Chapter Thirteen
I feel like I’m never going to see the ring again. That makes me so sad I don’t know what to do with it.
At least New Yorkers are nicer than their reputation because a bunch of strangers help me up and ask if I’m okay. Then again, maybe they’re tourists. The waitstaff shoo them away and get my chair up and help me into it and bring me water. The manager asks if she should call the cops. I see no point in it. What are they going to do, chase down a man who ran off with something that didn’t belong to me? After I practically invited him to?
I tell the manager I’m fine. I am, except for a sharp pain in my neck. I know I haven’t broken anything or torn any soft tissue. I also know it’s going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow. I’ll take an anti-inflammatory soon, and that should help.
The manager brings me the biggest frothy concoction I’ve ever seen, piled high with whipped cream, and then blessedly leaves me alone to lick my wounds.
The good news is that I fell right. Falls can be disastrous or harmless, depending on how someone falls. Generally, it’s hard to plan your fall, but having a strong core helps. Being young helps. All those years of yoga and suspension exercises help.
Nothing helps the bruised ego, though.
How could I have been so stupid?
I, Mira Salvi, the girl who always manages her expectations, who always overthinks consequences, who never trusts anyone, how could I have gotten so carried away? This will not end well for you if you’re not careful is a line my parents have fed me so much it’s coded into my DNA.
A spot of blood rises where the chain cut my finger when the bastard ripped it from my hand, and my stupid throat clogs with tears. For some reason the child who hurtled into me and sent me flying flashes into my memory. The look on his mother’s face when she put him in the stroller as he struggled for freedom: fiercely protective even when she was scolding him. That look weighs on me even as his fragile body and barely there weight knocks me down afresh.
Humiliated as I am, it’s the loneliness of this moment that truly crushes me. There’s no one I can call without being told exactly how much of a fool I am or being told that I have no one but myself to blame. I don’t. I exposed myself on social media. I got excited about a love story I made up in my head. I opened myself up to crime in a city known for crime. I invited it in with a big flashing welcome sign.
The last time I did something that was out of character, I paid for it by putting away every bit of recklessness. I made sure I learned from my mistakes. I still live with my parents. Sure, they need help with the business and their health issues, but I also went to college in Naperville. Between work and school and helping my parents at the store, I’ve carefully created a safe and stable life. I’m not made to go hurtling after things without thought. How did I forget? Why did I think this would be different?
There’s no doubt that my parents and Rumi would shake their heads in disappointment. If I tell Druv, he’ll know it too, how good I am at messing things up when I’m not careful. Something I’ve managed to keep from him.
The leap of hope in my heart when Krish grabbed Rajesh’s hoodie and took him down makes me feel like a supersize idiot all over again.
With the wind knocked out of me, I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening when the two men started rolling around on the sidewalk. Rajesh made his way to his feet first, but Krish didn’t let his hoodie go and ended up being dragged up to standing too. Rajesh tried to shake, punch, and kick Krish away, but the man was like a leech, refusing to let go. Obviously neither man was a fighter, let alone adept enough for the choreographed fight promised by that first leap. My heart does an odd little hop when I remember Krish flying through the air at the bastard.
The entire episode felt like an eternity but was actually over in a few moments. Despite Krish’s tenacious clinging, Rajesh managed to struggle free and took off. Krish shot after him, not even sparing me a glance as I sat there on the pavement.
It’s been at least twenty minutes, so Krish obviously didn’t catch the man. Unless he did and decided not to come back. The sadness I’m feeling tightens around me. The person who lost the ring will never be reunited with it. And it’s my fault. I was given the chance to right a wrong, and I botched it. Between that and the physical pain radiating from the back of my neck, I lose my battle against the tears I’ve been holding back. The chaos of heartbreak and disappointment dancing inside me takes over, and I let the tears flow. I have no idea how long they’ve been running down my cheeks when a white paper napkin flaps in my peripheral vision like a flag.
Krish.
He’s back. Does that mean he got the ring? Hope leaps again, and I shove it down and snatch the tissue from him and wipe my eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you still doing here? You should be at the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Because you took quite a hit to the head when you fell.”
And he just left me lying there. Which is a stupid thought to have, because of course he had to chase the thief. “I’m fine.” I study his face.
He says nothing about the ring, and I’m so disappointed I don’t want to think about it anymore.
“We should let a doctor decide that,” he says instead.
“Or someone who’s trained to gauge injuries.”
“Sure. We can find you one of those holistic healers after we go to the ER.”
