Chapter Eleven
On Friday night, Suresh tells Ravi that he needs to get out of the house, and Ravi doesn’t have the wherewithal to argue.
Unsure what to do with himself and equally unwilling to go to a bar alone—the Charles situation is still too fresh in his mind—he takes himself to a late showing of an indie film he’s never heard of at Laurelhurst Theater.
There, he orders a slice of pizza and a pilsner, well aware that his East Coast–acclimated taste buds still cower at the thought of a PNW IPA.
It’s luxurious, eating dinner at eight thirty completely on his own.
Maybe Suresh had a point. And so did Ravi, when he jokingly told Elle that he was taking himself on a date tonight.
The film is beautiful, has a great score, and is sort of a shoddily told story, but he enjoys himself nonetheless.
As he exits, he turns his phone back on, planning to text Elle something like Do you think the recent success of visually interesting but ultimately empty films is because of TikTok?
because he’s pretty sure he’d get a five-hundred-word essay in response, but he has two missed calls and a voicemail from an unknown number from twenty minutes ago.
The message is nearly incoherent between the slurred speech and the poor service: “Hey, Ravi … It’s Leo from book club … number from the Kennedy SafeRide list … can’t drive … Could you…” But it’s enough to have him pulling up a rideshare app on his phone as he calls back.
“Hello?”
“Leo? It’s Ravi. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I just … I’m at a party and I want to leave, but I’m too drunk to drive. And anyway, Eli drove me. I don’t know where he is. Well, he’s here, but I don’t know what room…”
“Can you send the address? I’ll head out now and make sure you get home.”
“I didn’t think you were going to be able to come, since you didn’t pick up,” Leo says.
“I’m really sorry,” Ravi says. “I was at a movie, but I can come now.”
“Okay, thank you.”
“Can you send the address?” Ravi repeats.
“Yeah, okay,” Leo says.
“I’ll text you my ETA. Let me know if you need anything before I get there. I’ll turn my ringer on.”
“Thank you, Ravi.”
“No problem,” he says, and Leo hangs up.
The party is only a fifteen-minute drive away, at some condo in the Pearl.
A relief. Ravi spends the time drumming his fingers on his knee, repeatedly checking his phone for a call from Leo that never comes.
When he’s two minutes out, he sends Leo a text to let him know, and Leo replies that he’ll meet him outside.
“Hey!” Leo calls when Ravi’s only halfway out of the car, still thanking the driver.
“Hey, Leo,” he says, walking toward him. “Are you doing okay?” Leo looks a little the worse for wear, to be honest. His shirt is crumpled, and his hair is messy in a way that suggests he’s been running his hand through it, his eyes bloodshot.
“Yeah, I just—” and then he stumbles forward. Ravi grabs his arm to steady him, and Leo doubles over and vomits.
Ravi doesn’t jump out of the way in time—or rather, there’s no real path he could take that would allow him to both support Leo and stay clean—and a good amount of vomit ends up streaking down the front of Ravi’s pant leg. Fucking hell.
“Oh my God, Leo? Are you okay?”
Ravi whips his head toward the sound. “Yael?”
“Ravi,” she says, not in disbelief the way he had, but more resigned. Like, Of course.
“Hi, Ms. Koenig,” Leo says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Christ, it smells really bad. Ravi’s never been good with vomit.
Mia picked up a stomach bug from day care a couple of months ago, and even though Ravi didn’t catch it, there was definitely some sympathetic heaving.
“SafeRide, too?” he guesses, doing his best to breathe through his mouth. “Which kid called you?”
“This one,” Yael says, looking at Leo.
“You didn’t pick up,” Leo says to Ravi. “So I called Ms. Koenig. But then you called back.”
Ravi nods, closing his eyes briefly, trying not to regret the club and saying yes to Sherine about being added to the SafeRide list and moving to Portland and his entire life, really. “Okay, well. Ms. Koenig can take you home, then.”
Ravi starts to release him; Leo looks more confident on his feet now, but he has Ravi’s arm in a vise grip. “Please don’t leave,” Leo says.
Yael looks at Ravi … sympathetically, maybe.
That’s new. She’s wearing what look like house shoes (baby pink, fluffy enough to resemble live rabbits), and her index finger is hooked through a carabiner with a baffling number of keys.
“I took an Uber here,” he says. “I’d have to call another car, but Ms. Koenig could get you home immediately. ”
“Can you both take me?” Leo says, making very drunk puppy-dog eyes.
“Ravi can help get you to the car, okay?” Yael says, and Ravi looks at her gratefully. She catches his eye and gives one curt nod.
Leo relents and lumbers after Yael with his arm slung around Ravi’s shoulders.
