Page 100 of The Encore’s Crown

She patted my cheek, leaving even more yellow behind, then walked away laughing. A splash of cold water struck the side of my head. I spun around. Radhika stood across the courtyard holding a brass pichkari, her smile wide and victorious. The front of her white sari was already streaked with pink and gold. Green dusted one shoulder. Purple stained the end of her braid. But there was no blue on her yet. I reached for the nearest bowl. She saw what I was doing. I gathered both hands full of blue.

She backed away. I moved toward her.

“Kiri, don’t you dare.”

She turned and ran. I chased her through the courtyard. She slipped between relatives, laughing as she used them for cover. I nearly collided with two children and was struck in the side of the face by another blast of water. Radhika looked over her shoulder, saw me still coming, and shrieked. Everyone moved aside for me. She reached the garden path before I caught her around the waist.

Radhika screamed with laughter as I lifted her off the ground.

“No, no, Kiri, please.”

“You started it.”

“That was water.”

“This is better.”

I turned her in my arms and dragged both blue-covered hands over her cheeks. She gasped. Color swept across her skin, bright against the pink already there. I spread it over her jaw, her throat, the white fabric at her shoulders. She reached into a passing tray without looking and came away with a handful of pink. I tried to move but I was too late. She pressed it against my other cheek, rubbing it in slowly while she laughed.

Her fingers curled behind my neck. The celebration surged around us. Drums. Shouting. Children running beneath clouds of color. Her mother dancing with the aunties. Her father allowing someone half his age to paint green across his forehead. Flower petals falling from one of the balconies while powder turned the air gold in the sunlight.

Radhika pulled me closer. Her face was covered in blue and pink. Her hair had come loose again. Her smile was so wide and unguarded that she barely looked like the woman who spent her life knowing exactly where every camera was. I held her around the waist. She laughed into my face. I laughed with her and the words just came out.

“I love you.”

I didn’t plan them. Didn’t test them first or decide whether I was ready. They escaped in the middle of laughter, surrounded by her family, in the center of Holi, like I had stepped into one of her films and forgotten there was supposed to be a script. Radhika went still. Everything else kept moving. Color flew past us. Music thundered through the courtyard.

Her smile remained, caught somewhere between joy and disbelief. Tears appeared in her eyes so quickly it broke something open inside me. I lifted one hand and wiped beneath her eye. The powder coating my fingers mixed with the tear, deepening the blue across her cheek until the color became brighter.

More beautiful.

“What did you say?” she whispered.

She had heard me. I knew she had, but she needed it again. I held her face between my hands.

“I love you, Radhika Malhotra.”

Clearer this time. No laughter to hide inside. Her mouth opened, but no sound came. Then her arms wrapped around my neck and she kissed me. Hard. Her lips pressed against mine with no space between us, her whole body pushing into me. I could feel her cheeks against mine, the width of her smile making the kiss clumsy and perfect. I held her tighter.

She laughed against my mouth, crying now, color and tears smearing between us.

“I love you, Kiri Chhim.”

The words went through me.

I had always thought being in love would feel like music. Music was something I understood. Something with structure. Something I could follow.

This was bigger.

This was every sound in the world falling away except her voice.

Her family surrounded us. Her father stood somewhere behind her. Her mother and every aunty in Rajasthan were probably watching.

I didn’t care. I kissed her again beneath falling flowers and clouds of color, with drums beating through my chest and her arms locked around my neck. For once, I didn’t think about the flight home. I didn’t think about the distance waiting after the week ended or the questions her father kept asking about marriage, children, and futures I had never allowed myself to picture.

I just held her.

Radhika in my arms.