Chapter 26
I’m not sure what the next step is, but I know I want to keep trying with him. -Reina
Reina
Round and round, we go, I think as the chains on the upper part of the swing twine together and I twirl around.
“Thought I might find you here.” I hear Amit’s calm, steadying voice before I see him. I unwind the chains and come to a stop.
He folds his long body into the swing next to me and pushes off.
“Don’t you think you probably should have changed before you went all emo and decided to pout on the playset?” he asks and gives my soaked sari a pointed look.
I look down. My red sari is plastered to my skin. I left not long after Brian did. I just couldn’t stand to be crowded around by well-meaning people and my mother. My mother, who made Brian feel so damn inadequate. Who has made me feel inadequate every day of my life.
I chew on my thumbnail again, cursing at the sight of blood coming from the tip.
Amit pulls my thumb away from my mouth. “How many times have I told you that’s a nasty habit?”
I shake my head. “Dozens,” I mutter. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll probably still keep doing it.”
For a moment, we’re silent. The sand beneath the swings has turned into mud now from the rain, and I can see that the bottom of my sari is covered in it. My mother is going to have a fit. Nothing new there.
Amit sighs. “Pining doesn’t look good on you, my friend,” he says in a soft voice.
I swing my head around to send him a sharp glare. “I’m not pining. I’m just thinking.”
“Sure,” he scoffs. “Just thinking about all the dirty things you want to do to the hottie,” he teases.
I try very hard not to grin. It’s one of those jokes between us. See if you can get the other person to laugh no matter how much of a shitty mood they’re in.
“Ah, I see the beginnings of a smile,” he mocks, “I’ve got you now.”
I giggle and he does a funky little celebration in his swing.
“Remember when we used to come here as kids, Amit? Everything was so easy, so uncomplicated. There were no secrets, no half-truths, or assholes. I mean, there were out there in the world, but in our little cocoon, not so much.” I’m quickly back to being contemplative again.
“We grew up, Reina.” Amit pauses. “That was always going to happen. Everyone has to grow up and then shit gets complicated.” He shrugs. “That’s just the way life is.”
“I wish it didn’t. I wish everything was just easy and I could say “Hey Brian, my mother’s a bitch, but I really like you, maybe even love you,” but that’s way easier in theory than actually doing it.” I ache to tell Brian how I feel, but I’m scared shitless too. There’s so much in the past that holds me back in addition to the way my mother feels.
Amit snorts. “It’s pretty much as easy as that, Reina.”
I glance over at him again. His handsome features are smooth and easy-going as usual. He never seems to have a care in the world, but I know the truth. He cares too much.
“How can you say that with our past? We know how much love can hurt, how people can fake who they are and then send you in a tailspin. How can you act so blasé about it all?”
He reaches for my hand, and I let him hold it. “Reina, you must let go of the past. You have to let go of what happened with that douchebag Kyle.”
I release his hand in horror. “We said we would never say that name again.”
He releases a long breath and pushes with his feet again, leaning his long body forward to finally gain some momentum on the swing. “Yes, and we were dumb. We should have talked about it. I need to talk about it.”
My heart softens and I look down at the ground. “I’m sorry. I just thought it was better to leave it alone.”
“Yes, but we’ve left it alone for too long. Now, its’ just festering.” His words are harsh, and I blink back tears.
I think back to the debacle with Kyle. It hurts to think about him. How I let my feelings cloud my judgement so much back then.
Kyle Longwood, heir to the Longwood tire fortune. He appeared at our ritzy prep school like some otherworldly prince, with golden locks and these magnetic green eyes that seemed to look right through you. I fell head over heels.
Most people at our school didn’t have our skin color, and if you haven’t endured the bigotry of a small, extremely rich prep school in the South, then consider yourself very lucky. We got all kinds of comments, dumb stuff mostly about us smelling like curry or the way they thought we would speak based on how we looked. Let me tell you, when you’re already different on the outside, being different on the inside as well is twice as hard. I fell hard for Kyle Longwood, and when he started flirting with me, I was so damn enamored I let myself fall harder. When he told me he wanted to keep our relationship quiet because his parents were bigoted assholes, I went along with it. We were in love. We would deal with it when we were older.
