Chapter Four
Dahlia
Itake the same towel I refused to let her use and carelessly toss it onto the floor to sop up the mess.
Staring with detached fascination at the fabric as it slowly darkens, I jump when I hear the front door slam, followed by the screech of tires as they speed away in Ben’s sports car.
I hope the leather seats get water stains.
I should have known that fancy sports car wasn’t about us—it was about impressing other women.
He called it our car, the one we’d use to look polished, successful, the perfect couple.
But every time we drove separately, it was his car, leaving me with my old sedan.
I convinced myself it was fair, that we were a team.
Now I see it for what it really was—another lie to keep me small so he could shine. Not anymore.
I rip off my robe, the Valentine’s gift that now feels like a cruel joke, and march to the hall bathroom. There’s no way I’m stepping into the other defiled shower ever again. I stuff the robe into the small trash can, where it overflows in a heap of betrayal.
I crank the water as hot as I can stand it and step in.
The heat beats against my skin, but it can’t touch the cold that has settled in my marrow.
It clings to my core, pulling at memories of the icy winds in the Himalayas, the bite of the air that burned and invigorated all at once.
The water cascades over me, but nothing washes away the hollow ache that echoes in the space where my hope used to live.
I sit down hard under the steaming water and wrap my arms around my knees in a futile attempt to staunch the bleeding of my hemorrhaging heart.
I thought I would be coming home to the safety and reassurance of my carefully curated life and loving relationship.
That Ben would help me navigate these uncertain waters and figure out my next steps.
Hope swirls down the drain. Without him, I don't know how I'm going to continue my research or even finish my degree with both of us in the same damn department.
If the world of botany is small, ethnobotany is a microcosm.
And my small section is under his purview as the tenure-track botany professor.
Sure, I have a picture that might be enough to get him in trouble. But in the male-dominated world of academia, all it would probably earn him is a slap on the wrist with a sly wink and a quiet warning to be more discreet next time.
But even worse, I don’t have the plant. The doctorate was part of it, yes, but the real reason was something far more personal.
Ben knew I believed that the enzymes in the Silene vitalis held potential for treating the disease that killed my mother.
What he didn’t know, what I had never told him, was that I have the same gene. I could barely even admit it to myself.
At last, the cooling water prompts me to climb out into the steamy bathroom. The humidity grips my lungs, so I throw open the window and stick my head out. I watch wistfully as steam swirls past me and escapes out into the dark night, wishing I could float away with it.
Pulling in deep breaths of the cool night air, I decide I'll allow myself this night to have an epic pity party. I'll ugly cry until I'm empty and then tomorrow, I’ll turn on my logical brain and figure out a path forward. Without Ben.
But for tonight, I'll shut down analytical, logical Dahlia and just allow myself to wallow in misery.
I reach for my favorite robe, but when I see it stuffed into the trash, the tears start up all over again.
Breaking my own rule about using the decorative guest bath towels, I grab two and wrap my hair and body, then trudge back to my closet to find the rattiest, most comfortable sweats I own.
When I open my sock drawer to grab my fuzzy slipper socks, my breath catches.
All of the pictures of us—the snapshots I lovingly framed and arranged just so on our shared dresser—are stuffed inside, hidden away as if they were nothing.
Key moments of Ben and me frozen in the timeline of our life together, forever immortalized, shoved in here as if they don’t matter. As if they never mattered.
As if I never mattered.
I grab the entire stack and flip through them, recognizing a pattern.
One I hadn’t noticed before. They all highlight him and his achievements.
I’ve continually helped him move forward, prioritizing his successes above my own—his lab work, his research, his doctorate, his appointment as a professor.
Hell, even our engagement and marriage were scheduled to accommodate his academic calendar. I would have married him years ago. Thanks the gods for small favors.
In each one, he looks at the camera while I gaze at him adoringly. I feel so damn stupid. Everything was about him, and I blindly followed along.
When I reach the photo from our engagement party, my stomach twists.
Standing in the crowd of our university colleagues, Ben’s friends really, I see her.
Felicia stands at the fringe, lips pressed tight, fists clenched at her sides.
How did I not see it? How long has this been happening? Months? Years?
But now that I’ve seen it, it’s so damn obvious. She’s been there all along in the sidewings. Or maybe she’s been center stage. I thought Ben and I were equally devoted not just to each other, but also to our work and shared future. But now I see the truth: it was painfully one-sided.
I gather the pictures to my chest and storm out to the backyard, grabbing the gas for the mower and the fireplace lighter from the garage along the way. The fire pit is already stacked with wood, and I give it a generous soaking of the accelerant, a maniacal grin splitting my face.
I hold up our engagement photo, studying the frozen moment of fake happiness under the fading twilight.
For one ridiculous second, I almost pull it back, the weight of what we’d built together tugging at my hand.
But then I remember the look on his face when I caught him in the shower—wide-eyed, not with guilt, but with surprise that he’d been caught.
Not a trace of shame. Not a shred of remorse.
Not even a fucking apology.
