Lovestuck

Chapter 30

By the time Riya got home, Sirah khala was already there.

Their eyes met the moment Riya walked into the kitchen, and for a heartbeat, time seemed to pause. There was no need for words;

her khala’s look was full of questions, and more pointedly, relief.

“Riya! Look who’s back from Finland!” Riya’s mom waved her over to the dinner table. “Oh, honey. You look tired. Are you okay?”

“Rough day,” Riya mumbled, her eyes meeting Sirah khala’s across the kitchen. She gave her a small, tired smile.

“Hi, kiddo,” said Sirah khala, a knowing twinkle in her eye.

“I just finished making dinner!” Nyra called from over the stove, scooping out giant clumps of something that looked vaguely

like pasta. “Go wash up and take a seat.”

“Thank God! I’m starving!” Amara came bounding down the stairs, already in her sweats.

“Don’t say that,” their dad gently corrected, sitting beside their mom at the table. “There are people actually starving.”

“You’re right. Sorry.” Amara nodded seriously. “In that case, I’m so hungry I would even eat Nyra’s gross neon-green cupcakes.”

“No pasta for you!” Nyra yelled, brandishing a pair of tongs in Amara’s direction.

There was something so familiar, so comforting about the scene that Riya’s vision blurred. The warmth of it pressed against the ache she carried from earlier—Kian’s rawness, his panic. The terrifying weight of what she was about to do.

And here was the opposite: mess and comfort and noise. Her mom clattering dishes. Nyra threatening Amara with tongs. Her dad’s

voice softening the edges of the room. All of them existing together, unbroken. Unafraid.

She blinked fast, wiped her eyes, and turned toward the sink.

For years, dinner had been a pit stop. Something to endure before disappearing into her room, textbooks open, Caltech burning

at the edge of her horizon. After the Incident—the last time she’d used her powers so thoughtlessly—shutting the door became

policy. It had felt justified: Being focused. Distant. Because the more distant she was, the less people could see all the

cracks.

Except tonight, while scrubbing her hands beneath warm water, Riya felt something shift. She hadn’t realized what she’d been

missing.

And now Sirah khala was here, too. An anchor in the storm. A reminder that despite everything, magic still lived in this house.

But time was up.

“Riya, come sit!” Nyra called, her voice snapping Riya out of her thoughts. “Pasta’s getting cold, and I toiled over it all evening. You’d better appreciate it!”

“I appreciate it,” their dad said.

Riya caught Sirah khala’s eye again.

“Yes, please, let’s eat. Then, Riya, maybe you can take me out stargazing?” her aunt said slowly, her words heavy with hidden

meaning. “Seems like a good night for it.”

Riya’s throat pinched.

“It is.”

The grass was damp beneath Riya’s boots as she followed Sirah khala to the far end of the backyard. They walked in silence,

their path lit only by the moon—waxing gibbous, still shy of full. Just five nights left. The air held the sharp scent of

soil and woodsmoke, and the cold curled at her fingers, even through her sleeves. She tugged the telescope to her side.

Sirah khala stopped beneath a gap in the trees where the sky opened wide above them, a dome of deepening blue pricked with

stars.

“So? How are you holding up?” she asked.

Riya pulled her backpack off one shoulder and set it down beside her telescope. “About as well as you’d imagine.”

Sirah khala’s forehead wrinkled.

“Well,” she said. “Let’s begin. You ready?”

Riya nodded and pulled out the folder from her bag. Inside, printed on clean white paper, was her Caltech essay. Her fingers

were stiff with cold. She didn’t loosen her grip.

Mr. Krug will be disappointed, she thought with a pang.

She shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “What should I do?”

“Hang tight,” Sirah khala replied, pulling a canvas pouch of field chalk, a coil of garden twine, and a few small stakes from

her jacket pockets. “I’ll handle it.” She knelt on the grass, but Riya stopped her.

“Wait. I want to do it,” Riya interjected. “I started this. I should be the one to . . . finish it.”

Sirah khala studied her for a long moment. Then, without a word, she handed Riya the supplies.