I had no idea he was feeding the same lines to Amit. Amit had fallen for the new guy too, and for once in our lives, neither one of us said a word to the other. Later we both admitted that part of it was the thrill of having something just to ourselves. I had known about Amit’s sexuality since sophomore year. To me it was no big deal. To everyone else, we knew it would be a very big deal.
I didn’t find out about Amit’s relationship with Kyle until the night of the big game. Some football game that didn’t mean shit to me, but apparently meant everything to our school. I was supposed to meet up with Kyle after. I was running late, and I caught Amit and Kyle kissing outside of the locker room. I was furious at them and took off running. Amit came after me.
He caught up with me, and we made up, like we always do. I could never stay mad at him, especially since neither one of us knew about the other. We decided to go back to the locker room to confront Kyle. It was the worst idea ever.
All the football guys were in there, and we pushed our way in, mad as hell. We were both going to say our piece, and privacy be damned. We were both irate, more for each other than ourselves. We started talking at the same time, and I remember Kyle’s face reddening with anger and embarrassment. Then, he started yelling, telling the other players that Amit had come on to him, and he had been trying to get him to stay away forever. He made it sound like both Amit and I were stalkers. At first, the players just stood there, unsure what to make of us, but then the first punch came, and they just kept punching Amit. I’ll never forget my screams from that night. They almost took my best friend from me. And all of them got slaps on the wrist for it. I swore to myself after that night that I would never fall for a pretty face and smooth lines again. Sure, I could fall into bed with someone, but I would never let myself have real feelings. Now, here I am again, with very real feelings.
“How come you seem so over the Kyle stuff and I’m not? I feel like it’s impossible to trust my judgment about anyone now,” I mutter.
He slows down in the swing and brings it to a stop. “Because we have to learn to trust other people again, Reina. Not everyone is an asshole. Your soldier doesn’t seem like an asshole. And, um, there’s a guy,” he trails off and I peer closely at him. His cheeks are red with embarrassment.
“Amit Desai, do you have a boyfriend and you didn’t tell me?” I slug him in the arm. “You aren’t supposed to keep stuff like that from me. We agreed on that.”
He grins. “He’s not my boyfriend…yet. But I think he likes me. His name is Henry and he’s in chemistry with me. He’s my lab partner.” He bites his lower lip. “I mean, I could be misinterpreting the signs, but there’s been a good amount of flirting between us. At least I think so.”
I sigh. “Now, look who’s doubting their judgment. I’m sure he’s into you, Amit. How could he not be? Besides, I’ll come to Emory and interrogate him soon. Then we’ll know for sure.”
He sends me a panicked look. “No, just no, Reina.”
I giggle at the look on his face. “You look so concerned. I have to scope him out at some point though.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “Just be careful, Amit. Please be careful.”
He reaches for my hand again and squeezes it. “I will be.”
“Now, what’s the plan for going after your hottie?” he asks in a singsong voice. “Because you should, you definitely should. You don’t see muscles like those every day.”
I grin. “I know, right? They’re pretty fabulous.” My grin fades. “I don’t know if I should do anything. My mother made him feel like shit. He probably doesn’t want to see me right now.”
“From the way he was looking at you, he wants to see you again, Reina. You’ve got to go to him and tell him how you feel. And we both have to make it clear to our parents that,” he gestures back and forth between us, “this is never going to happen. Amit and Reina are not going to ride off into the sunset together because Amit is very, very gay and we have the same taste in men,” he scoffs. “We’ve let them hold onto the hope of us for way too long.”
I peek over at him. “But I kind of liked that they thought there could be an us. Kept my mom off my case. She always assumed one day I would just look up and realize you were the love of my life.”
He brings my hand to his lips. “I am the love of your life, Reina. Just in a very different way.”