If I Tell You the Truth

by Jasmin Kaur

  I remain a still portrait and he continues. “Why go to Mumbai now? Why not at least wait till all this shit in the news dies down?”

  “It’s because of the magazine. There’s no way Mom would even think about going if we weren’t gonna have security. And what if he gets elected?”

  “Shit . . . yeah. The election,” Jeevan murmurs. He leaves his arm around my shoulder and pulls out his cell phone with the other. Instantly, he finds what he’s searching for. “It’s in the middle of May.”

  “We’ll be back way before then.” I poke his cheek. “And we’ll be fine. I promise. Pinky swear.”

  He scoffs but locks his pinky into mine. “You’re something else, man. Seriously.” As he draws me a little closer, I welcome the warmth of a body far kinder to me than my own. “If I could just keep you right here, I would. But I already know you’re not gonna listen to me, so you better text me every hour so I know you’re good. And . . .” Jeevan reaches over my lap and rifles through a red Nike shoebox sitting under his desk.

  “Take this.” Delicately, he rests a black folding knife in my hand. “Keep it on you wherever you go. Doesn’t matter if you have security.”

  The flat, textured body of the knife is more than half the length of my hand. I run my thumb along the rough handle. Along the smooth ebony edge of the blade that peeks out.

  “Promise you’ll always keep it on you?”

  “Promise. But, uh, two questions. One, how do I even open this? Two, if someone actually attacks me, what’s stopping them from grabbing it from my scrawny ass and using it against me?”

  “Trust me. If someone attacks you, it’s better to have something rather than nothing. Only pull it out if you really need it, obviously. And you open it like this.” He reaches into my hand and places the dull, protruding edge of the blade between his thumb and index finger. He pulls out the blade and extends it backward until it clicks in place. The razor-thin side glints beneath light pouring in through a slit in the gray curtains. “I got it sharpened, so don’t touch the edge,” he says, passing it back to me.

  Twisting and dancing between my fingers, the hair-fine rim glows silver on the otherwise black surface. No doubt, it’s sharp enough to cut through skin. “Knife is deadly. Noted.”

  “And you close it like this. See this metal thing?” He points to a bumpy steel strip tucked inside the handle. “That’s the lock. You just push it to the left and then you can fold the blade back in.” He patiently watches me fumble with the metal lock and attempt to close the knife. After a few tries, I finally get it.

  “You learn quick.” He grins.

  “You gotta teach me how to use it, though.”

  “I mean . . . I assume you just grip it tight, point, and stab. Can’t be that complicated. We can watch YouTube videos, if you want.”

  “So, you’re telling me you keep a sharpened blade but don’t actually know how to use it?”

  “The reason I bought it is kinda gone to prison at the moment, so . . .”

  I have to lean back a degree to take in his gentle face. There they are, his kind chestnut eyes, usually hidden behind his black-rimmed glasses. His thick lips that quiver as easily as mine. “You think you could’ve actually stabbed him?”

  “If he was about to kill us? I dunno. Maybe. If it was between stabbing him and watching him beat the shit out of my mom again . . . maybe. He’s just as strong as he looks. I could never hold him back.”

  Since the ninth grade, Jeevan’s only been getting taller and bulkier, but his dad is six-foot-something with a rage that can plow through anything. Sometimes, I wonder about the shit he’s witnessed, the violence he’s known close up, the danger he’s just barely scraped through. What has it done to his nectar-soft heart?

  “It’s all over now. He’s gone.”

  “Not if my mom lets him back in the house, again.” Jeevan sniffs. He leans back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling, a tear slipping through his eyelashes and gliding down his cheek. Something fierce and protective roars within me at the sight. How could anyone hurt this honeycomb of a boy? How could he hurt anyone else?

  “Honestly, just let my bibi talk to your mom. She’s ruthless. She’ll convince your mom she’ll be fine without him.”

  He shakes his head and the tear drips off his chin. “If all this shit wasn’t enough to show her why we’re better off without him, I doubt anything else will.”

  I think of Mom. “Sometimes, a person just needs to know they’re not alone to find their courage. She needs a reminder that all of us have her back.”

  “I appreciate the fuck outta you. You know that, right?”

  “I appreciate you, too.” I reach for a tear resting on his scruffy cheek and wipe it away with my thumb. “When did we become so corny, though?”

  “We’ve always been this corny.” He laughs. My hand still rests on his cheek. For a moment, our eyes hover over each other’s, the space between us filled only with the sight of his dew-covered lashes. With the smell of hoodie. Of his skin.

  Then my hand is on the neck of his hoodie and his soft mouth is pulled to mine. And his hands are on my back. My neck. And every inch of skin where his hands land becomes electric. Becomes a dizzying, gorgeous confusion of both him and me connected and inseparable and alive. And nothing exists but this beautiful boy who has always been close and far.

  And just like that, he pulls back, hovering dangerously close to me and then farther away. “What just happened?” he whispers, cheeks still damp.

  “I don’t know,” I reply, my voice water-soft.

  “I don’t want this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t want you like this.”

