Chapter 18
Asharp pain imploded in my heart at the sight of Tara with Sujit. He looked at her with such adoration, and the way her face had lit up when she saw him walk in. I understood how she must feel every time she saw me with Aarti. Yes, I loved Tara, and yes, she knew it, but the painful reality of her having to confront Aarti and me together, every day, hit me as I shook hands with Sujit.
He was a striking fellow, a couple of inches taller than me, with skin smooth and dusky like Tara’s. As if that wasn’t enough, he had dimples when he smiled. And I got to see a lot of those dimples that evening. They made a stunning pair. I hated myself for thinking it, but he seemed to make her happy. Tara gushed about how he’d made it to her opening night despite his busy schedule. And he had brought along her mother, who displayed the same familiarity as if he were her own son. I had acted like a selfish, immature prick by announcing to her and half of my immediate family that I was still in love with her. For, though Tara and I might be pining for each other, here was a devoted man who would make her a better partner.
Stable, grounded, and soft-spoken, he was the yin to her yang. He was the calm Parvati to her turbulent Shiva. Tara and I were perhaps too alike, too volatile, and the events of the past few weeks had proven it. It was best that I gracefully removed myself from her life. I had a chance, and I blew it. Now it was sheer selfishness to demand her back in my life when she had finally found the happiness she deserved from the start.
This sudden resignation felt strange. Liberating and cloying at the same time, as if the boulder that had just landed on my heart was also my path to moksha. As my eyes landed on a happy Aarti, I decided I couldn’t deceive her any longer, but I needed to wait until it was the right time for her. I looked at Sujit, and a strange calm washed over me. I had made the right decision. Slowly, my gaze turned toward Tara. Her eyes flitted nervously, and her smile was vacant.
Something was wrong.
She excused herself and hurried toward the restrooms, but no one else seemed perturbed. Sujit and her mother were oblivious to her distress. But I knew. I felt it in my body. I counted to fifteen, then excused myself.
As I turned the wall separating the large gallery from the restrooms, I found her sitting on a bench with a distant look on her face. I rushed over and crouched before her.
“Hey.” I took her hand. “What happened? Are you alright?”
Her palms were cold and sweaty. There was a slight tremble in them, and her eyes looked dazed. Her breathing was heavy, as if she were having a panic attack.
“Tara, look at me.” I rubbed her hands between my palms.
She sucked in a sudden, jagged breath and grabbed onto my hand. “I’m scared, Sameer.”
“Scared of what?”
“I feel this weight so heavy I can barely breathe. So many people watching me today, I need to do right by them.”
“Look at me, sweetheart.” I lifted her chin, and her eyes met mine tentatively. “You don’t have to do right by anyone but yourself. Do you hear me?”
“My chest hurts,” she said.
I moved closer, and her grip on my hand got tighter.
“Tara, keep looking at me.” She did. “Listen, you’re brilliant. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone. You are you. You’re the best at what you do.”
She kept her beautiful, dark eyes on my face.
“Have you felt like this before?” I asked. “Is this a panic attack?”
She shook her head and looked down at her hands.
“Keep looking at me.” She lifted her gaze back to me.
“We’ll figure it out, okay? Right now, you need to show the world how brilliant you are. You don’t have to prove it, just show it. Let your work speak for itself.”
She nodded.
“Don’t doubt yourself. You said you trusted me, right? You trust me to tell you the truth? I’m telling you, you’re a marvel. Nothing and no one can take away your genius.” I kept rubbing her palms. “Now breathe. Deep breaths. Keep breathing.”
After what seemed like forever but was only a few minutes, color returned to her face. Her breathing slowed to normal. I dropped beside her on the bench, still holding her hand.
“Growing up, I didn’t have much ground for confidence,” she said slowly, looking into the distance. “The only way I could succeed was by working hard and believing in my abilities.” I rolled my thumb over her hand. She looked at me. “You always admired how strong-willed I was, but it didn’t come naturally. I had to train myself to be that way. To overcome doubt and fear. To take nonsense from no one.”
“Especially from a rich boy like me.”
That brought out a tiny smile. “My confidence is drawn from deep within me, like a well. I draw from it over and over. After a while, the well dries up because I’m asked to prove myself again and again. Opportunities like this help rebuild my confidence, but it also means I need to draw from that well even more. It’s exhausting, until one day all I come up with is sand and grit from the bottom of a dry well. Today is that day.”
I’d never met this side of Tara, and for good reason. She was a trapeze artist without a safety net. She couldn’t falter, and she didn’t. She couldn’t show her vulnerabilities because they would be misconstrued as inherent unworthiness. I stood up and held out my hand. She gripped it with a smile and pulled herself off the bench.
I kissed her forehead. “I’m going to give you a hug now, is that alright?”
She nodded, and I took her in my embrace, breathing her in. Her arms came around me as she sank her head into my neck. For a minute, the world around me faded away, and my resolve weakened. How could I live without her? How could I deny her my love?
“How do you feel?” I asked.
She lifted her head and smiled. “Better.”
“Tara.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “You’re one of the smartest people I know, and I really mean it. Never second-guess yourself.”
As she looked up at me, standing so close I could feel her breath, I saw Sujit coming around the corner. I promptly stepped away and turned to him.
“She wasn’t feeling well,” I said.