She goes slowly and keeps looking back at them, as if checking for signs of impending disaster.
The disaster has already struck, Ravi thinks, because his left leg is starting to feel damp.
He tries not to gag. They arrive at Yael’s car, a small, bright-orange hatchback, and Ravi tries to get Leo into the front passenger seat, but as soon as he lets go, tears well in Leo’s eyes.
“Please ride with me,” Leo begs.
“There’s only one seat up here,” Ravi says. “You’re in good hands.”
“I’ll ride in the back! I’ll ride in the back if you ride with me,” Leo says, and, ah, how is Ravi going to argue with that?
He looks to Yael, who is raking her teeth over her bottom lip. Their eyes meet, and she nods again. “Okay,” Ravi says. “I’ll ride with you. Let’s get you buckled.”
While Ravi pours Leo into the back seat, Yael starts digging through the trunk. Leo gets his seat belt fastened after his seventh attempt and tilts his head back against the headrest, closing his eyes.
The sound of the trunk closing makes Leo’s eyes fly open again, and Yael thrusts a reusable grocery bag at him, which he accepts, a blush staining his cheeks. She gives his shoulder a light pat, then stands and chucks another bag over the car at Ravi, which he barely catches.
“What’s this?”
“A pack of antibacterial wipes and the only pants I have in my trunk,” she answers.
He unrolls them—they’re a sort of dizzying tie-dyed pattern, but they look soft and, more importantly, clean.
Yael must take his perusal for protest, because she folds her arms across her chest. “It looked like Leo got you pretty good. I’m sure they’re short on you and you’ll have to tighten the drawstring, but it’s that or marinating in a sixteen-year-old’s vomit.
I’ve been there, so I figured I’d give you the option,” she says.
Ravi blinks, unsure which part to respond to first. “I thought I was barely taller than you” is what he decides to go with. Maybe decides is a stretch.
“And I thought you were tall enough to make the difference,” she replies easily.
“Thank you,” he says, and Yael looks so startled that a cold front of guilt passes through Ravi.
“I’ll start the car. Get in when you’re ready,” she says, and she climbs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door behind her.
Crouching to obscure himself, Ravi strips off his jeans, scrubs himself down with three sequential wipes, and pulls on Yael’s pants.
She’s right; he tightens the strings at the waist, and even with them hanging low on his hips, the pants stop a few centimeters above his shoes.
He balls up the soiled jeans and stuffs them into the bag, tying it shut in the hope of stopping the smell.
Probably a useless effort since he’s about to spend who knows how long in an enclosed space with Leo.
He takes a deep breath before sliding into the back seat. “Hey, padna,” he says. “You feeling okay?”
“Thank you,” Leo whispers.
“Alright, I got your address from the directory,” Yael says. “Can you just confirm for me that it’s still good?” She reads it out, Leo grunts in affirmation, and then they’re off.
A few minutes pass, uneventful. As the seconds tick by, Ravi’s anxiety level ticks upward. If Leo goes again, he doesn’t think he’d be able to hold his sympathy in this time. “How much longer?” he murmurs to Yael, unsure if Leo’s still awake.
“Like fifteen minutes. He’s at the other end of the school district.”
Ravi nods, trying not to panic.
Leo mumbles something from Ravi’s side.
“What was that?” Yael asks.
“I was talking to Ravi,” Leo says.
In the rearview, Ravi can see Yael’s eyes roll. At least trying not to laugh distracts him from the possible vomit. “I couldn’t hear you, either,” he says.
“Alex dumped me,” Leo says, now way too loud.
“Oh,” Ravi says, racking his brain for the names and faces of every club member, but Alex doesn’t ring a bell. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He’s not in book club,” Yael says, as if she can sense Ravi’s confusion.
“He said it was homophobic to have a queer club that conflicts with the fall play,” Leo says.
At the stop sign, Yael turns around, mouth agape. “Play practice is every single day!”
Ravi barks out a laugh. “I think it’s a joke.”
“It is,” Leo says.
“It’d better be,” Yael says. Under her breath, she mutters something like “Fucking Alan.”
Leo turns to look at Ravi again. “He broke up with me because I wouldn’t come out to my parents yet, and he said that he couldn’t love someone who doesn’t love himself,” he says, and promptly bursts into tears.
Ravi puts his hand on Leo’s shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze, and Leo leans into the touch, tucking his chin to his chest. “I’m so sorry, Leo,” Ravi says, his voice cracking. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I’m just not ready,” Leo mumbles.
“You don’t have to be,” Ravi says. He lets his hand fall, but then Leo curls into him completely, and he switches to rubbing his back. He feels a little uncomfortable here, essentially hugging this kid, but he can tell Leo wants to be held. He knows he would.