Chapter 29 Simi #2
He runs his hand through his hair, pulling it back so tight, the skin of his forehead stretches.
“You’re the one who’s been avoiding me. You’ve been working so much, it’s like I haven’t seen you.
And it hurts. My time, my life, everything has revolved around you this past year.
It was the best year of my life. Not getting to see you, having you avoid me .
. . The only way I knew how to deal with it was to leave, to find work away from home. ”
“But even when you’re here, you’re not the same. You know how you’re clumsy when you’re nervous? You’re only that way around me. You’re never that way around your family. You’re never that way around Rupi.”
“So?”
“So, I make you uncomfortable enough to trip over your own feet and knock things over, but they don’t. She doesn’t.”
“Are you trying to say that the way I feel about you is different from how I feel about everyone else I love? How’s that news, Simi?”
“Are you telling me nothing has changed since you first met Rupi? Your feelings for her haven’t changed?”
He looks surprised. “Of course they have. She isn’t at all what I thought she was.
You know how we were afraid she’d hurt the family.
We were so wrong. She’s . . . she’s fit into the house like my dad’s favorite adage: Always enter any place like sugar in a teacup.
She’s dissolved into this home and made everything better.
I’ve never met anyone else who can put others at ease so very much without even trying.
In fact, while trying to do the opposite. ” He smiles.
“Oh god, you sound like you’re in love with her.”
“What are you talking about?” Suddenly he’s looking at me differently, as though he’s seeing something for the first time.
“What I’m saying is that I get why you did this.
I get what you said about how she raised you at the cost of her own childhood.
I can see her doing that now. I think she’s fantastic.
I’m glad she’s going to be my family, but only because she’s related to the woman I love. ”
He’s standing really close to me now. He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, then cups my cheek.
There’s an odd determination in his eyes.
“She’s not you, Simi. No one is. No one will ever be.
She’s not the one who makes my entire body come alive when she’s in the room.
She’s not the one who makes me feel electric sparks in my belly.
She’s not the one who makes my palms sweat because I want her so badly.
She’s not the one I lie awake in fear of not loving me back the way I love her. ”
I lean into his hand. My chest hurts so bad, I don’t know how I can bear it. “So, you’re telling me the only reason you love me is because you’re physically attracted to me?”
He steps back. Why do I keep ruining the moment? Why am I pushing him away again?
Our damage is pretty complex. No kidding, didi!
He comes back. Steps closer again but doesn’t touch me. “It’s not just about physical attraction. It’s not like Rupi isn’t beautiful.”
“You think my sister is beautiful.”
He looks up at the ceiling like someone up there can save him from what I’m putting him through.
“God, Simi! Everyone thinks your sister is beautiful. You’re both blessed with the kind of beauty poets write poetry about and artists paint portraits of.
I can’t stop thinking about the exact brown of your eyes, the curl of your lashes, the way your mouth curves upward at the edges, the softness of your skin.
I’ve daydreamed about those things from the first time I saw you.
But there are a lot of beautiful women in the world.
I used to feel that way about every actress I ever had a crush on.
This is not that. Looking at you brings me to my knees, and that has nothing to do with your beauty.
It has everything to do with who you are.
That’s what lights you up. It has everything to do with what it feels like just to be with you.
Simi Naik, I am madly, irreversibly, and wholly in love with you and only you. ”
I’m speechless. A trembling starts deep inside me. I’m shaking. He’s not done.
“But I hate feeling like it isn’t enough. I hate feeling like you’re going to walk away from me because I don’t know how to show it. Because I never know how much to show it so I don’t scare you away.”
“You’re afraid I’ll leave you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to say, yes. I’ve been terrified of it from the very beginning.”
This time I reach out and cup his cheek. He leans into it. “And I live in fear of you leaving me.”
“You do?”
“All the time.”
“Why do you think that is? Why do you think neither of us can believe that we found each other?”
“Rupi thinks it’s because we found each other so easily. Because loving each other is so easy, we don’t value it.”
“Well, she’s full of shit about that.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.
“What we’re doing for her is not easy. What you’ve done for her is the most generous darned thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.
Staying away from you in public, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Keeping my hands off you has been pure torture, Simi. ”
I reach up and thread my fingers through his thick curls, and that electric spark he speaks of nearly splits me in half.
“I don’t want you to keep your hands off me,” I whisper.
“I want your hands everywhere.” I kiss the edge of his mouth.
He has stubble now, and it’s a whole new sensation. His jaw is also sharper.
He pulls me into himself and strokes his hands up and down my back, cupping my butt and lifting me close. “Like this?” he asks.
