by Sonali Dev
Mili heated a plate of food for herself, sat cross-legged on the carpet across from him, and watched him sleep as she ate. He was definitely the most handsome man she had ever seen. The perfect full mouth, the strongly etched jaw, the subtle cleft digging into his square chin. But it was more than just his features. It was the determination in his jaw, the humor dancing in his eyes, even the cynicism that played around his mouth, that brought all his beautiful features alive.
Yes, he was arrogant and impatient and stubborn. But he was also self-deprecating and more gentle and generous than anyone she knew. And when all his contradictions mingled in his face, in his big muscular body, he was like a huge living magnet.
A huge living magnet that had totally sucked her in. She touched her lips. The memory of his kiss was as real as physical sensation. She was going to carry it to her grave. In fact, she was going to carry the memories of this entire month to her dying day.
What if something else becomes even more real? Would you give it a chance?
She pushed the potatoes on her plate with the roti. Dear God, what was she going to do?
His phone buzzed next to him. It must have slipped out of his hands when he fell asleep. She picked it up.
Bhai flashed across the screen.
She hit the Ignore button.
Within five seconds it buzzed again.
Bhai, again. She hit Ignore again. Almost instantly it buzzed again.
Apparently Samir’s brother was not in the habit of being ignored by him. That or there was an emergency. When it buzzed for the fifth time, she panicked. She laid one hand on Samir’s arm and gave him a shake. “Samir, it’s your brother.”
He didn’t so much as budge. She answered the phone. “Hello?”
A beat of silence. She’d thrown poor old Bhai for a loop. “Who is this?”
“This is Mili. I’m sorry, Samir is sleeping.”
Another beat of silence. Oh no, maybe that hadn’t been the right thing to say.
“He was really tired.” Good Lord, that came out even more wrong.
“Mili, did you say?” Samir’s brother finally found his voice. He emphasized her name, as if it were in some way amusing. He sounded just as arrogant as Samir.
“Yes. Can I take a message?”
“Yes, Mili, you can. Tell Chintu that if he’s done with his tiring work his big brother would like a moment of his time. After he wakes up, of course.”
“Sure. I’ll ask him to call you.” What a strange man.
Had he called Samir Chintu? That had to be the funniest thing Mili had ever heard. The biggest, no, the most humungous man she knew was called “tiny.” Oh, how much fun she was going to have with this!
She couldn’t stop smiling as she put her plate away, left some food out for Samir, and cleaned up. But even after she was done, she found that she couldn’t go to bed. She had some reading to do for school, so she grabbed her book and settled down to read across from his sleeping form.
It started slow. Hands dragged him and dragged him. He clawed the floor with his toes, trying to find purchase, trying to stop it at any cost. It came anyway. A quick swish in his ear before the belt sliced his back, his buttocks. He tried to scream but there was no air in his lungs. It came again. Then again and again. He choked on his own sobs. He struggled to catch a breath but wetness drowned him.
White bastard. White. Bastard. He twisted around himself, sweating, cold, panting. The hands lifted him, bony fingers gouging out his skin. He hung from them for endless moments. The floor fell away from under him. His stomach leapt into his throat and he fell without end into a bottomless well. His own gasps tore at his ears. Hands rubbed his shoulders.
“Samir. It’s okay. Wake up.” Tiny hands shook him.
He looked at her.
“It’s me. It’s Mili. It’s okay. Shh . . .” Curls spilled like midnight around her face, worry shadowed her eyes and lined her forehead.
Shame sprang in his chest under her fingers.
He sat up and grabbed his head in his hands. Holy fucking mother of God. Of all the places this could have happened.
She left him, then came back with a glass of water.
He took it wordlessly. He was never going to be able to speak in her presence again.
She rubbed his back. Exactly where the belt had hit. And instead of driving him mad with pain it soothed him. He took a deep breath and drank and drank. The shame in his throat turned each gulp into hard labor.
