Chapter Fifteen
Ravi lets Mia wipe the floor with him in every game of Connect Four they play, an apology in advance for his subpar bedtime-story skills.
“I’m sorry,” Ravi had said when he walked in the door and saw the tension in Suresh’s face. “I should’ve stayed with you.”
“Don’t beat up,” he’d replied. “There’s pizza in the kitchen.” And then Suresh retreated to his bedroom, a chilled towel for his forehead in hand.
Ravi really shouldn’t have gone to book club, not when Suresh and Mia needed him. Shouldn’t have stayed after it was over, without a second thought about either. And for what? So he could know what Yael Koenig feels like pressed against him? He’s astonished at his own selfishness.
But maybe he shouldn’t be, given how he met her. Maybe this is just who he is.
“Dada, you’re really bad at this today,” Mia says, dropping a token for the kill.
He scrunches his nose. “Or maybe you’re just really good.”
She grins. “Maybe. Another?”
“Bedtime,” Ravi says.
“Are you going to read me a story instead of Daddy?” She eyes him skeptically.
“Yes. Daddy’s head hurts too much.”
Ravi pushes himself to standing, and Mia folds her arms across her chest. “Will you at least try to do different voices?”
Yael would be great at bedtime stories, he thinks. Which, in turn, makes him think of her thighs wrapped around him, her skin under his tongue. He clears his throat. “I’ll do my best, okay? Lewwe go.”
She stomps up the stairs after him, and at the top, demands that he “make her a toothbrush.” He runs the bristles under the water, squeezes a dab of Tom’s strawberry toothpaste for kids on the toothbrush, and hands it off to her.
Mia pauses halfway through brushing, just to inform him once again that she’d rather it be Suresh doing bedtime.
Nobody told him that unclehood would require superhuman self-esteem. The number of times a day he’s informed of his inadequacies has gone up exponentially since Mia came into his life.
The first five pages of Where’s Halmoni?
are all starts and stops. The brother and sister sound too similar, then too different, and soon it’s “ruining the experience.” But eventually, his inability to disguise his own voice proves useful, after all, and the soft, even drone of it makes Mia’s eyelids grow heavy.
Ravi stands up from the bed as slowly and unobtrusively as he can, breathing a sigh of relief when he steps away and Mia’s eyes are still shut. She looks so small like this, and his chest feels full with a swell of affection. He slips out of her room, leaving only the tiny dinosaur night-light on.
Downstairs, in the guest room (a little more his with the Adé Hogue poster on the wall and second plant next to Squirtle on the sill), Ravi retrieves his phone from the nightstand and finds two messages from Elle.
He has to take a deep breath before opening them—if it felt slimy to message her Saturday morning as if nothing had happened, it feels downright filthy to do it now.
Elle
I kissed someone this weekend, and I feel like I should tell you that
I’m sorry, that was really blunt. I know this isn’t something we usually talk about
Ravi scrubs his hand down his face. Fuck, he doesn’t like that. Which is ridiculous, because he had his hand up someone’s skirt earlier tonight. He checks the time stamps—these are from a couple of hours ago. Are you still around? he sends back. Yes, she replies immediately.
Ravi
I kissed someone recently, too
Elle
Oh
Ravi
Why did you tell me?
I’m glad you did, for the record
Elle
It felt like I was lying if I didn’t. Why did you?
Other than that I told you
Ravi
Same reason
He rubs his hand over the stubble on his jaw, debating what to say next. Daring himself to be honest about what all this has become to him. I think I like you more than I should, he writes.
Elle
I know I like you more than I should
I think I hate whoever it was. And I know that makes me the worst kind of hypocrite, but it’s how I feel
Ravi
It doesn’t. I feel the same way
I think about you all the time, Elle. I think about what it would be like to actually get to see you in person, to touch you
Elle
I had a dream about kissing you
Ravi
Really?
Elle
Yes. I think about you all the time, too
Ravi leans back, resting one hand next to him on the dresser, his heart beating wildly.
It’s a little thrilling to know that she aches for him in some semblance of the way he does for her.
It’s also painful knowing all the reasons it can’t work, and how many of them are on his end.
But he can’t be any more selfish than he already has been.
Another message from Elle: Do you like them? The person you kissed
A week ago, he’d have said no instantly. It’s a little more complicated than that now. Despite everything, he wants to be fair to Yael, too.
Ravi
Not the way I like you
Elle
I haven’t liked anyone the way I like you in a very long time
Ravi
What do we do about this?
I can’t date anyone right now with Mia and Suresh, especially long distance
Elle
I can’t do distance, either. I’m not emotionally equipped to handle it, and I don’t want you to get me at my worst
I’d take you at your worst, he thinks, if I didn’t know my attention would always belong elsewhere.
Ravi
It wasn’t fair of me to let it get this far
Elle
This is as much my doing as yours
I know I shouldn’t be thinking about it right now, but I really want this Renegade deal, and I really want you to be a part of it.
Ravi
I want that too
Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this
Talking so much
Elle
You’re probably right. I don’t think I can make myself stop feeling like this if we’re texting every day. Maybe we stick to email?
Ravi
That’s probably a good idea
Elle
I’m sorry
I wish it wasn’t like this
Ravi
I’m sorry too.
I guess this is it, then. I’ll miss you, Elle
Elle
I’ll miss you, too
Ravi feels his heart in his throat, tears pricking his eyes. He stares at his phone for a while, but no new message comes, because there’s nothing more to say.
It was always going to end this way, he guesses. With him hollowed out and disappointed, mostly in himself.
YAEL LEANS BACK in her chair, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. It’s better like this, she tells herself. It has to be.
