.”
An indulgent look enters his eyes; that’s the only way to describe how he’s looking at me. With a… fond sort of expression. It makes me feel so young, as young as he says. Younger than his baby sister.
“Yeah?” he rasps.
Despite the blush that steals over my cheeks, my entire body, I go on. “Yes. He… He thinks that I should focus on my passion. On the things I like rather than stupid books and stuff. So he helps me. Even though he doesn’t like books himself, he does my homework, Stellan.”
For some reason, he’s not getting the urgency in my tone. Because he still appears unfazed and fond. “As he should.”
“Do you remember the old coach?”
“Yeah.”
“He had him fired. I saw the news. He”—I take a breath, trying to calm down my heart because he did do that—“said he would and?—”
“And what?”
“And he did it. For me.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yes. Because I told him he creeped me out and?—”
“Well, he did the right thing.”
And just because he’s so calm about all of this, I grab his suit jacket with my other hand and try to explain it to him. “And he listens to me, okay? I tell him about my day. About practice and the play and all my dreams and… He listens. It’s important to me. And he…” I pause to pace my breaths once again. “He texted all the girls. He asked them to come over. Because he knew I’d be alone tonight. He knew my biji wouldn’t be able to attend. My parents would attend my play over my dead body. He knew how much that bothered me so… He knew.”
But the thing is that he knew as well.
This man in front of me, who flew in early, just so he could watch me.
And so when all my friends had shown up, at first I thought it was because of him. I thought Stellan had texted them. And God, in my twisted mind, I still hope that it was Stellan somehow. That everything he said last night, all the bullshit he spewed about the phone, was somehow true and he invited everyone because he knew how lonely I was.
“I’m not an expert, but that’s what a boyfriend is supposed to do, isn’t it?” he murmurs, his eyes so pretty in this moment. “Make sure his girl doesn’t get lonely.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then I’m glad he’s taking his duties seriously.”
Disappointment sags my shoulders then. Of course it was Shepard, my boyfriend. The best boyfriend in the world. Not his twin brother.
I don’t know why my mind is so messed up when it comes to him.
“So I’m not”—I twist my hand in his jacket, press my palm on his jaw—“going to sleep with you. I can’t. I can’t do that to him. You can’t make me do that to him. I can’t break his heart. I can’t. I won’t. And I…”
“And you what?”
I step up to him, my neck craned, my body stretched taut, my calves burning from standing on my toes for so long. But I need to be close to him for some reason. I need him to understand what I’m saying, where I’m coming from.
“I love you,” I declare.
And he goes rigid.
Absolutely fucking rigid.
I ignore it, though, and keep going. “I do. I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you and it fucking sucks.” I think he goes even more rigid, but I ignore it once again in favor of the point I’m trying to make. “It fucking sucks big time. It hurts, okay? Because you can’t love me back. You won’t love me back. You probably don’t even know how. So I… I don’t want to be in love with you. What I want is…” I look into his dark, glittering eyes. “I want someone to love me. I want that, Stellan. I want… No one has ever loved me. Expect my biji. No one has ever accepted me for who I am, and I-I want that. Somehow, he does that. Somehow, he loves me and I…” I lick my lips. “And you just talked about my dream, didn’t you? You’re always talking about it. My passion, my acting. Well, this is my dream too. To be loved. To love. So just… let me, okay? Don’t take that away from me.”
His eyes drop down to my wet mouth for a second.
And then another second passes.
And another.
And another.
It takes him five seconds to look away from my mouth and in that time, my lips have become stung and swollen, needy, as he says, “He loves you because he can’t not love you.” Before I can decipher those words from him, he goes on, “Because loving you is the easiest thing in the world. Which also makes it the hardest.”
“What?”
He takes in my face, his gaze molten and shiny. “You’re off the hook.”
I know what he’s saying. I know what he means, but I… I don’t know how to react. I don’t know what to say, so I tighten my hold in his jacket. “Are you… Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t think it was possible to fist his jacket any more than I already am, but I find a way to crumple it even more. “But you said I tortured you. You were so hell-bent on?—”
“It’s not your fault that you have the kind of fire that has the power to melt me,” he speaks over me. “It’s my fault for trying to punish you for it. And turns out, I do.”
“You do what?”
“Care about you,” he admits albeit reluctantly from the look on his face. “You said that if I cared about you, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing so”—he swallows thickly—“I do.”
My heart squeezes. “You?—”
“And I have already hurt you enough,” he keeps going, his eyes slightly narrowed, “in ways you don’t even know about.”
“What does that”—I frown, tugging at his jacket—“mean?”
“It means that you belong to my twin brother,” he says, his lips barely moving as he lets out the words, the words that I get the feeling he doesn’t want to utter. “And as much as I want to cross that line, I won’t.”
I’m waiting for it.
The relief to come.
This is what I wanted, didn’t I? I wanted him to back off. I wanted him to leave me alone, leave Shepard alone. I wanted to keep my wrongdoings a secret from my boyfriend and just move on with my life.
So then why do I still feel on edge?
Why do I feel so… miserable?
He’s doing the right thing. He’s being the good guy that everyone always calls him. So why do I hate that so much?
“So this…” I try to speak. “This is really it?”
Please say no.
Please say no.
Please, God, just say no.
“Yes.”
“You’re leaving?”
“It’s better if I do,” he says, and my grip tightens for a second. “Besides, you should go out with your friends. Celebrate. It was a good play. You wrote it, didn’t you?”
Again, I blush as I reply, “Not really, no. We did the script, but it’s based on one of my favorite movies.”
While practicing last night, I only gave him the basics of the scene without telling him about the whole plot. Turns out, I was a little shy sharing this piece of me with him. Maybe it was self-preservation, hiding that deep part of me from my blackmailer. Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter now.
I’m glad that he was here to see it.
“I wish…”
“You wish what?”
I simply shake my head in response. Because I can’t tell him what I wish for.
I can’t tell him that I wish I could see it with him. The movie.
It’s about these two best friends in college, a girl and a boy. The girl loves the boy, but the boy loves someone else, the new girl in college. So the best friend leaves and the boy ends up marrying the new girl. Years pass, they have a daughter together, and when the new girl dies, she writes letters for her daughter. In those letters, she tells her daughter to go find the best friend. Because she always knew that the best friend loved her dad and she—the new girl—came between them. If she hadn’t, their life would be different, and they’d be together now. So now that she’s gone, it’s time to reunite them.
I played the role of the best friend.
I wish he didn’t have to go.
I wish he loved me.
I wish…
My grip twists and tugs, and I decide I won’t let him go. Maybe I can come up with an excuse for him to stay. Any excuse. Any ridiculous or flimsy excuse at all. But then my hands fall away from his jacket, limp and useless.
I fall away from him too.
Because I need to stop being ridiculous and count my blessings that this is over.
Good thing there’s a wall behind me, cold and damp, giving me the support I need. So I don’t totally crumple on the floor like I want to do in this moment. Maybe when he leaves, I can do that but not right now.
“Except…”