Chapter Forty-One
It’s been two days since I spoke to Druv, but I’ve barely noticed. It’s been two hours since I saw Krish, and I feel like a part of me is missing.
I make it through the many security lines in a haze, my brain spinning cobwebs around itself, trying not to think the things it keeps thinking.
When I get to the boarding gate, Krish’s absence is so harsh, so sharp, I can’t bear it. I call Rumi.
“Wow,” he says when I tell him everything that’s happened since I last spoke to him, including being attacked and how frail Vasu’s body looked yet how strong her spirit is. “Who are you, and what did you do with my twin sister?”
“I think I left her behind in Central Park, or maybe in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night at MoMA. Or maybe in a sugarcane field. I don’t know. I think I want her back. She always knew what to do.”
“Fuck her. She was a wimp. I’ve been waiting for you to leave her behind.”
“I know. You’ve said that a lot recently. Stop repeating yourself and tell me what to do!”
“Miru, you already know what to do. You’re just freaking out because you’ve never blown shit up before, and this is going to be Oppenheimer level.”
“I think that might be a problematic thing to say,” I say, and he laughs.
“Sweetheart, this shouldn’t need to be said, but you’re supposed to marry the person you love.”
“You’re also not supposed to go back on a commitment because someone newer and hotter shows up.”
“So you admit hot reporter guy is hot.”
An electric buzz spasms in my belly when I think about how hot he is. “Of course he’s hot. Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time?”
“I’m sure it is. But do you really think you are?”
“They’re both good men.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
“But they are, and I could have a good life with either one of them. Then why would I do such a terrible thing to Druv?”
“You tell me why.”
“Because my definition of a good life has changed.” When I think about my life, another forty, fifty years, or as long as I’m lucky to be alive, who I will be in each marriage is two versions of me.
“I have to go,” I say. “I’ll call you back.”
“You got this, Miru,” he says.
We have no way to predict the future, but the star in Druv’s life will always be Druv. The thing that’s changed is that I no longer want to be part of the Druv story, and I can see the labor I’ll have to do to shift our relationship from that to the Druv and Mira story or the Sometimes Mira and Sometimes Druv Depending on the Situation story.
With Krish, we’re already there. I’m already part of a we with him. What are we going to do next? We’ve already thought that together countless times in our short time together. He’s driven already by what I am where I am and who I want to be right then.
As long as I know you’re happy, I will be okay.
He’s intimidatingly honest and too intelligent for me to ever hide from him, and I can see that being exhausting, too, and infuriating, and terrifying. I’m used to hiding and contorting.
With Druv, who I’ll be is who I’ve trained at being all my life: first a wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, mother.
With Krish, my conditioning digs into my skin. My shields block my view. With him I’m Mira first. I’ll be Mira, who’s also a wife, a daughter, a daughter-in-law. Mira, who’s also a mom and a pain management therapist. Mira, who has to learn a new way without a guarantee of how it will feel. Exhausting .
Why would you want that? my mother’s voice says in my ear.
I don’t know. I don’t know why it matters that Druv and Krish are already that. Druv, who’s also a son, son-in-law, surgeon, husband, and someday a father. Krish, who’s also a writer, a son, a man in love with me. Why does it matter that their being themselves is not in competition with all the other things they want to be?
But it does matter. I want me to be me first too. I want to not have to say “But being a mother comes first,” the way I’ve heard all the aunties say over the years. Over and over again. I might still put others first sometimes, but I want to have a choice, a real choice. Not one that makes me feel halved and quartered.
I call my mother. She doesn’t answer. Thanks a lot, Aie.
The gate agent announces that the incoming flight is delayed and our flight is going to be late.
It’s not a sign, I tell myself. But it is.
I call Druv.
“I can’t do this, Druv,” I say. “I don’t want to get married.”
“Did you sleep with him?” Of all the responses in the world, that’s the one he chooses.
“You did not just ask me that.”
“If you give it some thought, you’d know it’s a logical question.”
“If you give it some thought, you’d know that it means you don’t know me at all ... but I’m actually glad that you asked me that. Because I made the effort not to even touch him that way. I worked hard not to even let myself think about it. If I were a person who did things without thinking, I might have.”
One of the reasons I went out with Druv and thought marrying him was a good idea was that the thought of sex with him was not repulsive. But Krish is the first man with whom my body feels different. It feels wide open. I want him to touch me. I feel like he’s already touched parts of me no one else ever has.
Maybe it’s not just about who I will be with him but who I already am.
“Our wedding is in three months, Mira! Our families, our friends, everyone has been working their asses off for it. You have been working your ass off for it.” There’s an edge of panic in his voice, and my heart hurts.