“Of course,” she said softly. “Remember to start with the five points. Then the circle. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Riya paced the grass, setting five stakes into the soft earth and running twine between them until a star took shape. When

she was sure of the lines, she dusted the path with the field chalk, whitening the blades of grass along the twine. Her fingers

smudged the dust once, twice. The spacing was off. But Sirah khala didn’t correct her, didn’t pull the chalk away.

And for the first time in a long time, Riya didn’t feel like she was doing something wrong. She just felt . . . present.

Crickets rasped. The grass whispered against her ankles.

Riya straightened and wiped her hands free of dust. “Done.”

“Stand in the center with your essay,” said Sirah khala.

Riya did as she was told, the late October night chilling her skin, seeping through her clothes. “Now what?”

“Now . . .” Sirah khala pulled out a red candle from her jacket and flicked a silver lighter until the wick caught fire. A small fluttering light bloomed in the dark. “Take this.”

Riya took the candle in one hand, her essay in the other. The orange glow danced against her face as she stood in the center

of the chalk-dusted pentacle, the world around her suddenly feeling too heavy. Quiet.

She didn’t like the quiet anymore. It gave too much room for thoughts to invade—like where she would go if Caltech was no

longer an option. Could she really stomach going anywhere else?

And Kian—how would he look at her tomorrow, when he no longer remembered her?

“What next?” she asked.

A few more moments passed in silence before Sirah khala spoke. “After this experience . . . I know you might not want to have

anything more to do with our magic. But I hope you’ll give it another chance someday. I’d love to teach you. Properly.”

There was something about the way her khala stood now—tense, shoulders slightly slumped—as if bracing for rejection.

But Sirah khala had always been so sure of herself, moving like the wind, controlled only by her own whims. This was a version

of her khala Riya didn’t know.

Maybe magic had always been her aunt’s attempt at a bridge. Maybe that’s why she’d lit up when Riya’s powers first appeared. But Riya insistently kept her distance. Logic over legacy. Principle over belief. She hadn’t realized, back then, that in rejecting magic, she was also rejecting family.

Now, standing in the center of a pentacle she’d drawn herself, she could finally see it: Her khala’s distance wasn’t wanderlust.

It was waiting. Unspoken, aching hope that Riya would return to magic on her own terms.

Instead, Riya had cursed someone. Just like she’d cast that horrible spell on Jake Townsend and his friends.

With an involuntary shiver, she whispered, “I don’t know if I deserve to learn any more.”

“Of course you deserve it,” Sirah khala responded firmly. “The question is, do you want it?”

Footsteps pounded toward them.

Riya’s heart squeezed painfully as she turned, candlelight flickering in the breeze.

“Kian . . . ?”

He stood a few feet from the pentacle, breathless, eyes wide.

“You . . . just . . . left,” he panted. “Dad and I were worried something happened.”

Riya’s stomach twisted. She glanced at Sirah khala, whose expression had shifted into something unreadable.

She’d planned to do this alone. Discreetly. Just one last act of damage control before she shut the door for good.

“Everything’s fine,” she said quickly. “I just need to take care of something.”

Kian’s eyes moved to the pentacle. “Wait, what is this? What are you—?”

Riya swallowed hard. “I’m fixing it. The curse. Everything.”

“Kian, right?” Sirah khala said gently, stepping forward. “Maybe it’s best if we all take a breath.”

But it was like she didn’t exist. Kian stepped closer. “Fixing it how, Riya?”

Riya turned away, unable to meet his gaze. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” Kian pressed.

Riya’s hands clenched into fists by her sides.

“There’s a cost,” she said finally. “But it’s one I’m willing to pay.”

“What kind of cost?”

Riya swallowed hard. “I have to give up something important. To me.”

“Something important . . . ?” Kian’s face darkened as realization dawned. “Caltech. Is it Caltech? No, hell no, Riya. You can’t just give it up.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Of course you have a choice!” Kian’s voice rose. “All you’re doing is punishing yourself. And then what? You give up everything,

and I wake up with no memory of you? That’s not saving either of us. You’re not thinking about what I want.”

Riya’s breath clouded in the freezing air. “I’m setting things right.”

