Page 76 of Game on, Love

“He absolutely did.”

I groaned.

Forget a long while. I was going to be teased for the rest of my life.

23

Raina

FOR THE LAST TWOdays, my evenings were spent going over Ma’s journal and reliving the memories from our last year together, and it was finally starting to catch up to me.

She hadn’t written each day, but I had seen the pattern. The days when she missed my brothers a little more were the ones she wrote the most on, almost as if it was her way of saying it to them, or when she had a really bad day because of her meds, were the ones where there were only a couple of lines, though all of them were only filled with guilt, but there was never an explanation to them. A part of me understood it, considering that she’d meant them to be only for her eyes, but she’d left them for Vedant. I wondered if they were meant to be part of something bigger, or maybe reading the older ones first helped, or maybe she wanted us to ask the other person in our life who also knew the bigger truths. I wasn’t sure, but there was a part of me that hoped it was anything but the latter.

And then there was a third type: the memories she’d made with me. They were a mix of two. Sometimes, longer when we’d fought—clearly, being a stubborn teenager with severe daddy issues had me acting like a brat—but there were also some special moments she’d written about, and all of them included baking different things.

While, I had only a faint memory of the fights we had, call it selective memory or what. I did remember the special ones vividly.

So, here I was, making Gujarati Magas. Unlike the other recipes in my journal—the one that was handed down to me—that were old and traditional Punjabi desserts which werepassed down through generations. This was among the ones Ma had learned herself, and it was the one of the two things we madea lotof in our last year. Then, I hadn’t thought of it much, but now, I wondered if it was because she missed her boys too much.

I’d stopped by one of the Indian supermarkets after work to grab the handful of ingredients I needed, but I flipped the page to double check I had all of them in front of me.

Once I was sure, I grabbed my sifter and flour, and just like that, my mind was tuning out the thoughts.

I HAD FORGOTTEN HOWmuch of a workout it was to make these. I was twenty minutes into mixing the batter on the stove, and I had another good five to ten minutes left and my arm was dead.

The kitchen was filled with an unmistakable scent of cardamom and roasted flour; my mind was bouncing between the memories of Ma and the ache in my chest that was permanently there at her loss. It was like the grief was woven into my DNA, although often, when it got too busy, it covered itself in the strangest forms; then I’d sit on my bed at the end of the day and remember that she’s gone all over again. My therapist had said,‘It was normal’and‘It was what you were supposed to do’or even went as far as saying,‘It was part of healing’.But the truth was, no matter if it was healing or not, sometimes, when those endings didn’t come, and the next time I would think of her, I would feel the guilt for forgetting her.

“What are you making?” Rihaan’s sharp voice cut through my thoughts like a hot knife, startling me. And if I hadn’t been leaning on the counter next to the stove, I was sure I would’ve jumped back.

Turning my head in his direction, I spotted him with a hand on the refrigerator door, which was open, and it was enough to tell me that he’d been planning not to make any conversation until he noticed the dessert.

“Majas,” I replied before clearing my throat after my croaked voice reached my ears.

Rihaan blinked, almost as if trying to… I had no clue. My brother was a stranger to me, how his brain worked, or who he was? It was a total mystery to me. But with him, I also never tried to fill the gaps. The thought often stemmed from the fact that as a kid, I knew the sweet boy who loved playing cricket, who, granted, would sometimes shut the door in my face when I tried to join him and Vedant playing video games, but he was my brother, but my last memory of him was him saying he had no clue who I was, and that he never wanted to see me again.

And sure, I wanted to blame that on him grieving, but it was years before that when he stopped interacting with me, and there were only so many excuses you could make for a person.

A loud noise echoed from the fridge, indicating it had been open for far too long, but it broke his trance. Shutting it close, he walked over to me, and I was… confused.

“Is that…?” Rihaan glanced at my journal, and I waited for him to finish. I didn’t want to lie until it was my last resort, and answering his unspoken question before him would indicate Iknewwhat he was talking about. “Oh. What’s this?”

“It’s a mix of recipes that Ma taught me and some old ones that I haven’t tried, but they were passed down to Nani, so she wanted me to have them.”

Rihaan visibly gulped, his eyes meeting mine. “She taught you how to make Majas?”

“Yeah… Have you had it before?”

“It was my favourite growing up. Dad’s too.”

Oh.

Everything in me stilled.

He didn’t wait for my reply, his eyes focusing on the mixture before us, which gave me time topretendI had recovered.

“It’ll be finished in another few minutes, but it takes a good couple of hours to set. I can bring you some… if you want?”

He nodded before his glassy eyes met mine. “I’m sorry.”

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