Chapter Twenty-Six #2
My brows furrow. His eyes turn mirthful at my confusion. “I promise it’s good news,” he says. “All I felt was relief when my mom told me. I’d been worried this was a temporary separation.” He fills in the blanks for me. “My dad is thinking about shifting back to Jaipur for good.”
I blink rapidly, taking it all in. From all of the fragments Kush has shared with me, his parents’ marriage has been rocky to say the least, but I didn’t realize that divorce was on the table.
Generally speaking, for most Indian families, divorce is never on the table, even when it very much should be.
I try out the word: “Congratulations,” I say, each syllable elongated and hesitant. He laughs, and I ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“I mean,” he says. “These are two people who never should have been married to begin with.” He provides some background, and my heart swells with sympathy for Noori Aunty as he speaks.
I knew Noori Aunty’s marriage to Suresh Uncle was arranged while she and Aai were still in college, but I never considered the accumulated weight of all her sacrifices.
Kush tells me about the cruelty she experienced from her in-laws, which somehow even continued through the newlyweds’ move to the States.
She stuck through it, but it was like an old wound that festered, reopening every time she had to spend time with the Khannas—most recently, at the December wedding.
“They got into a fight at the reception,” he says. “And I overheard.”
There had been an affair. Twenty years prior, while the pair were still in Jaipur, and the whole extended family helped conceal Suresh Uncle’s secret.
Noori Aunty endured upon the discovery, but the betrayal never faded.
The rift between Kush and his father, always present, naturally only widened in the wake of their fight at the wedding.
When Suresh Uncle’s mother passed in April, he went back to Jaipur on his own, and apparently, Noori Aunty had never been more at peace.
“She’s way happier when he’s not around,” he closes, and now that he’s said it, I see it too. She and Aai giggle like schoolgirls in their moments alone. “As am I,” Kush adds.
“Wow,” I say, processing it all. “I’m so sorry that she had to go through all that.”
He nods, mouth downturned. “Me too,” he says. He hesitates. “Part of me thinks she delayed the divorce for so long because of me,” he says. “Now that I’m in college, she can make decisions just for herself.”
My face scrunches, reading the guilt between his words. “That can’t be on you,” I say. “And you would have encouraged her if she’d ever asked.”
He nods again, then shrugs. “Not worth dwelling, anyways.” He leans back to rest his arms on the cool rocks, and I mirror him. We’ve been sitting in the springs for long enough that some cold is appreciated.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say after a moment, my words careful and earnest. “Now I can make sure the next Sunday dinner is a true celebration.”
A smile starts at this. He opens his mouth then closes it.
I wait, and finally he says, “You know, you’re the first person I’ve told.
” I reel back, and he continues. “Aryan has the backstory, of course,” he clarifies.
“But my mom only told me yesterday, and I didn’t want to steal his thunder with my own big news. ”
Pleasure sparks at the realization that I’m one of Kush’s trusted confidants. “Honored,” I say.
“Who would have thought,” he says, “when I became your driving instructor, that we’d end up … friends.”
He takes time getting the last word out. My lips push up. “We could’ve always been friends.”
He shoots me a wary look. “Please,” he says.
My eyes narrow. “What?” I say.
“We could not have always been friends,” he says. “You’ve always hated me.”
My mouth drops. “I have not always hated you,” I say.
“You have,” he affirms.
“Have not!” I insist, and he raises a brow at the childish back-and-forth. But I feel the need to double down and clear my name. “If anything,” I say. “The opposite.”
His eyes go wide, and I flush. “What does that mean?”
I cross my arms underneath the water, sheepish at the admission. But it feels pointless to keep the secret all these years later, when so much else has happened. “Kush,” I say. “I obviously had a crush on you.”
He blinks fast at this, cheeks turning pink, and I hurry on. “In, like, middle school,” I clarify. “And I felt slighted by you, so maybe I was rude and immature, but I never hated you.”
He’s quiet for so long that I think I’ve made a mistake in my confession. “But, Rani,” he says at last, wonder lacing his words. “I had a crush on you.” My mouth drops, and he rushes to add, “Like, in middle school. As well.”
“You did not,” I accuse.
“Yes,” he says. “I did.”
“You did not!” I exclaim, and he gives me a look, like this again? But this exchange is such a rewrite of my understanding of the last decade that my head spins too fast to catch up.
“Ninth grade,” he continues. “I overheard you beg your mom not to make you be alone with me.” He shrugs. “Figured I had to cut my losses and deal.”
My brows furrow, recollecting. “I said that because you acted embarrassed by me at the pool party,” I say. “Earlier that summer. And I already thought you’d spent the last couple years ignoring my email, so the hurt was compounded.”
I fill him in on my own eavesdropping, the interaction that haunted me for weeks. He lets out a surprised huff. “I was a thirteen-year-old boy being teased about a girl,” he says. “Of course I was embarrassed.”
“Huh,” I say at last, reeling. I reach a hand up to massage my neck, fingertips wrinkled by the water. “I guess we had a misunderstanding.”
“I guess,” he says. We lock eyes for a moment. The steam has curled his hair tighter. His gaze is thoughtful and tender, and I feel that familiar awareness rise up in my chest again. It takes all of my courage not to look away.
Our silence is disturbed by a family of hikers, floundering through the space with their sticks and bathing suits, far more prepared for the springs than us. Kush looks away, and I sink lower in the water, pushing my messy feelings down to parse through later.
That night, at Simran’s instruction, I reply to Frank’s message: Hey! How’s Wednesday afternoon?
Then I put my phone in my desk drawer and burrow my face in my sheets. Even after a wash, my hair still smells faintly of the hot springs.