Exactly like that. “I’ve missed you so much,” I say as I make my way across his jaw to his lips, searching for everything that’s changed and finding everything so familiar that it’s an extension of myself.
He waits. Pressing into me with his entire body, caressing me with his hands, but waiting, waiting for me to find his mouth.
I do. It’s like coming home. It’s like coming undone.
It’s like the dam breaking. His hands, his mouth .
. . They’re everywhere, all at once. My hair, my lips, the column of my throat .
. . He takes it all, slow at first, then hungrier and hungrier.
Sucking and nipping, peeling away everything I’ve been feeling.
Consuming me. Inhaling me. Reaching all the way inside.
I wrap my legs around him, pressing and pushing, wanting it all, wanting it to never stop.
Just as his tongue is deep in my mouth, my fingers deep in his hair, our clothes halfway off, my legs around him, clutching and reaching, the door opens.
A scream crashes through the mindless haze wrapped around our bodies.
“Prem! What are you doing!”
It’s his mother’s voice. Oh god. His mother is here, and my legs are wrapped around his waist. His pants are unzipped, and my underwear is halfway down my thighs. Oh, and my buttons are off, and my bra is on full display.
I think I’m going to die.
“Mamma!” Prem says. But he does not drop me. He keeps me in his arms.
“I . . . I . . .” Words stutter on my tongue. Shame swallows me whole. I haven’t stuttered since I was ten years old.
“It’s not what you think!” Prem says. He keeps holding me even as I let my legs slip down him and he spins around so she doesn’t see what’s happening in his pants.
She lets out another shriek. “That’s because I could never think such dirty things.”
The last time I wanted to die of shame, a neighbor had declared that a whore’s daughters could only ever be whores. Rupi had run at her and scratched her face, then gotten punched and had her nose broken in return.
“Can you wait outside, Mamma, please,” Prem says with utmost calm. “I can explain. I promise.”
Without another word, she leaves.
I’m shaking. Prem zips his pants and then helps me put myself together.
“Simi, it’s—”
“N . . . N . . .” I swallow. I count. I breathe. I do everything I’m supposed to do to get my tongue to start working again. He waits.
“N . . . No. I . . . I can’t. Please. J . . . Just go.”
“We have to talk about this.”
Except I can’t fucking talk.
“I have to tell her the truth.”
“N-no!” I go deep into my gut, and I dig up my voice. “No. We can’t tell her, Prem. Not until we’ve talked to Rupi. Please.” I can’t screw my sister over.
“Okay. Fine. I won’t tell her yet, but we have to tell her once we’ve talked to Rupi. And Saj. Saj will know what to do.”
I nod. “I can’t face her right now. Your mom.”
“I know. It’s okay. Wait here. I’ll go talk to her.”
He walks to the door, then turns around and comes back to me and pulls me close. “I love you, Simi. Please don’t ever doubt that. It’s going to be okay.”
He kisses me.
Nothing is ever going to be okay.
“Baby?” he says.
“I’m fine. Go.”
He does, and I follow him to the door but stay inside the room, where I can hear them but they can’t see me. I cannot face anyone right now.
“What is wrong with you?” she says to him. The disgust in her voice cuts through me. “Is this how I raised you? You’re cheating on your fiancée a week before your wedding.” Here her voice turns into a hiss. “With her sister. Oh god, oh Krishna. What kind of girl is this?”
“Mamma, please, it’s not her fault.”
“You’re right. You’re right! It’s your fault. Oh god, oh Krishna, what kind of man did I raise? What did I do? Rupi, oh my god. That poor child.”
“What’s the matter?” Good, my sister is here. She’s going to take care of this. Rupi is going to take care of this. Relief washes through me.
“Nothing. Nothing is the matter.” Tanuja says. “I, uh, let’s go down and steam the sari. Oh god, the wedding.” Prem’s mother is going to hate me forever. Everyone in the family is going to hate me forever.
“Mamma, what’s wrong?” my sister says. “Prem? Tell me what happened.”
“I will. Just give me a minute. Mamma, please, can you give us some space?”
“You’re asking me to leave? Really? So Rupi is alone when she finds out? I’m not leaving her to face this by herself.”
“Can you trust me for one second, please?” How is he so calm?
“Prem, it’s okay, just tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me in front of your mother. We have no secrets.”
Really?
“I will tell you when my mother leaves.”
“What’s in the room?” Rupi asks.
“Don’t go in there, beta,” Tanuja all but shrieks. Which is the surest way to get Rupi to walk straight to the door where I’m standing, hair askew, eyes swollen.
She startles. “Simi!” Her head pivots from me in the room to the corridor outside. “What . . . what are you doing in Prem’s room?”
And that’s when I know what it feels like to be thrown under a bus by your own flesh and blood.