She’ll be okay, soon enough. She’s never met Kevin.
She doesn’t even know his real name. There have been heartbreaks far worse, ones that have dropped her into a place that seemed impossible to crawl out of, and she’s survived all of them.
There’s still Charlie to worry about: how she’s going to talk to him about Ravi tomorrow.
There have been bigger heartbreaks, she tells herself. There will be bigger heartbreaks again.
She will be okay, but tonight she can let herself cry.
And so she does, as she brushes her teeth, takes her lamotrigine, and climbs under her covers. She doesn’t really stop until she falls asleep, her tears wetting the pillowcase.
Yael wakes up the next morning an hour before her alarm with a splitting headache.
When her coffee isn’t curative, she knows she’s in for a long day.
She takes some naproxen, which will dull the pain, but this is the kind of headache where the rest of it—the fogginess, the vague pulsing, the tightness in her neck—are here to stay until she can finally go back to sleep.
Even with her bit of stumbling around the dimly lit kitchen while she waits for the meds to kick in, she’s ready before she usually gets up.
Before Sanaa should be at work, even. Yael texts her asking if she can call, scribbles thank you for the soup, talk tonight?
on the notepad on the refrigerator, and hauls herself outside.
It’s only just daybreak, but the sky is cloudless, a promise of sun. Her phone rings, LOML <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 flashing across her screen.
“You’re up early,” Sanaa says the moment Yael answers. “Everything okay?”
“Not really,” Yael croaks.
“Alright, I’m gonna walk instead of taking the subway. Let’s hear it.”
“I’ll say this first part for context, but I don’t really want advice, okay?
” Sanaa makes a noise of assent. “I’ve been talking to my editor every day for weeks now, and not in a professional capacity, and I think I fell a little bit in love with him, which I recognize was ill-advised for myriad reasons that I don’t need you to recite to me—”
“I won’t,” Sanaa says. “At least not while you’re actively in distress. You might get an itemized list from me later today, though.”
“But whatever we were doing,” Yael continues, “it’s over now, so we can just do the podcast, and I’m sad, but it’s the right thing, so I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay … no list, then. What’s the second part?”
“I fucked up real bad, Sanaa.” Yael inhales deeply, staring at a Japanese maple across the way. “Did Charlie tell you about his one-night stand back in September who snuck out of my bedroom window while he was making breakfast?”
“You mean out of his bedroom window?”
“No, I mean out of mine.”
“He did not tell me this. But he never does, because he doesn’t like it when I tell him he’s delusional about men.”
“I don’t think that he’s delusional,” Yael says.
“And that’s why he talks to you and not to me.”
Yael sighs. “I’m getting off track.”
“No, I’m calming you down with the power of distraction. And you’re no longer on the verge of tears, so, you’re welcome.”
Yael huffs out a soft laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Go on.”
“The one-night stand started volunteering at my book club, and there’s been a lot of … tension.”
“Go on,” Sanaa says again, the interest plain in her voice.
“I kissed him last night and completely freaked out about it, and I have no idea how to tell Charlie.”
“You freaked out about a kiss?” Sanaa asks, disbelieving. “When was the last time that happened, high school? I think your students are rubbing off on you.”
“It’s about who I kissed,” Yael says. And then, after a beat, “And how much I liked it. Charlie is going to hate me.”
“Oh my God, no he won’t. I don’t think he’ll be, like, ecstatic, but you said this was September? It’s Charlie. That’s gotta be, what, two crushes ago? He loves you. He’ll get over it.”
“I’m an awful person,” Yael says.
“You’re not, and the two of you are queer friends in the same midsize city. I’m shocked you haven’t fucked the same person before now, actually.”
“We didn’t fuck!” Yael says a bit too loudly. Someone walking their dog takes out an earbud as if she were talking to them, and Yael has to do the exaggerated I’m-on-the-phone gesture.
“Right, you just kissed.”
“I don’t know if I’d say just kissed,” Yael says.
Sanaa squeals into the phone.
“He hurt Charlie, Sanaa. I feel terrible.”
“Of course you do. You’re you. But you’ll talk to Charlie tonight, and you’ll see that everything’s going to be okay.” Yael is quiet for a bit, and then Sanaa says, “I’m honestly proud of you for kissing him at all.”
“Let’s not go that far,” Yael says. “It was incredibly selfish.”
“Maybe, but you could stand to be a little more selfish sometimes.” Yael hums skeptically, and Sanaa laughs. “I mean it,” Sanaa says.
“I’ll talk to Charlie tonight,” Yael says.
“You feeling a little bit better?”
“Yeah. I recognize that this is the second time I’ve called you in crisis in two months, but I didn’t know what else to do,” Yael says.
“Del’s still on parental leave, right?” Sanaa asks.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Yael,” Sanaa says, her voice flat. “You are my best friend in the fucking world. You live across the country with a difficult time difference, and we get to see each other like three times a year, maximum. You have two jobs. I take four business days to reply to texts that aren’t urgent.
Talking constantly is just not realistic for us, so I especially want you to call me when you need help.
Kind of rude that you don’t do it when your therapist is available, to be honest.”
“I want you to call me with your crises, too, you know.”
“I do. They’re just only once every two years because I’m aromantic and also the last living Gen Z–Millennial cusper without a diagnosable mood disorder.”
“I love you,” Yael says, sniffling into her laugh.
“Yeah, bitch, I know. I’m coming up to my office now so I’m gonna go,” she says, and hangs up at the beginning of Yael’s “Bye.”
On the way to work, Yael buys herself another canelé from Ken’s, this time to give her strength for the day ahead.