“I know. I know. But that should not be a reason to get married. That is the only reason I would marry you now, Druv. And I can’t do that to you or to me. I am so very sorry.”
“You can’t do this. Does it not matter that I love you? Exactly the way you are, Mira? The parts you’ve told me, the parts you haven’t. I’ve never cared about anything but who you are.” He sounds desperate and angry but also sincere. He truly believes what he’s saying, and it’s filled with pieces of truth.
“But don’t you see, you don’t know who I am because I wasn’t able to be who I am with you.”
“Then tell me. We can work this out. I’m okay with whoever you want to be.”
“It doesn’t matter that you’re okay with it. What matters is that I couldn’t.” I think about sitting on those rocks and letting the worst experience of my life out. I could tell Krish. I wanted to tell Krish. With him I was the person who could say the words, access the person it was so painful to be. I can access pain around him. I can access me. “You are one of the best men I know, Druv. I was the one who didn’t know how to be who I am. I didn’t even know who I was.”
“Are you giving me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech right now?”
“Actually, it’s us. We’re both settling for the bare minimum. Not the bare minimum in terms of the people we are, but we’re choosing a situation where we have to do the least work. Have you ever been with someone or done something that makes you feel like you’re being tossed off your feet by a gigantic wave and taken under? I hope you have. To be with that person, you have to wake up parts of yourself that are terrifying. You have to be your whole self. Or maybe you don’t have to. But I want to. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“And I hope you’ll forgive me for not understanding how you can break our parents’ hearts. How you can leave them to face the censure of the community where they’re so respected. They’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars already, Mira. How can you let all of that go to waste?”
I have thought about all those things. I have thought about them so much I almost chose to relegate myself to a life I don’t want. “I’ll pay them back.” One advantage of working since I was sixteen and being too afraid to go anywhere or do anything is that I’ve saved a lot of money. “And the censure will be mine. I’m the one to blame.” Also, is respect that’s so easily lost really respect? But I don’t say that. I’ve said all I can say. “I’m sorry, Druv. I truly am.”
He does not forgive me. He probably never will, but he will thank me some day. That much I know for sure.
I call Norbu back, and he returns with the biggest smile on his face.
The mountains already feel familiar. The heaviness in my heart settles but stays. It hurts, but it also feels good.
Krish is sitting on the steps of Vasu’s house when I get there.
His head snaps up when he sees me. His gaze floods with relief, like the world reorienting itself in his eyes.
“Vasu?” I ask.
“She’s still here. Reva’s with her.” He stands up and comes to me, not stopping until he’s so close I can feel the warmth of his body. “She gave me this to give you when you came back.” He presses the ring into my palm. “She wants you to have it.”
I wrap my hand around it and press it to my chest. “I’m sorry I left you when you needed me.”
“You didn’t, though. You’re here.” And Vasu knew I’d come.
“Yes, I am. And I’m not leaving again.” I slip the ring on my finger. It’s a perfect fit.
I look up at him, and he pulls me close and drops a kiss on the top of my head, right where my hair parts and all my nerve endings gather. Sensation cascades down my body.
I wrap my arms around him and stand there like that, holding him, soaking up how he feels. Soaking up how I feel in his arms.
There’s something about me when I’m with him. And I think it’s that I really like who I am.
He pulls me closer. You’re here, his body says to mine. You’re here.
From one breath to the next, the rush of comfort turns to need. Heat pools in my belly. I go up on my toes. He looks down at me. The pinkening sky swirls above us as our lips meet. It’s the softest touch. He breathes me in. Twin shocks of awareness vibrate through our bodies. All the desire that’s been dancing on the edge of my consciousness flares at once and melts through my body. I reach up and into the kiss, parting my lips, opening myself, wanting to feel him, to take him in, all the way, everywhere. He grabs my face with both hands and presses into the kiss with everything he is.
I fall so hard and free it’s like I’ve never done anything but this. Never been anyone but this. His breath and mine, his hands against my skin, in my hair. A fever where our tongues touch, where the softest parts of our mouths slide and fit and search for the things they’ve never tasted before, never felt. My lips, my breasts, all of it friction and heat, sparking hunger deep in my womb. Our bodies press so close there isn’t an inch left untouched, not a speck of me left unchanged.
When we pull apart I’m in pieces, and all the ones I’ve never let out before are clinging to him.
I open my eyes and wait for him to open his. When he does, I see the entirety of our life together flash in them.
“My home just came to me,” he says and pulls me back into the tightest hug.
Krish Hale is a hugger. Who would have thought?
I smile against his chest. And it feels so good, it doesn’t even hurt.