Page 105 of Isn't It Obvious?
“I got your email,” she says. “Did you mean it?”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should’ve given you some names of possible replacements you could reach out to.”
“I really don’t care about that,” Yael says. “Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”
Yael watches Ravi’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Yes,” he says.
A gust of air escapes her. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. That’s good. Or, I don’t know, I wish you told me earlier. I knew you liked me, but I didn’t know you loved me, and that’s why I didn’t fight for you, because I think it’s a waste of breath asking someone to love you back when they can’t. But I don’t think it’s a waste of breath for me to ask that you let me love you.”
“Yael—”
“I do need to be taken care of sometimes. And it’s hard for me to ask for, even harder for me to accept, but it’s true. And maybe it happens a little more often than for most people who don’t have bipolar disorder—”
“Yael,” he says, his brows knitting together. “Do you think that’s why I walked away that day?”
She pauses. “It sounded like it was part of it,” she says.
“It wasn’t,” he says. “Itisn’t. Christ.”
“Oh” is all she can think to say. Ravi reaches for her, and she takes a step back. “You can’t touch me until I stop worrying about being coherent.”
Ravi nods, folding his arms across his chest, the sweatshirt trapped between them. “It was entirely about me, not you,” he says. “I know what your ex did to you, and I never want you to go through that again.”
“Do you plan to call me ‘awful’ when I’m having a panic attack or tell me I need to hide my symptoms because I’m never going to be able to manage them, anyway?” His expression is nothing short of horrified. “You’re not Halle,” she says, half to herself. “I have people other than you in my life. I’m sure I’d need you sometimes, but it wouldn’t be only you. I have Charlie and Gina and Sanaa, and my parents come home next week. My therapist is almost back from parental leave!
“The point is, my support system is bigger than just you. Even if you didn’t have a niece to take care of, it’s not healthy or realistic to rely only on your partner. And it’s completely normal to care for a partner sometimes while also caring for a child. Part of the deal is you get cared for in return. It should make things easier, not harder. So, if that’s why you don’t want to be with me, you need a new reason.”
Ravi chews the inside of his cheek. “It’s not the only reason,”he says eventually. “Fuck, it’s not—It’s not even the biggest reason.”
“Yeah?” Yael says, unsure if the churn of her stomach is hope or dread.
He rubs at the stubble on his chin. “Margot,” he says, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Margot felt like she was saddled with a kid and a husband she didn’t want. She left, and Mia and Suresh are going to be dealing with the fallout for a long time. Maybe their whole lives.I’mstill dealing with it.”
“I don’t expect you not to be,” Yael says.
He nods, looking away, but not before she can see his eyes go watery.
RAVITAKES INa breath, successfully blinking back his tears, before he faces Yael again. The lights that hang on either side of the front door cast her in a soft haze, like she’s come to him in a dream. He knows she’s real, though. In his dreams, she always wants him to reach out and touch her.
“You were right,” he says. “This was a lot easier over email.”
Yael lets out a short breath of a laugh, then presses her lips together. “You can write one if you want. I’ll go read it in the car and come back.”
“I want to be able to say this to your face,” he says. Yael’s dark eyes shine up at him, the dim light enough to make out the amber that rings around her pupil. “I don’t want to bring Mia into your life if you’re not ready for it. I don’t want to do that to you, and I don’t want to do that to her. If I let her fall in love with you like I did and you left us like Margot, I don’t think either of us could take it.”
“Ravi,” she whispers. Her arm lifts, just for a second,and she shakes her head, wrapping it back around herself. “I won’t do that.”
“But how do you know?” he asks, his voice cracking.
“I don’t know if we’ll work out. I can’t see the future, so I can’t promise that. But I can tell you that I won’t leave because of Mia, and I’dneverleave the way Margot did.”
He reaches for her hand, and this time she lets him take it. Her skin is cool to the touch, and he does his best to envelop her hand with his. When he rubs his thumb against her palm, she shivers.
“There are people like Margot and my mom,” Yael says. “And there are people like Pops. I love you, Ravi. I just want you to give me the chance to be like my pops. To be like you.”
He tightens his grip on her hand, his heart rattling in his rib cage. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel this way, so terrified and so safe all at once. “Okay,” he whispers.
“Okay?” she repeats, eyebrows lifted in disbelief.
