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His chest presses down against my back, and his hand covers my mouth.
“Not yet.”
It’s that dark tone of his.
“Tell me how you feel after,” he says.
He wishes!
I know Huan is methodical, but I’m his brat.It won't happen exactly his way. He gets incoherent ramblings of love out of me the whole time, because I can’t keep them inside any longer. And when he enters me, I’m treated to the same from him. And only after we leave the bedroom and start cooking together do we say it without distraction or any flourishes.
I love you.
Three words. They mean safety, excitement, episodes of delirium, hope, and a slash of fright when you realize,This person has got access to my underbelly in a way others don’t and yet?—
Wonderfully, we still whisper our vulnerabilities voluntarily. Like how I used to look for him at house parties before London. And he shares how he’d practice little lines of conversation, in case we ever spoke. Not that we really spoke much. Our start began with more pining than real interaction.
We also tally our favourite trip memories, and I’m surprised he loved us huddling over books at St. Bride Library as much as I did. And, so together, a plan is made to go to the local library. Huan then shows me his book collection, and the artwork on his walls, and the standing desk he built himself, and this wall dentfrom when his dad golfed indoors. I tell him the two recipes I’ve mastered in my lifetime, and that I would eat macaroni pasta as my last meal. He tells me he’s going to bake me cookies from scratch.
It’s the gentle connecting of our lives. We talk, and our hearts thud, and our hands find excuses to touch, and it feels like our worlds come together. Not fleetingly on vacation while we are rollicking through a city’s newness, but way more solidly like the beats of our actual lives. It feels real. It feels like a promise. It feels like I can start making plans that are mine, not ordered by anyone else. Is this what living on your own terms feels like? Scary but open. Possibility illuminates before me. Choices.
I’m making mine, but what about the other people in my life?
My friends, Uncle Mohinder… my mother.
What will they think?
THIRTY-TWO
That evening and most of the next day passes, and I’m alone in Huan’s living room thinking I’ll stay—hide?—one more day, when my mother calls me. As I pick up the phone, my throat goes dry, but she’s not got that problem. Her words spill as if they’ve been moisturized in my absence.
“Komal? Where are you? I thought of Reena or Nim, but Mohinder just told me you asked him for Huan’s address. Not that you would be there. I don’t see why, since Mohinder mentioned he’s been released from his duties. Huan’s not paid to protect you anymore. London was his last assignment. He doesn’t work for us anymore.”
Okaaaay. If I lie, it delays the implosion of this conversation. If I tell the truth, it will implode, but might settle faster. I don’t know. I’m not sure there is a right or wrong way, but it’s more about being tired. A lot has happened. And part of me wants to continue ripping bandaids.
One hand picks at the fingernails of the other.
My mother is modern. I haven’t had to lie about my boyfriends, but I know other Punjabi women do. As a collective, many of us have to lie. We don’t tell our parents when we date. Instead, we cleave that part of our life away, and it has to existalone in the world, separated from our main public and family life. Dating is like a rolling bead of sweat, because there isalwaysthe threat of being caught.And yet, despite the threat, many of us do it. Because we want to be free and fun, and to choose differently than our parents want us to.
“Komal?”
It’s my mom asking again.
What should I do? What should I say?
Again, I’m so tired.
I take and release a deep breath. “I’m at Huan’s house… because we got close in London.”
There’s averypregnant pause on her end.
“He’s the boy,” she finally says.
I wouldn’t use the term boy, but that’s not worth arguing over.
“We’re together,” I confirm. “Dating.”
“Komal!”