“Here, give me that.” She took the glass from him but didn’t remove the hand from his back.
He wanted to thank her. He couldn’t.
He wanted to get up and leave her apartment. He couldn’t.
This was almost as bad as crying in front of his entire fifth-grade class when the teacher had read a story about a mother elephant being killed by hunters, leaving the baby to fend for herself. No, this was even more mortifying than that.
“You’re not going to start crying, are you?” The gentlest smile kissed her lips and made her eyes glow. “It’s what I always did when my naani came to me after I had a nightmare. It was a ploy to get her to let me sleep with her.”
He smiled.
She blushed.
“That’s not what I meant,” she stuttered, and just like that the clawing shame vanished.
“It would help, you know,” he said, ridiculously relieved to find his inner cocky bastard again.
“Samir.”
“Seriously. I need comfort.”
“Sa-mir.” He loved it when she broke his name up like that.
“You have no idea how damaged I feel right now.” He patted his chest, all drama queen.
She blushed and covered her face with her hands.
“If I cry will you let me?”
“Ugh. You’re awful.” But she let him pull her hands away from her flaming face. She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him. And it felt like he had never been whipped with a belt. It felt like fucking paradise.
20
When Mili arrived early at her office in Pierce Hall she had no idea her life was about to change forever. Last night after Samir had left she couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking of his face, white as a sheet, his golden tan gone, his eyes wild, unseeing. All of him slick with sweat. His shirt wet, his cheeks wet, his hair wet.
That must have been some nightmare.
Her big, strong, indomitable Samir had scars. And she had an inkling she knew where they came from. More importantly, she had an idea how she might be able to help him heal them. The idea had been poking around in her head ever since they’d talked about their parents that night before Ridhi’s wedding. And ever since they got back to Ypsilanti, she hadn’t been able to get it out of her head. It was time to turn the idea into action.
She slung her mirrorwork sack on her chair. She had two phone calls to make before she started making copies of the grant proposal that was due today. First she called Ridhi. As expected she got her voicemail and left a message. Knowing how Ridhi was going to react made her smile. But Ridhi’s family was really well connected. If anyone could help her find a lost person, it was Ridhi.
Next, she called her grandmother. And the world slipped from beneath her feet.
Mili had never heard her grandmother cry like this, as if her heart was broken, her faith destroyed. A feeling of doom so dark sprang in Mili’s belly, she felt suspended over a precipice while someone hacked away at the rope.
She jumped off the desk she was perched on and rubbed her icy palms on her jeans. “Naani, at least tell me what happened.”
“Oh Krishna, what did we do to deserve such a thing? Oh my beautiful child. I should’ve known when your parents died that you were cursed. I should have known then that there was no hope for you. I should never have listened to that evil son of a witch.”
“Naani, please, calm down. What could be that bad?” Suddenly the room spun. She knew what it was. “Oh God, something’s happened to him, hasn’t it? Something’s happene
d to Viratji.”
“Don’t say his cursed name in front of me. Oh Krishna, what kind of people do you make? What kind of days do you show us? Oh my poor, sweet child.”
Tears sprang into Mili’s eyes. “Is he hurt?” Oh God, please let it be just that, nothing worse. Guilt rose in her chest and tightened her throat. She was being punished for what she had done with Samir. Please, please don’t let him suffer for her sins.
“What hurt? He deserves to be gobbled up by venomous snakes. But he won’t get away with it. He has to pay. Curses on him, the son of a rabid dog.” She blew her nose into the phone and paused, collecting herself before spitting it out. “He’s gone and made another marriage, Mili. Your husband has got himself another wife.”
It was great to hear Virat’s voice so strong again but Samir had no idea what his brother was so damn amused about. “You’ve been there for four weeks, Chintu, and you’ve already shacked up with some chick? Come on, brother, when are you going to grow up?”
“What’re you talking about, Bhai?” Samir sat up on the lumpy mattress on the floor of his shit-colored apartment, closed his eyes, and tried to picture himself in his beloved Mumbai flat.
