Chapter Thirty-One
Early Friday evening, still hiding in his office even though he heard Suresh and Mia get home an hour ago, Ravi opens the bonus episode in his editing software.
He gave himself a few days to get himself together.
He downed a cup of coffee late enough that he knows he won’t be able to fall asleep. He can focus now.
Yael laughs through the intro. Ravi immediately gives up.
Suresh was right about one thing, Ravi thinks. This is torture.
He pulls up the most recent email from Yael, clicks reply, and starts to type.
To: Elle Rex
RE: December Bonus Rough Cut
I can’t be your editor anymore. I know I need to stop loving you, and I can’t do it with your voice in my headphones for hours every other week.
This podcast was incredible before I had a hand in it, and it still will be without me. I’ll let Renegade know on Monday.
I’m so sorry, Yael. I wish I could keep going, but it’s too painful.
Best wishes,
Ravi
He presses send without reading it over and powers down the computer.
“YOU HAVE AN email from KR Kissoon at gmail dot com,” Sanaa says from the passenger seat as they merge onto 84 on the way home from PDX.
“I gave you the phone to DJ,” Yael says. “Not read my emails.”
“Fuck, I still can’t believe that Ravi was your book club volunteer. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” Yael jokes, but it comes out a little sad. Sanaa reaches over and squeezes her thigh.
“Want me to read it to you?” she asks.
“I mean, it’s probably just the edited bonus episode, but sure.”
“The one with Charlie? God, I can’t believe you did an episode with him before me,” Sanaa says.
“He and I live together!”
“I’m here until January fifth. We have plenty of time to record.”
Yael laughs. “Okay, as soon as you pick your stage name, I’ll think of a topic.”
“Tyra Banks,” Sanaa says.
“No.”
“How about Yael Koenig?”
Yael rolls her eyes. “I’m not recording with you.”
“I’ll think of something!”
“Read me the email or pick a song already.”
“Alright, reading,” she says.
When she doesn’t say anything else, Yael briefly moves her eyes from the road. She finds Sanaa, mouth agape, eyes widened at her phone screen. “What?”
“Ravi’s resigning as your editor,” Sanaa says.
“What? Why?”
“Because he’s in love with you.”
Yael bristles, silent for a moment, hating the way her heart skips at the word “love.” “That’s not funny, Sanaa,” she says, her voice acidic.
“I’m not joking!” she shrieks, and proceeds to read Yael the whole thing.
“Are you sure that’s what it says?”
“Yes, I wouldn’t make this shit up!” Sanaa says. “If I did, I definitely wouldn’t have signed off a confession of love with ‘Best wishes.’”
“He said he loved me,” she mumbles. The taste of the words is foreign in her mouth, the thought itself foreign in her brain. “Do you think he means it?”
“Do I think he means it? What the fuck, Yael?”
On autopilot, Yael signals right, merging toward the next exit. “Is it okay if we make a stop in Laurelhurst?”
“Oh my God,” Sanaa squeals.
“I’m just going to talk to him,” Yael says. “You need to stay in the car in case I come back in tears.”
“Okay,” Sanaa says.
“Can you play music? Your excitement is making me more nervous.”
It doesn’t matter, really; Yael can’t hear it over the sound of her pulse in her ears, and Ravi’s house is so close to the exit that they don’t even finish the first song. She pulls into a space a few houses down and shifts to park.
“I’m scared,” she says.
“Yeah, I would be too,” Sanaa says.
“That’s not helpful!”
Sanaa places a gentle hand on Yael’s shoulder. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, maybe not here here,” Sanaa says. “I might get out and stretch my legs.”
“Bye, Sanaa,” Yael says, taking a deep breath before getting out of the car.
It’s already a pitch-dark night at 6:45, so the street looks exactly as it had after Stepping Stone, down to the car in the driveway.
She ascends the few steps of Ravi’s stoop and spends a good thirty seconds debating: doorbell or knock.
She goes for the bell, then steps back and waits, only belatedly considering the very good chance that Ravi might not be home.