Despite myself I snort out a laugh. “I’m a physical therapist, with all sorts of graduate degrees in pain management and rehab, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to live.” I have no idea why I feel the need to wave my credentials in his face, but I do.
“Did your degrees also give you x-ray vision?”
“No. But they do qualify me to know if I need an x-ray.”
“Fair enough. Can I at least get you ice?” Without waiting for an answer, he goes into the café. His step is actually jaunty. He’s feeling none of the loss I’m feeling. Unless he found the ring and won’t tell me.
I blow my nose, wipe my face, and contemplate leaving. But I’m still sore from the fall, and suddenly I’m less despondent and more angry, and it feels like a relief.
By the time he returns with a baggie of ice, my rage is at a good simmer.
He holds out the ice. Having to look up at him sends a shot of pain through the back of my neck. He’s at least six feet tall and so lean that he appears far taller than that. I snatch it from him and put it on the table between us. I don’t need his ice. I need that ring. But an odd sort of pride keeps me from asking what happened.
“You really should ice that,” he says, and I fold my arms across my chest.
He picks up the baggie and walks around me but then just stands there. I can see him reflected in the glass of the café window, a loose-limbed form behind my scrunched-up-in-pain form. He’s holding up the ice, but my hair is in the way. There’s a strange sort of elasticity to the air that makes it impossible for me to move, to be myself, like I have rubber bands wrapped around me.
“Please lift your hair so I can take a look.” He says the words formally, but there’s also an impatience to them. Irritation that I’m not making this easier for him.
“Why did you come back?” I don’t lift my hair, which is hanging down my back in a mop of curls I didn’t bother to straighten this morning because I was in too much of a hurry to meet the ring’s owner. I can’t remember the last time I left home without straightening my hair.
“Please, Mira.”
I lean into my purse, pull out a clip, then roll my hair into a bun and fasten it. I watch his reflection study the back of my neck. “There’s no bruising.”
“It’s not the kind of injury that bruises.” There is, however, a bump at the base of my skull that isn’t going to be fun tomorrow. I take the baggie he’s hovering over the nape of my neck and push it against the tender spot that took the impact. It hurts like a sledgehammer but also feels good. I refuse to flinch. He sits down across from me and studies me. Not that I can see the results of his study. He’s wearing dark glasses again today.
“Do you ever take those off?” I ask as he leans back in his chair away from me, relaxed as ever.
His lips twist with confusion.
“Your sunglasses. Do you ever take them off?”
“They’re prescription. I can’t see without them,” he says in a tone that says he has no idea how his glasses are any of my concern. “They’re transitions, and we’re in the sun.”
“You were wearing sunglasses yesterday too. Indoors.” And those weren’t these same ones.
“My glasses were in the shop being repaired yesterday. I broke them.”
“How?”
“How’s your neck?”
“Why did you come back?”
“What possessed you to meet a stranger from social media?”
“How did you know I was meeting him here?”
“How could you hand him the ring?”
“Why did you come back?”
“What kind of question is that?”
We’re both winded from the questions that fly from us and drop between us without answers, the question I’m dying to ask still unspoken.
The silence stretches. He shifts in his seat. It’s the first sign of discomfort I’ve seen from him. Actually, it’s the second. The memory of him on the sidewalk outside Rumi’s place comes back to me. It’s impossible to reconcile this relaxed-to-a-point-of-ennui man with that tortured soul I know I wasn’t supposed to see.
“You took a bad fall,” he says in that tone where he seems mildly impatient that he’s having to explain obvious things.
I’m perfectly aware of how bad my fall was. I wait in silence for him to answer the question I haven’t asked, mirroring his disinterest.
“I came back to make sure you were okay.” Again, the word obviously remains unsaid, but he communicates it loud and clear. “I couldn’t very well let the bastard run off with the ring. Is that what you wanted, for him to get the ring? I thought you cared about finding the owner.”
I sit up, every bit of disinterest gone. “You got the ring!” An absurd amount of glee fills me. I don’t care about anything else.
He looks even more confused now.
“And you still came back.” I have no idea why I say that, but it just flies out, and something suspiciously like anger slips past his apathy.
“You thought if I’d gotten the ring, I would have run away with it? You think I’m a thief.” He says it as though it’s an observation. Him piecing my thought process together.
I didn’t think that, but I also seem to have no idea what I am thinking. And I sure as hell don’t need to explain any of that to him. “I don’t know you.”