His protective arm came swiftly around her. “Hi, darling, are you alright? What happened?”
I began to walk away as she vanished in his embrace, but her eyes stayed on me. They followed me as I disappeared into the claustrophobic crowd. Amar threw me an uneasy look, but I turned my attention to Aarti and Mom.
When Hadden introduced the artists, she gave a special nod to Tara as a guest of the museum and the only non-Texan to be featured in the exhibit. Hadden’s invitation for her to say a few words seemed to take her by surprise, but she eloquently described how she fell in love with the city and its heritage. “I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the museum and to Dr. Hadden for this incredible opportunity to have my name in the same catalog as these stellar artists. I came to this city with a dream in my eyes and hope in my heart. I shall return with stars in my eyes and love in my heart. And for that, I thank you all. I’m grateful for your generosity and warmth. Thank you for coming this evening.” She finished with a luminous smile.
Sujit’s face radiated pride and joy, like he truly cherished and appreciated her. She avoided me for the rest of the evening, while Sujit stayed by her side, and her mother could hardly contain a proud smile. Overall, it was a great day for the Kadam-Rao clan. Another bad one for the Rehanis.
After the event, Aarti decided to spend the night with me. My body heavy with emotional fatigue, I couldn’t think of a convincing way to refuse her. So I took the coward’s way out again and acquiesced. There was always a tomorrow to resolve things.
Around ten that evening, as Aarti and I lounged in the living room watching a movie, my doorbell dinged.
“Are you expecting anyone?” she asked.
I shook my head and dragged myself off the couch to answer the door. Tara stood outside, still in her saree, with a smile on her face and a glimmer in her eyes.
“Who’s it, Sameer?” Aarti called from inside, and Tara’s smile dropped instantly as she hung her head and tugged at the edge of her saree.
“It’s Tara,” I said and let her in.
“I’m so sorry to barge in like this,” she said with tiny beads of sweat on her forehead.
“Oh, not at all,” Aarti said. “Come in.”
Tara took a few steps inside. “I just came by to thank you both for coming today. It meant a lot to me.”
“Come share a drink,” said Aarti. “It was such a fantastic day, you deserve a toast. Yes, Sameer?”
“Yes,” I said meekly, and excused myself to grab whatever sparkling drink I had. I never bought champagne—I hated it. But Aarti enjoyed a sparkling white wine. I brought it out with three flutes. We drank to Tara’s success, but she was jumpy and rose to leave immediately after.
“I’ll go drop her off,” I announced.
“No, it’s alright,” Tara objected. “It’s a pleasant night to walk.”
“Actually, it might rain. There’s a storm passing through,” Aarti said. “Sameer, go drop her off, please?”
She smiled at us, and I grabbed my keys off the counter.
“Where’s Sujit?” I asked as we pulled out of the garage.
“They flew back,” she said in a low voice. “He has an important meeting tomorrow, and Aai didn’t want to fly back alone.”
I let several deliberate minutes pass in silence before I asked, “Why did you come, Tara?”
With a feeble attempt to conceal her labored breath, she replied, “I wanted to thank you for talking me through my crisis of confidence today.”
I glanced at her. She was lying, but I didn’t push. When we arrived at her apartment, she unbuckled her seatbelt but didn’t exit the car. We sat in silence.
“I watched you with Sujit today,” I said.
Her tired, dark eyes regarded me with curiosity.
“It looks like he makes you happy. And you make him unbelievably happy,” I said with a smile. “You two are good together, Tara, and I was selfish to thrust myself back into your life. I’m sorry. It’s time for you and Sujit. You deserve to be happy.”
She continued staring at me as I kept my eyes on my hands. Finally, she pulled in a deep breath. “Thank you.”
Somewhere beyond the horizon, an angry bolt of lightning flashed across the sky and struck hard. Wild winds jabbed at the trees. We sat quietly as two drops of rain splattered on the windshield, then quickly turned into a heavy downpour.
“We can still be friends,” I said with a deliberate inflection in my voice.
She stared at the water pelting the window and nodded. “Yes. While I’m here,” she said, shutting down multiple doors simultaneously. “Thank you for the ride.”
I pulled the car beneath the covered entrance of her building. “Good thing I came to drop you. You’d have been completely drenched if you had walked,” I said gently to diffuse the tension.
“Yes, sometimes things work out for the best. Good night, Sameer.”
I watched her walk into the building, her graceful figure slightly slumped.
As I pulled out of the complex, Mom’s number flashed on the dashboard.
“Hi Ma,” I said.
“Are you okay?” she asked with urgency in her voice. “I’ve been trying to call you since we left.”
“Oh, sorry. I’d put my phone on silent and forgot.”
“I was worried sick.”
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter?” Her voice went up half an octave. “You met Tara’s boyfriend today.”
“I’m alright, Ma. I’ve decided to let it go.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I told her she and Sujit make a good pair and will be happy together.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, Ma. It doesn’t seem worth it to upend her life, especially after seeing them today.”
“But she still loves you. I saw it.”
“Yes, but she seems happy with him. And I’m all wrong for her.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t think I can make her happy.”
“How do you know that?”
“Mom, what are you doing? I’m trying to resign myself to my fate here. Why aren’t you being more supportive?”
“Because that’s not your fate. And because I can see you’ll never be happy without her.”
And she hung up. Just like that, all full of sass and badassery.