“Your girlfriend picked up the phone when I called.”
Mili had answered his phone? Why would she do that?
“Apparently Sa-mir”—Virat did the worst imitation of the way Mili said his name—“was very tired. Apparently Sa-mir had been up all night.” Okay, so it wasn’t that bad of an imitation. She did kind of stretch his name out like that, as if it meant more than it did.
He rubbed his forehead. “Bhai, I really was tired. I had driven from Columbus for four hours. I really was asleep. It’s not like it sounds.”
“Wow. Sam Rathod getting all defensive about being with a woman? Who are you and what did you do with my cocky bastard of a brother?”
Shit.
“So what were you doing in Columbus anyway?”
“Long story. There was a wedding. Some friends I made here.”
Bhai gasped as if Samir had just jumped off a cliff. “You went to someone’s wedding? We can’t get you to go to cousins’ weddings here and you went to a wedding?”
“I have five missed calls from you. Is everything okay?” Not the most skillful change of topic but it would have to do.
“We got another legal notice from the girl.”
“Legal notice?” How was that even possible?
“Yes, legal notice, you know, the things the girl’s been sending us? It’s the reason you’re there, remember. Hello? Anybody home?”
“Of course. Sorry. I’m a little distracted.”
“No shit. Your Mili seems to be really working you hard.” Virat guffawed. “Now the girl’s claiming abandonment and emotional trauma. Breach of contract. All sorts of legal bullshit. She’s saying that the Village Panch Council can even grant the entire estate to her.”
The phone turned heavy in Samir’s hand. I’ll be late. I have something important to take care of. Mili had looked distinctly guilty when she’d told him that this morning.
“You sure, Bhai?”
“No, I’m making this shit up on the fly. What’s wrong with you, Chintu? I have the papers in front of me. I spoke with your lawyer. He wants to know if there’s a marriage certificate. We don’t have one but she might. Since we were underage it’s still not binding but if the Panch Council ratified it after we came of age, then we might have a bigger battle on our hands if she refuses to sign the annulment. I know you’re trying to finish up the script but have you even met Malvika yet?”
“Yes. I told you I’m taking care of it, Bhai. How’s Rima?”
“She’s still cramping.” All the fight went out of his brother’s voice. “The doctor’s put her on bed rest.”
“And you’re telling me this now?”
“She’s going to be fine. It’s just a precaution. Just for a few weeks.”
Then why the fuck do you sound like that? “I’m sure it is, Bhai.” It had to be. “You take care of getting better. And you take care of Rima. I’ll take care of things here.”
The guilty look on Mili’s face from that morning blazed in Samir’s head as he walked down the passageway from his apartment to hers. He’d asked her a few times what she was up to but he had been so involved in finishing the script he hadn’t given much thought to anything else.
“Finish your script,” she’d said. “And don’t forget your promise.” Idiot that he was, anticipation had flared through him like a fucking teenager.
He turned the key in her door and found a yellow sticky note under the peephole.
Don’t stand around reading notes. Hurry and finish up!
He peeled the note off the door and took it in with him.
There was a second note on the refrigerator. Food on red plate is breakfast. Food on blue plate is lunch. Be back before dinner.
The red plate had two parathas on it, one cup of yogurt, and mango pickle. The entire thing was wrapped in cling wrap with another sticky note. The parathas are to die for. God bless Lovely. And a smiley face.
He remembered her slipping pieces of paratha into his mouth and a thrill went down his spine. He stuck all three notes together and put them in his pocket. Something was very wrong. There was no mistaking that Mili had looked very purposeful, and very guilty that morning. There was no mistaking, either, that she was struggling to keep their relationship confined to friendship, determined to give her damned “marriage” a chance. No, this was not the time to think about the inferno between them. He put the food back in the fridge. If she had sent a legal notice over the past weeks, she had to have copies in the apartment.