  “Like what?” I stare into eyes that I know better than any other. Eyes that suddenly can’t meet mine.

  “Feeling sorry for me and—”

  “Jeevan, I don’t feel sorry for you. I’m—”

  “—confused and fucked up ’cause of what Sunny said.”

  My body, still leaning into his and reeling from his touch, pulls away for the first time. “This wasn’t because of him.”

  “Sahaara, I’ve known you longer than anyone. I’ve seen how rattled you get every time he turns up. It’s like, no matter how shitty he is, you always want him to be someone he’s not. This wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t text you. You’re confused.”

  Irritation wells within me. He’s wrong. I don’t know what just happened, but it felt . . . right. “I—I—no. I’m not confused.”

  “Dude . . . in all these years, you’ve never wanted me. And now, this randomly happens?”

  “But you didn’t, either.”

  “Haven’t I?”

  Those two words constrict my throat. And seemingly his as well. For a moment, he just blinks, as if he didn’t mean to say that aloud. “I—um—I can’t do this right now. I can’t be your blanket.”

  “My blanket? Jeevan, really?”

  “I think I just need to be alone right now,” he murmurs without moving from his place on the ground. “I’ve got a lotta shit to figure out. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  how do you know

  it’s real?

  does it count if the sparks are different?

  if there’s still a ghost of another boy

  somewhere within you

  made only of apricot-sweet memories

  pink

  juicy

  no sign of the bruising or the rot?

  does it count if you want his lips

  just like you want to escape from your own flesh?

  if his mouth makes you forget yourself

  and this is how you manage to breathe?

  is it love if it makes you feel something

  just when you thought you’d always be numb?

  what would lisbeth do?

  twenty-three minutes have passed

  since i drafted the email to nandini

  (mom’s not included on this one)


  i read and reread and

  reread again, finger hovering

  over the send button and then

  returning to the keyboard

  i pore over those two sentences

  study them like a chemical equation

  trying to be certain of each word:

  although my mom isn’t interested

  in doing anything media-related

  outside of the magazine feature,

  i would love to do a tv interview

  while i’m in mumbai.

  i’d like the opportunity

  to share my side of the story.

  i hit send and throw my phone

  across the bed, heart jumping

  when i hear mom humming

  in the hallway

  it doesn’t take long for nandini

  to reply, introducing me to taara

  a magazine assistant who’s ready

  to reach out to the press

  we have a few trusted contacts.

  they’ll keep things confidential.

  they just want to know if i would be

  okay going live on india’s largest

  news network.

  after all this running

  i walk willingly into the mouth of a dragon

  because the regret of never returning

  would have killed me anyways

  but joti can’t miss work

  and aunty jee’s back is too bad to travel

  and sahaara refuses to stay home

  and i tell myself that my daughter

  is safest by my side

  but, in truth, i think i am frightened

  by the thought of facing this battle

  without her.

  the night before the flight

  “I’ve changed my mind. Sahaara, you’re not coming.” Maasi and I look up from my half-packed suitcase on the floor. Mom is standing in the doorway to my room.

  I tuck a rolled-up pair of underwear into my suitcase. “Mom, there’s no way you’re going without me.” Just as the idea of going to Mumbai has wrapped itself around my thoughts like dense vines, it’s gotten stuck in her mind as well. Her reasons have nothing to do with mine and everything to do with her mother. “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it together.”

  She wrings her hands, that familiar, distant look in her eyes stealing her away from the present. Then she slowly nods before disappearing from the doorway. She is both terrified for me and terrified to be without me.

  “Stay with the magazine people at all times, don’t take any pangeh, and keep that knife on you at all times, yeah?” Maasi tells me for the fiftieth time, elbow balanced on her knee, hand in her currently blonde hair. She’s not happy about the trip but she gets it. “That was a good call from Jeevan, giving you the knife.”

  My heart clenches at the mention of him. “I still haven’t seen him since the . . . you know.”

  “Has he texted you?” Maasi asks, placing a rolled-up pair of faded jeans in the suitcase.

  “Yeah . . . but it’s, like, forced. I’ve been texting first and he’ll give me these dead, two-word answers. Tried to video call him last night and he said he was busy.” Habitually, I glance over at my phone, hoping that the screen will light up with a message.

  “Give him some time. This is . . . a lot.”

  “That’s what I said,” I mumble. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Uh-huh.” She looks up briefly as she unfolds and refolds a striped maxi skirt.

  “How’d you know you were supposed to be with your girlfriend? Like, what was it about Aman?” Maasi’s been in a relationship with a NICU doctor for nearly nine months now and the joy practically glows on her skin.

  “Hmm.” She pauses. “I think I knew Aman was the right person because I never had to justify our relationship. Like, I didn’t have to constantly convince myself that things were good. Or that I was happy. I didn’t have to . . . twist around my personality for the relationship to work. We just came to each other as ourselves—our realest selves—and we fit.” She shrugs with a smile that’s perpetually young.

  “Were you into her from, like, the moment you met?”

