Page 31 of No Other Love

Either way, I’d have felt trapped and resentful. And he wasn’t to blame for it. Not really. That much I understood in the year being apart.

‘We were happy, weren’t we?’ I sounded so hopelessly naïve, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know. Needed to know that, before the end, we had been happy. We had beentogether.

It hadn’t all been in my head.A fairytale I made up to get through falling for the wrong guy too soon.

He evaded the question. ‘Get some sleep, Ani. We have a full day ahead of us tomorrow.’

Vikrant stood up and I watched his loose-hipped walk helplessly. He switched off the lamp and sat down in the middle of the couch. Continued looking at his hands.

I lay back in bed, knowing this was all he would share tonight. And it was more than I expected to get from him. I stared at the ceiling and willed myself to go back to sleep. Then I stupiheard it.

My name.

In Vikrant’s rusty whisper.

Anika.

‘Yes?’ I turned to face him, barely able to make out his silhouette now that the room was completely dark.

‘I dream about you too.’

Seventeen

Vikrant

I dream about you too.Fuckinghell!

I cursed the air blue the next morning as I recalled the pathetic way I’d confessed those words to her. They still ricocheted inside me with all the force of a gunshot wound tearing through human skin. Damaging organs. Realigning them.

Confession was supposed to be good for the soul, but I felt like crap.

As it was, waking up to a sleeping Anika, sheets tangled around her legs, so half her sexy andfamiliarbody was completely visible was hard. Emphasis on the hard. But to know that now sheknewsome of the stuff I was bottling up inside, the secrets I held onto because I couldn’t hold her was a little humiliating.

It gave her all the power.

And I was a little scared of what she would do with all the information.

Anika wasn’t careless or callous. But she wasn’t raised like me – to always put others before self. Not that that was a healthy way to live, with the guilt and the desire to please everyone always choking my own ambition, my own desires. Hell, sometimes my very existence.

The counsellor had talked about me needing stronger emotional boundaries in order to maintain my sense of self. AndI dismissed it like it was a load of bullshit. Stuff the counsellor had to tell me to justify their hourly price tag.

But today morning was the first time in a year I felt I’d enforced an emotional boundary. Not by that admission in the end, but the calm and non-judgmental way I had that conversation with Ani.

Go, me!

***

I finished quickly in the bathroom, wanting to slip out before she woke up. The alarm was supposed to go off at six am and there was still forty minutes to go.

Unfortunately, she was wide awake when I opened the bathroom door, fully dressed, down to the comfy thongs I wore at home. I wasn’t sure I could trust myself around her when we were both half-naked.

It was like tempting fate and fate was never on my side.

‘Good morning,’ she said quickly, before I could say anything.

Not that I could form words. She was…sleep-flushed, her hair sticking out of the cute ponytail she’d put it in before bed. The faded blue tee shirt slid off her shoulder, revealing a creamy curve I wanted to caress before moving down.All the way down.

Best of all, she was here. In my bed. The one place I ached for her to be. And always would.

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