50. Queenie
CHAPTER FIFTY
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘SAVE YOURSELF’ BY SENSE FIELD
I change and pack an overnight bag ten minutes later and text the one person who will take me in, no questions asked. My tears have decreased although my eyes are gritty and sandy.
When I walk out of the cottage; it’s empty. I send a text to Noah and the boys to tell them I’m spending the night away. It’s the responsible, adult thing to do.
Noah doesn’t respond. It shatters me.
Thirty minutes later, I drive up to a proper beach mansion on the edge of the cliffs.
Rohit Chachu stands at the door, outlined by the patio light.
I fling open Lizzie’s door and run headlong into his arms. A fresh round of sobs wrack me. Wreck me. It gets worse because the door opens wider and Mischa’s there too. Worry in her eyes, concern in her hug.
“I called her when I heard the tears in your voice,” Chachu says softly.
I hold the two people who are my family and utterly break down. And, in between bouts of enormous, body-shaking sobs, I tell them what I can. Meeting the professor. The fight. All the ugly things I told Noah.
Chachu’s white-faced and tight-lipped as he listens to it all. But he hugs me and kisses my forehead before leaving me with Mischa.
She says nothing. Just holds me. Silent and comforting. My best friend.
I spend the next two days in bed, on the couch. Napping. Staring listlessly at the window. Watching the clouds drift by the cliffs.
Rohit Chachu plies me with food and tea. Paneer pakoras and salads and pizza.
I cry even when I eat it all.
Everything reminds me of Noah. Of the things he’d said. The things he’d done. His final words to me. Everything reminds of how badly, how terribly badly I’d fucked up something so good and precious.
Because I am afraid.
I’m afraid of him. Of the hold he has over me. Of the person I’ve become with him. Brave and bold. Fearless.
I also cry over my past. The young woman I’d been. Self-righteous and so certain. I walked into my professor’s office ready to bring him down because it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t do it, so I cry for my loss.
I’ve been so lost…so fucking lost for so long. I didn’t just lose my way, I lost myself. My self.
The good parts, the bad parts, the failed, weak, cowardly parts. The ambitious, successful, important parts. Everything was swept under the enormity of what happened.
And I never grieved her, the young woman I’d once been. I just buried her like an ugly, dirty secret and transitioned into aimless waitress.
I grieve her. She deserves better than what I’ve become. What I’ve made of me.
On day three, Mischa yanks the sheets off me. I try and grab them back. But she’s surprisingly strong. She throws them off the couch where I am vegetating.
“You’re done moping like a Bollywood tragedy queen,” she says firmly. “Shah Rukh is not coming to wipe your tears. You do it yourself.”
“Shah Rukh just might.” I try and stand up, but my legs have atrophied. So, I kind of do a wobbly dance with her and the sheets. “And you’re not the boss of me.”
“You’re not your boss, so I have appointed myself interim boss. Chachu!” She yells. “She got up from the couch.”
“Stop worrying about me so much,” I mutter. “I’m not a patient or anything.”
“No, you’ve just welded yourself to this couch.”
I sit back down and weld myself some more. “So, what if I have? It’s my body, my choice.”
Mischa rolls her eyes and actually shoves me. “Will you stop being so fucking dramatic and get over yourself?”
My jaw drops. “What did you just say?” I ask her incredulously.
“You heard me the first time. You’re not deaf.” She wraps an arm around me. “You have to forgive yourself for being human. For making a mistake.” She sniffs delicately. “You have to fucking shower. You smell, woman.”
I laugh weakly. “Thanks for being honest.”
“I always am.” Mischa sighs and drops her head on my shoulder. “I know you think you failed Dolly and yourself and all of womankind because you couldn’t get Professor Washington convicted but listen to me?—”
She shakes her head when I start protesting. “ Listen to me. It’s not just on you. The entire system, the institution failed there. And it’s appallingly common. Most sexual assaults go unreported, Queenie. You know the stats.”
I do know the stats. It’s heartbreaking and unspeakable. And it’s unfair. I say as much.
“Life’s not fair,” Mischa is predictably brisk. “When’s it ever been fair? Was it fair Noah lost his mom so young?”
I shake my head. “No…”
“Was it fair you discovered you didn’t like medicine so much as science, once you started studying medicine?”
I sigh. “No.”
“Was it fair of you to keep your parents in the dark about all this for almost a whole year?” Misha skewers me with a hard look.
“No. I just…didn’t know how to tell them any of this,” I confess softly. “I thought they’d blame me too.”
“We’ve done a piss-poor job of raising you if you really think so, bachcha .” Chachu folds his arms and stands in front of me. At some point, he joined the conversation too.
“I…” I worry the couch cushions and answer them diffidently. “I wanted to prove to myself… to you all. That I’m tough. I can handle it.” I look beseechingly at him. “I’m an adult and adults don’t need help.”
Chachu laughs. He laughs so hard, tears run down his face. “Sweetheart, if you think adults don’t need help, you’re a fucking child. We all need help all the time. We need people. We need support. Friends. Partners. Lovers who believe in us.”
He sits down on my other side and takes my hand. “What happened to your friend, Dolly…what was done to you as a consequence of it, is terrible. Horrible. But how long are you going to use it as the reason to not live your life?”
His simple, pragmatic question breaks down all my defenses. Tilts them to the floor like a wave crashing through a sandcastle, drowning it. Leaving the earth new and clean.
“I haven’t…” I stop talking. Stop trying to defend myself. “I haven’t been living my life. My true life. My real life,” I admit to them. “Because I’m scared, I’ll fail at it too.”
“If you do, then you pick yourself up and do it again. Till you succeed at it. That’s adulting,” Mischa answers boldly. “Not this.”
“Alright, alright.” I sniff at her. “I get your point. I get it.” I gave her a wry smile. “You should be a lawyer. Or one of those life coaches. You’re wasting yourself in sports medicine.”
“If I fail at sports medicine, I’ll consider becoming a life coach,” she answers tartly.
I hold both of them. And then look hopefully at Chachu. “Chachu, do you think…do you think we can talk to Amma-Appa? And Jo?”
Chachu blinks suspiciously red eyes. “Yes, yes, of course.”