Page 48 of Bad At Love

His heart whispered softly, feeling blessed.

Strength and fire, a force to behold,

In her eyes, mysteries untold.

Yet, amidst the banter, love did bloom,

In the midst of chaos, a silent, secret room.

As the evening waned and the stars did gleam,

His heart whispered, “This must be a dream.”

But reality struck with a bittersweet twist,

Their moment together, a treasure amidst.”

Utter silence descended over the group as Minty finished reading with a lilting cadence. Chaaru’s heart raced, her hands and feet, her entire body felt large, cumbersome. Extraneous to the feeling inflating inside.

“It has to be for you, Char,” Mona said softly, breaking the silence. Her smile stretched so wide and shone so brightly that it could be sighted from outer space.

“Wait, DP wrote that? I thought he was an accountant?” Mona’s other friend Nadia asked, peering up at him through her thick bifocals. “Not that he looks like what I thought an accountant would look like.”

“Clearly, the man is more than just wet-dream material,” Kash announced with a sigh and a wink in Char’s direction.

Chaaru wanted to cover him up with her not-so-slender shoulders until no one could look at him.He’s mine, she wanted to say again. Maybe she’d get a stamp made that said, ‘Chaaru’s Property, Don’t Look’. And every morning, she’d stamp it on his forehead before he stepped out into the world.

But unless she admitted her love to him, there would be no steamy nights or warm, cuddly mornings beyond this week. Nothing but her cold, empty bed and boring, safe life.

When the ribbing subsided, and the group moved on to the next letter, Chaaru crept towards Minty, took the carefully folded paper from her along with the copper paperclip and shuffled back to their lounger.

This washertreasure. As if they could understand her wonder, Mona and Kash squeezed her fingers as she passed them.

DP’s brown eyes held hers when she returned to the lounger, his square chin raised in a subtle challenge. Outside of the tense little bubble around them, Nadia was reading Dev’s letter to Minty.

But all she had eyes for was this man.

Tension poured from him and yet, he had chosen to put that poem out there. It sounded like a declaration, but she knew it wasn’t. With DP, it was simply a statement of fact. Like the sun was big and hot, the moon was silver, and pubes could turn gray.

“That was about the first time we met,” she stated blandly, one knee on the lounger. Every inch of her longed to touch him and sink into him, and yet she was afraid.

Afraid that she might never stand up to the Chaaru he saw, that she might never be ready for the impact of everything he was.

“Yep. Beforehewalked in.”

“I remember,” she added, and realized that it sounded like she was trying to make that evening more than it had meant then. She’d been so utterly in love with Ravi. But with hindsight, she’d realized she hadn’t even known the true him.

She’d been in love with the adventure she was beginning in a new country. Excited to be away from her controlling, conservative parents. Enamored of all the possibilities life with Ravi could unfold.

“It’s okay if you don’t, sweetheart,” DP said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. In a tender voice that pretzeled her heart into so many new shapes.

Clasping his hand, she pushed her face into his touch. “We argued about who was the world’s greatest cricketer. I ate all your peanuts, and you bought me beer with your fake ID. I nearly choked on it, it was so bitter. The bartender thought we were talking about baseball. I kept saying batsman, and he said they are called batters. Then added it was a good thing I was so cute. You corrected him with such a glare that he was afraid of approaching us for the rest of the night.”

“I think I won the argument.”

“No way,” Chaaru said, leaning into him. She felt like she’d been running all her life towards this moment. And yet, running away from herself too. So basically, running in place, not knowing that what she needed was within reach. “You…were stunned when Ravi walked in and introduced me as his fiancée.”

“It felt like a truck had run me over,” he said, his broad chest rising and falling. “For the next few days, I walked around in a trance. Even my mom commented on it.”

---