Chapter 27 #2
But tonight, I’m here. I’ve refilled Rachel’s wine glass and gotten my own, and our respective bowls of onion soup are still way too hot to touch.
“I should have called you to the table later,” I say, scratching the back of my neck awkwardly.
Rachel pinches her lips. Both of her hands lay under the table on her lap. “It’s fine. I’m really hungry, anyway.”
“Yeah, but you can’t eat.”
“I might just try anyway.”
“I don’t want you burning your tongue, Rach.”
She smirks. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Never.” I understand her joke, but I want to make my stance clear with her. “The last thing I ever want is for you to get hurt. You have to know that.”
Rachel’s nostrils flare. “Maybe that’s what you want, Karan. But it doesn’t matter what you intend when your actions hurt people.”
She slips her right hand from under the table, picks up her spoon, and digs through the broiled cheese layer to get a nice, steaming spoonful of soup.
“Rach—”
She pops the spoon in her mouth and winces, then proceeds to blow out of her mouth like she’s trying to ventilate it. She swallows, puts down the spoon, and looks deep into my eyes.
“I’m your wife. Nah, fuck that—I’m your partner. Married or not, I would have learned to trust you in exactly the same way over the years. So you can whine all you want about what you want or intend, but keep this one thing in mind.
“I trusted you. I’ve been through it all with you, thick and thin. And I’ve followed you through everything, trusting you’d make the right choices for us. For our boys. Just like I trusted you to feed me onion soup that wouldn’t burn me. And look, it’s not all bad.”
She gestures to the soup, a sharp motion of her arm that conveys her frustration loud and clear.
“Yeah, it’s scalding hot, but it’s fucking good. So I’m not saying it’s all bad, Karan. But…”
She bites her lip and looks away.
Trusted me.
Past tense.
Fuck.
I resist the urge to lean over the table and lift her chin. “Come on. Talk to me, Rach.”
I need her to stop talking in metaphors. This has nothing to do with onion soup, and we both know it.
Her eyes well up with tears when she looks back at me. “I’m sick and tired of you choosing to be away from us. Away from me.”
She smacks her chest with her palm. A tear escapes down her cheek, and my heart sinks all the way to my feet.
“I begged you not to go back to the office when we were at the airport. Begged you, Karan. But you left me alone.”
“I didn’t have a choice. It was my job on the line, and I—”
“You always have a choice!” Rachel shrieks, her voice breaking. “Stop with the bullshit, or I’m done.”
My heart pounds violently against my ribs, and my vision tunnels. She can’t be serious, can she?
“Rachel…”
“No more excuses, Karan, please.” She places both hands on the table, as if gripping on to them for dear life, and maybe she is.
“Can you honestly tell me, without an ounce of exaggeration, that you didn’t have a choice back then?
What, did your boss have a hitman with a sniper aiming at you, ready to shoot if you were to say no?
He wouldn’t really have fired one of his best software engineers on the spot, would he? ”
Her eyes are wild.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and take a deep breath.
She’ll forgive me if I can make her understand. Then everything will be fine. I can fix this.
“Maybe not on the spot…” I straighten my spine. “But I’m trying to build something for us, Rach. I took this job specifically for the pay bump, and there’s no way for me to get to the next level if I refuse to be all in.”
“You’re trying to build something for us, huh?” Rachel leans back against her chair and crosses her arms. “Karan, we don’t need more money. We were doing perfectly fine before you switched jobs.”
“I don’t want to be doing just fine.” I grit my teeth, the constant, ever-whispering hint of terror weighing down my shoulders and laughing in my ear. “This world is going to shit, Rach. House prices are insane. Everything’s getting more expensive.
“If we don’t want our boys to struggle—if we want them to be able to own a house someday and actually thrive—we have to be proactive and save much, much more than we have been for them.”
“I don’t get it.” Rachel shakes her head. “We’ve been saving plenty. The boys will be fine—more than fine.”
Her eyes narrow. Her arms are no longer crossed, and she’s moving them frantically now.
“It’s about more than that, isn’t it? This whole charade, this whole forcing yourself to be something you’re not with this stupid job… don’t tell me you’re doing it only for us. You’re doing this to impress your parents.”
The last word comes out like poison.
“Of course I am!” The words come out much louder than I intend them to. “Yes, that’s part of it, and what’s wrong with that? Are you going to fault me for wanting my parents to be proud of me, Rach? Really?”
Shut up, Karan. Don’t go too far.
“Yes, I’m going to fault you for that if it comes at the expense of our family.” She’s seething now. “The boys miss you. I miss you. All so you can go on some crusade to get approval from mommy and daddy, really?”
“You don’t get it.”
Don’t say it. Don’t say it.
“Maybe it was easy for you to scrub your parents out of your life, but I’m not built like that.”
Regret clings to me like a growing vine on my spine as soon as the words are out in the open. Shock registers on Rachel’s face, and for the first time since this argument started, she’s silent.
“Shit.” I drop my head in my hands, leaning my elbows against the table. “Rachel, I’m sorry.”
“That,” she starts, her voice fragile like glass, “was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”
“I know. I didn’t mean it.” I raise my eyes to get a glimpse of her, expecting seething fury.
What I see is so much worse.
Her shoulders slump like they’re carrying a weight too heavy to bear. The faintest tremor runs through her fingers as she rubs at her temples, her eyes rimmed red and glassy, like she hasn’t slept in days.
“And you know what?” she asks with a shrug.
“I’m beginning to think that this…” She gestures to me and then back to her.
“Whatever this has become is going to be even harder. I’m tired of fighting you and trying to convince you to spend time with me or the boys.
It’s breaking my heart every time you decide not to choose us. Choose me.”
She looks straight through me, her chin wobbling.
“And so maybe, at this point, the easier choice would be for me to leave.”
I stand as if stuck by lightning, Rachel flinching from the motion. Every muscle in my body is tensed up, ready to pounce.
“I don’t believe you.”
I am not losing her.
It’s Rachel’s turn to stand. “I said no bullshit, remember? I mean every word, Karan. It would be so much easier for me to just give up on us!”
She’s not serious. Letting go of everything we’ve built… of the love that I know still blooms in her heart for me, because she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t the case… it wouldn’t be that easy.
“No, Rachel. I don’t believe it—not one bit. The two of us, you can’t just pull out these roots that easily. You can’t snuff out our love like it means nothing.”
Her eyes go narrow with defiance. “Watch me.”
And she begins to turn, away from the table, away from me, and…
A possessive hunger takes over me all at once; as if driven by an otherworldly force, I close the space between us in a single stride and grab her wrist.
“No.”
She turns to face me, and everything else falls away. A roaring tidal wave swallows everything in its path, leaving only the uncontrollable love I have for this woman.
My wife.
Her pupils are blown. I may be much, much bigger than she is, but not an ounce of fear floats in her eyes. She knows I would never, ever hurt her.
No, what I see in those emerald eyes is a spark.
I knew it. She can’t leave me that easily, and I can read that all over her face, over the way her body has rotated to face me instead of trying to pull away.
“You’re not going anywhere.” With a careful force—assertive yet gentle—I grab her by the hips and lift her up, rotating her so I can press her up against the wall. “You’re mine, Rachel.”
And I show her just how much I mean it by pressing my mouth against hers.