He pulls the ring out of his pocket, picks up my hand from the table, and puts it and the chain on my palm. Just as he’s about to let go and walk away, he notices the cut.
“Do you happen to have a bandage in that humongous bag?”
“Yes,” I say and squeeze the ring. The relief of seeing it again is completely out of proportion to my normal scale of feelings. “And it’s not humongous.”
“You’re right. It’s gargantuan.” He leans toward the bag. “May I?” he says and waits until I nod to pick it up and hand it to me. Is politeness his weapon or his shield? I hate that it feels so familiar because of course it’s mine too.
I put the ice down on the table and retrieve a bandage from my bag. “I didn’t think you were a thief.”
Without so much as a twitch of emotion on his face, he takes it from me and hands me the ice again.
“Keep the ice on it.” He rips the cover off the bandage. “You expected me to run away with the ring. That sounds like something you’d expect a thief to do.” His tone is as calm as ever.
He holds up the bandage, and I stick out my finger. It’s stopped bleeding, but the cut looks tender. He wipes it with a clean napkin. I’m not good with letting people I know touch me, let alone strangers. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s so clinical and distant about it, but the frisson of discomfort I’m expecting when he holds my hand and wraps my finger never comes.
“You can help me,” I say before I can stop myself.
He returns my hand to the table, crumples the wrapping and pushes it into his pocket, and raises a brow.
“You can help me find the ring’s owner.”
“No, thank you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m no longer interested.”
“Why?”
“It wouldn’t work.” He stands. “You sure you don’t need me to take you to the hospital, or call Sak or your brother before I go?” So polite.
He’s just going to leave, just like that. After he chased a criminal down and retrieved the ring. Because I called him a thief.
When I don’t answer, he flicks me a two-fingered salute and turns to leave.
“Why did you chase the guy down if you didn’t want to find the owner anymore? Actually, how did you know I was here meeting with him?” I almost ask if he was stalking me, but I might have been too free with my accusations already. Another accusation may not be my best move if I want to get him to help me. Suddenly, I really badly want his help. It feels like my only option now.
He turns around. “Do you always make all your choices backwards?”
It’s my turn to look confused.
“You asked me to help you before you asked me how I knew you were meeting this guy. I’d think figuring out my stalker status would come first.”
“Then answer that first.”
“Sak told me. I spoke with him this morning, and he told me that you had found the owner and that you were meeting him here. So I rushed here.” He studies me again and pauses. “You were obviously being tricked.” Then, with that matter-of-factness I already know is his trademark, he adds, “I have very good instincts.”
He doesn’t come out and say that I obviously don’t, but it’s there on his face.
“I misunderstood something the guy said about the inscription on the ring.”
His brow furrows. He’s piecing together the plot again. “He knew about the lines.”
“I thought he did.” It was stupid of me. “Will you help me? Please.” This isn’t like me. Asking for something so clearly. I search my brain, and I can’t think of the last time I asked anyone for anything. But this I have to have. Maybe it’s because he’s a stranger who stands to benefit, too, but asking Krish Hale for help is easier than I expected.
He sits back down, not even a hint of gloating. “Why is it so important to you?” he asks. “Finding this person.”
“Honestly, I have no idea. But I’ve never really left Illinois. I’ve barely ever left Chicago. Why would I come all the way to New York and fall down exactly in the place where the ring was lost and find it?” I haven’t told anyone that a child knocked me down or that I didn’t see him because I was looking up at the Empire State Building and thinking about An Affair to Remember . “It feels like it can’t be for nothing.”
“So, it’s because you believe in signs.”
“I’ve never thought about signs before.” I’ve never thought about what I do and don’t believe in. I’ve only ever thought about what I needed to do. “But I do believe that I found it for a reason. I have to find out what that reason is. I don’t know why, but I have to.” And I have to find out before it’s too late. Even though I don’t know what I’m afraid of it being too late for.
For a long time he says nothing. A deep shadow has fallen over our table, and his glasses aren’t as dark anymore. I still can’t see his eyes enough to tell what he’s thinking, but I know that he’s still here.
“I can’t help you if I can’t write the story,” he says finally, his voice still flat but not unkind, and my heart does another one of those unfamiliar leaps of hope. He’s going to help me. We’re going to find the ring’s owner. Despite my best efforts, a smile escapes my lips. Much like it does for Meg Ryan and Deborah Kerr, and every spunky romantic comedy heroine who’s ever found herself in the middle of contrived coincidences.
“Are you at least a good writer?” I ask.
And for the first time since I met him, I make Krish Hale laugh.