The door is answered by, well, an alternate-reality version of Ravi: a couple of inches taller and graying at the temples, wearing the Guy-in-Tech uniform of expensive jeans and a company-branded quarter-zip. The same cleft in his chin and dark, pensive eyes.
“You must be Suresh,” she says. He nods, a crease cutting between his brows. “I’m Yael. Or Elle. I’m not sure what Ravi’s told you. Is he home?”
“Yael,” he says, and he smiles. It’s different from Ravi’s, no dimple to punctuate it, but just as bright. “I’ll go get him,” he says, and closes the door between them.
Yael shifts her weight, wrapping her arms around herself as she tries to make out the muffled voices coming from inside the house. “Wam to you? Get out there!” She thinks comes from Suresh, but she can’t parse Ravi’s response.
She probably should have brought her coat.
Another moment passes, and then Ravi appears and slips through the door, careful to shut it behind him before anyone inside can get a clear view. In the few seconds it was open, Yael could hear a child’s voice, Mia’s voice, and she guesses this is the reason for his caution.
“Hi,” he says, and, honestly, she could cry at the sound of his voice, the smell of him so close to her. He looks a little scruffier than when she last saw him, his stubble maybe two or three days old, the half circles under his eyes still tinged purple. God, he’s beautiful.
“Hey,” she says.
He gives her a long look before pulling his sweatshirt over his head and trying to hand it to her. Yael shakes her head. “You’re cold,” he says simply.
“My coat’s in the car. I’ll be fine for a few minutes out here.”
“Just take it, Yael.”
She shakes her head again. “No.”
“Come on.” He sighs.
“It’ll smell like you,” she blurts.
Ravi drops his hand but doesn’t put the sweatshirt back on. A muscle in his jaw tics.
“I got your email,” she says. “Did you mean it?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve given you some names of possible replacements you could reach out to.”
“I really don’t care about that,” Yael says. “Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”
Yael watches Ravi’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Yes,” he says.
A gust of air escapes her. “Okay,” she says.
“Okay. That’s good. Or, I don’t know, I wish you told me earlier.
I knew you liked me, but I didn’t know you loved me, and that’s why I didn’t fight for you, because I think it’s a waste of breath asking someone to love you back when they can’t.
But I don’t think it’s a waste of breath for me to ask that you let me love you. ”
“Yael—”
“I do need to be taken care of sometimes. And it’s hard for me to ask for, even harder for me to accept, but it’s true. And maybe it happens a little more often than for most people who don’t have bipolar disorder—”
“Yael,” he says, his brows knitting together. “Do you think that’s why I walked away that day?”
She pauses. “It sounded like it was part of it,” she says.
“It wasn’t,” he says. “It isn’t. Christ.”
“Oh” is all she can think to say. Ravi reaches for her, and she takes a step back. “You can’t touch me until I stop worrying about being coherent.”
Ravi nods, folding his arms across his chest, the sweatshirt trapped between them. “It was entirely about me, not you,” he says. “I know what your ex did to you, and I never want you to go through that again.”
“Do you plan to call me ‘awful’ when I’m having a panic attack or tell me I need to hide my symptoms because I’m never going to be able to manage them, anyway?
” His expression is nothing short of horrified.
“You’re not Halle,” she says, half to herself.
“I have people other than you in my life. I’m sure I’d need you sometimes, but it wouldn’t be only you.
I have Charlie and Gina and Sanaa, and my parents come home next week.
My therapist is almost back from parental leave!
“The point is, my support system is bigger than just you. Even if you didn’t have a niece to take care of, it’s not healthy or realistic to rely only on your partner.
And it’s completely normal to care for a partner sometimes while also caring for a child.
Part of the deal is you get cared for in return.
It should make things easier, not harder.
So, if that’s why you don’t want to be with me, you need a new reason. ”
Ravi chews the inside of his cheek. “It’s not the only reason,” he says eventually. “Fuck, it’s not—It’s not even the biggest reason.”
“Yeah?” Yael says, unsure if the churn of her stomach is hope or dread.