With finality, I light the corner of the frame, my satisfaction growing as hot orange flames lick up the cardboard backing. I toss it into the pit and flames shoot up into the sky with a satisfying whoosh as the fire roars to life, and for the first time in weeks, so do I.
“Yeah! Take that, fucker!” I whoop into the night, pumping my fist as adrenaline surges through my veins and the fire burns brighter—just like me.
I’m done feeling hopeless. I don’t need Ben to help me figure this out—he never helped me. I’ve been the one researching, planning, and holding everything together. The realization hits me like a tidal wave, resolve and independence surging through me with a force I can’t ignore.
I march back inside, dumping out a basket of laundry onto the floor and filling it with his things. His favorite hat. The photo albums I spent hours making for his milestones. His collection of journals he’d been published in. And with a wicked smile, I raid his underwear drawer.
Grabbing handfuls, I toss his absurdly expensive briefs into the basket, barely able to keep from laughing. Who spends this much on underwear? They’re just another reminder of how pretentious he is, how everything about him screams self-importance.
As I walk through the kitchen on my way back outside, I throw a bag of chips on top, a tub of ice cream with a spoon, and the bottle of expensive tequila he had been saving for a “special occasion.” After all, I think this qualifies.
Flopping into one of the Adirondack chairs that surround the firepit, I try to get comfortable for my conflagration celebration, but I hate them.
I’ve always hated these stupid chairs. Ben is the one who had loved them because they looked “perfect,” but I found them awkward and impossible to get out of with my petite height.
I wrestle my way out of it, turn around, pick it up, and hurl it out into the yard for all I’m worth. What my throw lacks in distance, it makes up for in satisfaction when the dumb thing breaks with a crack as it bounces on the lawn.
“Stupid chair,” I mutter, brushing my hands off like I’m dusting off his pretentiousness.
I grab a folding chair and a sleeping bag from the garage instead and stomp back to the firepit.
It’s easier to sit in, but nothing about this night feels comfortable.
The fire is starting to die down, so I start feeding it my pilfered items as I steadily make my way through the tub of ice cream, the bag of chips, and Ben’s expensive tequila.
“Cheers, fucker,” I mutter, raising it in mock toast to the fire before taking a swig straight from the bottle. I sputter and cough, but choke it down, welcoming the heat that follows in its wake.
Repeating the process—swig, toss, swig, toss—I’m surprised to find just how quickly the laundry basket, and the tequila, empties.
Despite my best efforts—the fiery revenge, the snacks, the booze—the hollow ache inside me refuses to burn away. The throbbing emptiness spills over, carving hot, salty tracks down my cheeks. I shove another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth and chase it with another swig of tequila.
The flames are starting to die down, flickering lower and lower as the last bits of Ben’s life disintegrate. For the first time since walking into that bathroom, I feel the weight of it all hit me.
This was my life, too. Carefully built, brick by brick, around someone who never gave me a second thought. Everything I burned tonight wasn’t just his—it was the version of me that bent over backward to keep him happy. I spent years making myself small so he could take up more space.
Never again.
Pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I let my fuzzy gaze drift to the edge of the woods. Even though I’m half a world away, I find myself scanning for those silver eyes again. Their absence triggers an ache within me—irrational, impossible, and yet so visceral.
A desperate, relentless need to see them again curls in my gut, even in this drunken, grief-slicked haze. There is nothing left for me here. The life I built is gone. And if I don’t find that plant, things will only get worse.
The flickering embers bring me back to that last night in India, to the firepit where I sat, staring across the river at those silvery, luminescent eyes in the woods. Whatever is pulling me back to that place isn’t finished with me yet.
I sway slightly in the folding chair, the tequila bottle dangling from my fingertips. The fire has burned down to glowing coals, their deep red glow mesmerizing. I lean forward, my drunken mind fixated on the way the embers shift and shimmer, as if they’re whispering something I can’t quite hear.
Just like the wood, everything I’d built with Ben had been reduced to this—ashes and dust. I huff out a bitter laugh and lift the bottle to take another swig, surprised at how light it feels.
Frowning, I peer into the neck like it might hold some secret answer, but instead all I see is the last dregs sloshing in the bottom. With a shrug, I let it drop to the ground, the remaining liquor trickling out in a thin stream.
“One for me, and one for my homies,” I slur, the words tumbling out before I can stop myself.
The tequila buzz makes me think of that song.
Or at least, I think it’s a song. I dig my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket, debating if it’s lyrics or maybe a movie quote.
My thumb hovers over the display as I squint at my lock screen—a selfie I snapped in front of the guesthouse back in Migdhari.
Behind me are the woods, dark and endless, where I saw those damn eyes.
The memory tugs at something deep inside me, sharp and insistent.
It sparks a wild energy I can’t contain.
The solution floats to me like a whisper on the crackle of the fire.
For once, I don't overthink. I’ve always been a planner, the one with lists and backup plans.
But not tonight. Tonight, I’m done thinking.
It’s time to act and damn the consequences.
After all, that’s what everyone else does. Why not me?
“Do it Dah–hiccup–lia,” I say, cheering myself on as I giggle at hiccuping my own name, and open the app without a second thought.