  “There were definitely instant sparks, but over time, it was less about the sparks and more about the long-term glue. The trust, the affection, the stability. All that is just as important as chemistry.”

  You’re confused, Jeevan had said. He was right. And wrong. That kiss was overwhelmingly beautiful, but where the hell did it come from? His touch was a sea of wildflowers blooming on the ice field of my skin—how did he thaw a body I loathed?

  “Lately . . . I haven’t felt like myself,” I mumble. “Makes it hard to understand this Jeevan thing.”

  “After all the shit that’s happened in the last few months, you need time to process. If I can give you any annoying aunty advice, it’s that things are gonna be fine. You’re nineteen, for god’s sake. You might not have it all figured out right now, but slowly things will be clearer. And the boy stuff will smooth itself out.”

  It’s hard to believe that, considering that I may have permanently fucked up my friendship with my best friend. “When Mom was my age, she’d figured out enough to know she wanted to have me . . . and how she was gonna raise me.”

  Maasi drops my tie-dyed sports bra and cracks up. “Are you kidding? She had things figured out? Lemme tell you something. Your mom and I figured out a whole lotta shit as we went along. Most times, we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. Both of us were thrust into situations that forced us to grow up way too young. We just handled that stuff because . . . there was no choice but to handle it.” She holds my gaze with kindness. Certainty. “You’re allowed to be a teenager. You’re allowed to do normal shit and be confused about boys and make a mess in the process. Okay, don’t make too much of a mess, but you know what I mean, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “We done with the suitcase? Anything else you wanna pack?” My pillow-length taichee is filled with just enough clothing and toiletries and art supplies to get me by for a week. Reaching into the canvas bag sitting next to me on the carpet, I find Jeevan’s knife and tuck it beneath a coral-colored blazer.

  “I think we’re good.”

  mom’s rules for mumbai

  1.remain at my side at all times.

  i don’t care if it’s juvenile.

  we go everywhere together.

  2.no interviews. no media.

  we go to our events

  and then we go home.

  3.when you meet your nani hardeep

  at least try to be polite. not for her.

  for me.

  4.tell no one where we are

  or where we’re staying.

  no tweeting or instagramming

  our live location until we’re home.

  5.don’t lose the knife.

  departures

  So, I’ve never actually been on a plane before. I’ve been to YVR a few times to drop off Bibi Jee and Joti Maasi, but I was always the one hugging my loved ones goodbye. Not the one who crosses the security gate and disappears behind the wall that leads to the sky.

  Standing here right now, the long line of travelers slowly draining through the airport security gate, the moment is surreal. Mom’s Indian passport arrived last month, after we visited the embassy. On a black bench outside the building, I watched as the passport shook in her tight grasp, a million heart-bursting realizations striking her at once. This palm-sized, twenty-eight-paged little book meant she could travel freely again. That leaving Surrey wouldn’t mean she’d never be able to return. That this land was no longer a hiding place.

  “Got everything?” Maasi asks. “Pillow? Blanket? Earplugs?”

  “Knew I was forgetting something,” I groan. “Left the earplugs and the eye mask in the kitchen.”

  “Koi na,” Mom says, hoisting her overstuffed duffel bag into her arms. “Don’t worry. Just use mine.”

  From behind her new glasses, Bi
bi Jee’s eyes flit worriedly between the two of us. “You’re sure about this, huh?”

  “Hanji.” Mom feebly nods, and I throw an arm over her shoulder. “Now or never, right?”

  “It’s gonna be great,” I reassure them all. “Everyone’s coming back in one piece. I promise.”

  Bibi pinches my cheek, kisses me hard on the forehead. “Pungeh nahi lainay, teekh aa?” No getting into any trouble, okay?

  “When do I ever get into trouble?” I giggle.

  “Not talking about you. I’m talking about your mother.” She surveys Mom, a playful gleam in her eye. I laugh with them, ignoring the seed of guilt sprouting in my stomach. I need to do this, I remind myself. They’ll understand why I speak out. Maybe? Eventually?

  “Okay, guys, I think you should head through security,” Maasi yawns. “You’re cutting it close on time.” A seven a.m. flight means we’re all exhausted—and that Jeevan slept through my last-minute shot at a goodbye call. Or maybe he ignored it.

  We hug for the millionth time and no one cries during this round. All of our tears were drained before we left the house.

  “See you guys in eight days.” I grin.

  “Eight days,” Maasi repeats.

  “Read Chaupai Sahib on the flight for protection,” Bibi solemnly says. “Let’s hope you only meet kind earth and skies.”

  Mom and I head toward the security officer who stands before a translucent glass wall, carry-on and duffel bag in hand. He’s wearing a heavy black vest. So very coplike. So painfully familiar. Color drains from Mom’s face; fear passes through her full-moon eyes: the residue of a lifetime of trauma.

  “Passports and boarding passes, please,” drawls the blond, goateed man, towering a foot above us both. I pass him both my and Mom’s documents and attempt the smile that every person of color has mastered. The one that reads, I’m thoroughly nonthreatening. Please don’t pull me aside and racially profile me.