He rubs at the stubble on his chin. “Margot,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“Margot felt like she was saddled with a kid and a husband she didn’t want.
She left, and Mia and Suresh are going to be dealing with the fallout for a long time.
Maybe their whole lives. I’m still dealing with it. ”
“I don’t expect you not to be,” Yael says.
He nods, looking away, but not before she can see his eyes go watery.
RAVI TAKES IN a breath, successfully blinking back his tears, before he faces Yael again. The lights that hang on either side of the front door cast her in a soft haze, like she’s come to him in a dream. He knows she’s real, though. In his dreams, she always wants him to reach out and touch her.
“You were right,” he says. “This was a lot easier over email.”
Yael lets out a short breath of a laugh, then presses her lips together. “You can write one if you want. I’ll go read it in the car and come back.”
“I want to be able to say this to your face,” he says.
Yael’s dark eyes shine up at him, the dim light enough to make out the amber that rings around her pupil.
“I don’t want to bring Mia into your life if you’re not ready for it.
I don’t want to do that to you, and I don’t want to do that to her.
If I let her fall in love with you like I did and you left us like Margot, I don’t think either of us could take it. ”
“Ravi,” she whispers. Her arm lifts, just for a second, and she shakes her head, wrapping it back around herself. “I won’t do that.”
“But how do you know?” he asks, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know if we’ll work out. I can’t see the future, so I can’t promise that. But I can tell you that I won’t leave because of Mia, and I’d never leave the way Margot did.”
He reaches for her hand, and this time she lets him take it. Her skin is cool to the touch, and he does his best to envelop her hand with his. When he rubs his thumb against her palm, she shivers.
“There are people like Margot and my mom,” Yael says. “And there are people like Pops. I love you, Ravi. I just want you to give me the chance to be like my pops. To be like you.”
He tightens his grip on her hand, his heart rattling in his rib cage. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel this way, so terrified and so safe all at once. “Okay,” he whispers.
“Okay?” she repeats, eyebrows lifted in disbelief.
“Yes, Yael. Okay,” he says, letting go of her hand so he can drape his sweatshirt over her shoulders. He settles one hand on her hip, gently urging her toward him so only a sliver of space is left between them.
“That’s it?” Her breath ghosts against his lips. “One conversation, and you’re ready to try?”
He laughs, lifting one hand to the place where her jaw meets her neck. “One conversation with you. A handful with Suresh. And six weeks of being miserable.”
Yael smiles. “Come back to book club,” she says. “I think Leo has something to tell you.”
“Okay,” Ravi replies.
“And please still be my editor,” she says.
He nods. “Okay.”
“And come to my Chanukah party tomorrow night. You can bring Suresh and Mia if you want—or not, if you’re not ready.”
“Okay,” he says.
Her smile widens, a mischievous glint in her eye. “And give me one million dollars.”
Ravi shakes his head. “Nice try,” he says. “I love you, Yael Koenig.”
“I love you, too,” she says, and he covers her lips with his.
She opens to him immediately, her tongue tracing his in time with her fingers against his scalp. He forgets where he is, turning her so her back is against the door and he can press his body along hers the way he wants to. She gasps at the contact, and he laughs. Disbelieving. Appreciative.
A wolf whistle comes from behind him, and Yael’s eyes fly open. “Sanaa,” she calls over Ravi’s shoulder. “I asked you to stay by the car.” Ravi leans his head against Yael’s neck, catching his breath.
“You didn’t seriously think I would? I’ve been hiding behind that tree.”
Ravi rolls off of Yael but keeps hold of her hand. “Hey, Sanaa,” he says.
“Heyyyyyy, Ravi,” Sanaa calls back. “I’m really sorry to interrupt, but I just got off a five-and-a-half-hour flight and if I don’t eat soon, I think I’m going to end my longest-standing friendship. You hungry?”
Ravi chuckles, looking at Yael. She’s staring back at him, a dopey smile on her face. “Yes,” he says. “I could eat.”
“Perfect! Yael was taking me to Stepping Stone Cafe. Have you been?”
“Once,” he says. “But I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.”