There was only one way to find out.
He stood at her bedroom door, fully aware that he was about to do something entirely and indelibly irreversible. He was about to break every last ounce of trust she had put in him.
Every moment he had spent with Mili, every smile, every soft touch pulled him back.
I believe with all my heart that we will be together, that he will come for me one day.
Her heart was going to break either way. Samir had to protect what he knew for sure: Bhai and Rima had to be together. No one deserved it more than they did.
He crossed the threshold into her bedroom. Had it really been only three weeks since he had left her standing here, helpless and hurting, and she had crumpled to the floor without him? But she hadn’t been angry, she’d been touched that he’d come back.
He looked around the room. Desolation crawled up his spine. The mattress on the floor was neatly made with the scratchy blanket and a faded sheet hand-sewn from an old cotton sari. The kind of saris Baiji wore to bed. The mattress was so tiny, so narrow, only a pin tuck like Mili could fit on it. Half his legs would hang off. Not that he would ever find out.
Other than the mattress there were precisely two pieces of furniture. One rickety metal desk and one set of dresser drawers that looked old enough to be from the eighteenth century. Except there was no cheap boxboard in the eighteenth century. He yanked out a drawer. It flew out of its slot and landed on his toe. Fuck! Everything landed on his feet. Boats, Mili had called them. Her onyx eyes widened to saucers in his head. Good lord, what size feet do you have?
How a question that mundane, that innocent, could turn him on this much he had no idea.
He jammed the drawer back in, steadied his hands, and pulled another drawer out. Underwear. Great, he was going through her underwear drawer. He slammed it shut. Not going to think about it. Not going to think about the glimpse of black lace lying on white cotton. She had black lace underwear?
There was nothing in the rest of the drawers. Not one thing. Nothing in the closet either. Except three T-shirts and a single pair of jeans on hangers. The nothingness of her closet squeezed in his chest and made horrible restlessness churn inside him. No shoes, not one pair. No scarves, no bags, no jackets, no saris, no kurtis. Nothing but emptiness and the stale smell of old boxboard. What kind
of girl owned six T-shirts and lace underwear?
Not going to think about the underwear.
His own closet took up an entire room in his flat. He had motorized racks that moved back and forth on remote-controlled tracks. He spent so much time in his closet it was wired for sound. He missed his Bose speakers. He had donated twenty-eight pairs of jeans and forty pairs of shoes at the last Stars charity gala.
Would you want to be with a man more pretty than you?
He rammed his fingers through his hair and squeezed his head and turned to her desk. Nothing except piles of books, all with library tags. More squeezing in his chest. The desk didn’t even have drawers. Even more squeezing.
Samir sank down on his knees and looked under the rickety black metal frame. Pushed up against the back wall all the way in the corner was a brown suitcase. He reached it easily and pulled it out. It was the kind of bag you saw in old movies. Not the eighties kind of old, the fifties kind of old. Brown cloth on cardboard with metal latches that popped up when you slid the spring-loaded buttons aside. He slid, and the latch sprang up with a snap.
He pulled back. It wasn’t too late to stop. He had done a lot of awful things, but this felt worse than anything he’d ever done. Mili had taken him in, shared everything she had with him, and for all the meagerness of her possessions she had enriched him tenfold. To her he had been nothing more than someone who happened to know someone from her village, and yet that had been all she needed. She had let him have everything, the use of her home, the full force of her friendship and trust. And he had taken it without thought, without decency. But this was crossing the line. Her closet, the underwear drawer—at least those were right there out in the open. She wasn’t trying to hide them.
Something about the way the brown bag was pushed against the wall told him it was private. Opening the bag was worse even than touching her underwear drawer. It was a violation. He knew that with as much clarity as he knew his own name. What he was about to do was unforgivable. For all her bravado, and her openness, Samir knew Mili hid entire worlds inside her she didn’t share. He’d seen the tip but she didn’t want him to see the iceberg. He knew the feeling well.