Chapter 27
Raghav
The next morning, I wake up to the feeling of a crushing hangover.
Which is a change from the usual anxiousness.
So that’s good. Aditi’s still sprawled on the bed, drooling like she always does, gross but also cute.
I sit there waiting for her to wake up, and when she doesn’t, I tiptoe out of the room.
A little later, I’m standing in front of a breakfast buffet that seems to stretch for miles.
And yet the place is packed. Even more packed are the tables of guests where there are the little pyramids of fruits and pancakes and omelettes and croissants.
A lot of food will get wasted today. Before today, I thought only Indians and others with terrible inequality are cheap, but no, it’s a worldwide phenomenon. I’m happy about that.
I load up my plate too, giving into the trap that maybe, just maybe stuffing my face with food will make the hangover go away, when time and again it has been proved otherwise.
I walk past the many tables—honeymooning couples holding hands over plates of pastries, families trying to coax their kids away from the chocolate fountain, forcing them to eat some fruit. They all look like they belong here.
Then I see her.
Aditi is standing by the waffle station, rubbing her eyes. She’s wearing a simple white dress, and her hair is still slightly damp from a shower. She looks . . . lighter today. Less haunted. When did she wake up?
‘This is . . . a lot,’ I say as I walk up to her pouring honey over her waffles.
‘They have five different kinds of honey,’ she tells me. ‘Got to try them all.’
‘Isn’t all this a bit much?’ I say.
Her eyes light up. ‘I know, right? I’m so excited.’
Strange choice of words. I haven’t heard that from her. I don’t point it out and we navigate the buffet together, like a team trying to make the most of it.
We find a table outside, overlooking one of the infinity pools. Kids are already splashing in it. Lucky bastards.
‘They will never know true happiness,’ she says, pointing at the kids. ‘If they get everything now, what’s there to level up?’
‘Sounds like sour grapes,’ I tell her.
‘Maybe,’ she says with a smile.
For a while, we just eat, the silence comfortable for the first time in a long time. Just two normal people on a vacation.
‘So,’ she says finally, pushing a piece of pineapple around her plate. ‘What’s the plan for today?’
Again, these are a few words I haven’t heard from her. Or me. They are new. They were once potentially ugly, but now, here, they sound manageable. The question hangs in the air.
‘I saw a brochure in the lobby,’ I hear myself say. ‘For snorkelling.’
For a moment, there’s no expression on her face. I wonder if this was a trap. That she would turn around and say, you really wanted to go out and be touristy, that’s weird. But then, her face changes and she says, ‘Snorkelling?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel.
‘But I don’t know how to swim,’ she says.
‘I don’t think it’s needed,’ I tell her. ‘There are life jackets.’
‘Hmmm, I don’t mind. I mean . . . what’s the worst that can happen?’ she says.
Yes, what’s the worst that can happen.
So she goes back to the room and I go to the hotel lobby and lock two spots.
An hour later, we are on the boat ride. The engine sputters and roars, and a group of loud Australian tourists at the front are already passing beer cans. It looks exactly the kind of thing you shouldn’t do. Aditi sits opposite me, staring out at the impossibly blue water.
The guide, a skinny kid with a wide smile, oversees a clumsy, awkward process of figuring out what size fits whom. The mask feels tight and alien on my face. The snorkel tastes of salt.
‘This smells weird,’ Aditi mutters, holding the snorkel away from her face, and then puts it on.
‘First time snorkelling?’ the guide asks us cheerfully.
‘Yeah,’ I reply.
‘You will love it!’ he beams. ‘Many fish today! Big ones, small ones. Nemo fish!’
We both look at each other. We both don’t say we’re scared, but we are .
. . a little. How can we not be? When we get to the spot, the drunk Australians jump in first. Seeing them frolic makes me feel like it can’t be that bad.
The guide tells us to jump in. I go first. A jarring plunge from the noisy boat.
Water everywhere. A slight panic, after which the guide asks me to put on my mask and peer in.
‘I will wait for her!’ I tell the guide.
And then, she jumps in.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask her.
She nods, spitting out water. And then, everything changes.
The world above vanishes, replaced by a sea of blue.
The roar of the engine and the shouts of the guide are gone, replaced by the muffled sound of my own breathing.
A slow, rhythmic hiss. The light filters down in shifting columns, illuminating a world I didn’t know existed.
Technically, I know it did; I have seen it in movies, but it seemed .
. . unreachable? Schools of electric-yellow fish dart past my mask.
And then others. The guide keeps busy pointing to the fish.
A hiding octopus. A turtle. Or a tortoise? Whatever it is. It’s beautiful.
I look for Aditi. She’s a few feet away, a small, solitary figure suspended in the vast blue. She’s pointing at a Nemo fish(!), and for a moment, through the distorted glass of our masks, our eyes meet.
Then I see it. A current, subtle but strong, is pulling her away from the boat, towards the deeper water.
She doesn’t seem to notice at first. Then I see the shift in her body.
The frantic kicking. The slight panic in her eyes.
My own body moves before my brain does. I kick hard, my fins clumsy but powerful, closing the distance between us. I reach out and grab her hand.
Her hand is small and cold in mine. Through our masks, our eyes lock again.
The guide swims right in front of us, shrugging like it was nothing. Was the panic imagined?
But it wasn’t imagined. There was panic, there is panic. The panic of being left alone. And so we don’t drift away. We just float there for a long moment, holding hands, tethered together, two small specks, tiny, insignificant, in the overwhelming silence of the ocean.
Back on the boat, the noise of the world rushes back in.
The engine, the Australians, the guide bombarding us with questions, the sun beating down on my neck.
The silence between Aditi and me feels different now.
I feel a strange, fierce protectiveness towards her, followed immediately by a wave of crushing guilt.
What right do I have to feel protective of anyone? Should I ever even be allowed to have the responsibility of anyone?
‘Not bad,’ she says, pulling off her mask and running a hand through her wet hair. Her face is pale.
‘Not bad,’ I repeat.
Back at the room, more tired than we expected, we eat room service on opposite ends of the room. I watch Aditi retreat into the blue glow of her phone where I know she will scroll till she drifts away. I feel the familiar pull. The need to process it, to talk about it, to make sense of today.
But the person I need to talk to isn’t here.
I walk out on to the balcony, closing the glass door behind me. I take out my phone, my thumb hovering over the app. I need to tell her about the silence, the fish, the feeling of Aditi’s hand in mine.
I need to process the day’s beauty and sadness with the only person I can.