51. Queenie
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
QUEENIE
RECOMMENDED LISTENING ‘BE YOURSELF’ BY AUDIOSLAVE
I don’t want to cry when I see my parents on the grainy computer screen. So, I try, really hard, to keep the sobs in. But then Amma, in a flowing cotton dashiki, her hair in a turban to ward off the African heat touches the screen and says my name.
Devika.
And the tears start flowing.
Jo joins the video chat and groans. “Can you at least apologize properly before crying for forgiveness?”
I laugh through my tears. Trust my younger sister to cut through the bullshit.
“ Chumma iru , Jo,” Amma shushes Jo. Keep quiet. “I’m so worried about you, kunju . She blinks back tears. “Can you please tell me what has been going on?”
So, I do. I tell her everything that happened since Halloween. She starts crying halfway through my narration but doesn’t interrupt. Not one even when Appa shows up and clutches her shoulder. Hard.
“And now, I’m at Rohit Chachu’s,” I end softly. “Trying to figure it out. It’s been hard, guys. But I’m better now. Really.” I smile reassuringly at them.
“Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” Appa asks, aghast.
“Because.” Amma shakes her head, her eyes glassy. “It hurts to talk about all this over and over again. Especially when you’re not sure if you’ll be believed.”
Oh fuck. Amma knows. Jo sniffles too at her words. Amma knows how it feels. Really.
“I’m sorry,” I reiterate for the tenth time. “I’ll never keep another thing from you ever again.”
“You better not,” Amma grumbles.
“Yeah, so I have to…have to tell you, I want to take up neuroscience. Not medicine. I want to be a neuroscientist. Help uncover the mysteries of the mind and brain and not cut people open on operating tables,” I finish in a rush.
This time, Appa recovers first. “Alright. And how do you plan on doing that?”
I share my game plan with him and, by the time I’m finished, Amma’s not totally mad. I take it as a good sign.
Jo’s miffed I didn’t turn a full one-eighty and choose some other field than STEM. Like writing. Considering I’m reading all the books in the world.
“I enjoy reading books as a de-stressor. Books are my happy place. I do not want to make my happy place my job and have it turn into an unhappy place,” I tell her gently. “And I am not such a good writer, in the first place.”
My answer pacifies her a little. Then she brightens and shoots me a wicked smile. “And what about…you know?” She waggles her eyebrows so hard, my parents frown at her.
“Are you having a seizure, Jo?” Appa asks, worriedly.
Mischa sits down next to me and waves to my parents, her favorite people in the world. “Actually, I think, Jo is trying to mime the existence of Noah Dumaine.”
I blush as my parents turn laser eyes on me.
“Who’s Noah?”
“What are you doing with him?”
I hesitate for a second and then tell them, “Noah’s my boyfriend. My roommate. I lived with him at his place. The place he owns. The truth is,” I rip the band-aid in one shot. “He is the man I love. If he’ll ever have me.”
I talk another hour with my parents, giving them an edited version of the events that led me to falling in love. It’s the first time in the whole year I am fully vulnerable with my family.
I start feeling whole again. Like I am Queenie fricking Madhavan. The Hellcat of Barrons Bay.
I also make another call, emboldened by my conversation with my family. This call is even better than the one before. At the end of it, I haven’t just gotten up from the couch. I am pacing around it.
I take a full deep breath and hear a door close because Chachu needs to go to camp.
The door remains closed. Because that’s all it is. A door.
I think of calling Noah. Texting him. Asking him how he is. Wanting to know how he is. Whether he slept. Whether Fox’s hamstring is still troubling him.
But I don’t.
Our agreement’s over. He owes me nothing anymore. And after what I said to him, I doubt he’ll ever want to talk to me again. Even if I do love him. Unafraid and unchained.
So, I have to do the rest of it myself. I want to, I choose to do it all for myself. It’s time to do it for myself.
And I will. I will do it all and become the woman he believed me to be.
I’ll do it because I believe in me too.
Finally.