“What, by throwing away your future?” Kian pressed. “We’re friends, damn it! Remember? Friends don’t abandon each other. Friends also talk to each other! And this is my life we’re talking about. You don’t get to shut me out!”

Riya’s shoulders tensed. “We’re running out of time,” she said. “Your Berklee audition is in six days. The curse becomes permanent

in five. This is just how it has to be. I’m not letting this curse ruin your life.”

Kian’s breath came in sharp, ragged bursts as he struggled for words, his desperation palpable.

Finally, he took another step closer. “And I’m not letting you ruin yours.”

Riya adjusted her glasses, her tone clipped. “What are you going to do, fight me?”

“I don’t want to.” Kian’s voice softened, though his gaze stayed firm. “I really don’t want to. But if I have to—”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Sirah khala interrupted, stepping between them. “There will be no fighting on my watch. I don’t

need to see my niece wiping the floor with you, kid.”

“Wait, why are you so sure she’d beat me?” Kian asked, momentarily distracted by the casual insult. “That’s up for debate.

Look, the point is—Riya, I refuse to let you sacrifice your dream for me. We’ll find some other way.”

“How?” Riya’s hands clenched. “If I don’t break it now, you’ll be stuck under this curse for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t know! What I do know is, if you go through with this, you’ll be the one stuck. Resenting me forever. And I couldn’t live with that. Maybe I won’t remember you, but I swear I’ll know. I’ll feel it, deep in my bones.”

Riya’s shoulders tensed. She looked back at the pentacle, at the shaky lines she’d drawn herself. “It doesn’t change the facts.”

“If there was another path, I’d know it,” said Sirah khala. “We don’t ask for sacrifices like this unless we must. And Riya’s

right. We’re running out of time.”

But Kian shook his head. “No. I—I refuse. There’s always another way. We’ll find it.” His eyes, wide and desperate, bored into Riya’s. “It’s like what Julia said, right? Magic listens.

We just—have to trust it. And not let go.”

Nyra had said something similar, too: Sometimes, magic just . . . finds a different path. One we didn’t plan for.

She hadn’t believed it then. She’d still been clinging to logic, to order, to the lie that if she controlled everything tightly

enough, nothing would break again.

But magic was never about control. It was about trust.

About leaps of faith.

Her gaze flicked to Sirah khala, who stood close by.

“As your khala, I can’t in good conscience advise it,” she said softly. “But . . .you have to make your own choices.”

Dry leaves rustled faintly in the trees, the wind tugging at the edges of Riya’s sleeves. The chill brushed against her skin,

but she barely noticed it.

She met Kian’s eyes again—those dark, intense eyes. She let out a breath.

“. . . Fine,” she said. “We’ll wait. But just a little longer.”

Kian let out a small relieved laugh. “Good. Good.”

“Let’s go inside and have some hot chocolate.” Sirah khala sighed. “I suddenly feel exhausted.”

Kian shook his head. “I gotta get back home. Still have some things I need to take care of.”

Riya nodded. “Okay.” She thought of Mr. Kho, probably pacing by now, checking the window for headlights.

She hesitated. “Thanks. For . . . checking in on me.”

Kian stopped. When he turned back, the smile he gave was softer than anything she’d seen from him before. “I had to. You left

before I could thank you.” He reached out and, with deliberate care, wrapped his hand around hers. His touch was warm, startling

against the cold.

“So . . . thank you,” he said. “For getting my dad when it mattered. That’s twice now that you’ve helped me out.”

Twice?

But before she could ask, Kian gently let go. “I’ll see you soon, Riya. Just—everything’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

Kian gave Riya one last look before walking away, his figure slipping into the dim glow of moonlight.

Sirah khala’s voice broke the silence. “Well, looks like you’ll have to hold on to that essay, Riya. You’ll need it after

all.”

Riya stared down at it. The paper was crinkled now from her grip, the ink smudged ever so slightly.

Unscorched. Still hers.

“Everything’s submitted digitally nowadays,” she murmured, the tiniest smile escaping. “Just how old are you?”

“It’s symbolic, Riya!”

Riya smirked.

But together, they trudged through the crisp night air, the telescope beneath Riya’s arm—steady and solid in the dark.