‘Myraah!’ He was shaking his head. ‘I hold back at times, too, you’re right,’ he said, taking a step towards me. ‘I wrecked what we had.’
Among other things,I thought.
‘What is everything?’ he asked, after forever and a day.
The accomplished Mr Brown didn’t know; he needed me to decode it.
‘We had it once.’ The way we were.
‘The only way we can put that behind us is if we work together.’
‘You took something out of me and gave it away. I can’t get it back,’ I said and stopped to take a breath. I was not pausing for time but to swallow the words I wanted to say to him.Only you can get it back. Only you, Andrew.‘I told you earlier that I wouldn’t have understood Meena and you even if it was love, but if I had to lose you to anything, it might as well have been love…’
‘Is Meena more important than me?’
This was Andrew throwing everything he had at me. Reporters do that when they fear a story that they had pictured as the page one lead was suddenly going nowhere. Then you tossed everything, including the kitchen sink, at the object of your attention, hoping to get the response that would make your report. Take it out of the dustbin and restore it to a place just below the masthead.
‘Nobody is more important than you, nobody was. Outside of my mother, that is.’
‘Are you punishing me?’
‘It’s everything to do with Meena, and yet nothing to do with her. It’s right here,’ I said, pointing at my heart.
Andrew shook his head. His eyes were moist.
‘I tried, Andrew… I tried because I wanted it, needed it.’
‘Slowly,’ he said, taking my hands in his, ‘step by step, we’ll make it happen. We need to give it time.’ I let the warmth of his fragrance envelop me for a full moment.
‘As much as I wish it is, it’s not an exercise, Andrew. You either feel it or you don’t. The politics of love…’
‘What’s missing?’ His breath was spiced with confusion.
‘Us, like we were. Myra and Andrew, just kids with hearts. Nothing was wrong with us, Andrew. There wasn’t even a hint of a crack.’
‘You’re making a mistake. You’re giving up on us for something so small.’
That did it. The dam burst. Tears tipped down my cheeks. I was sobbing, but I wanted to scream,It’s not small; it’s what I feel for you. It’s everything I am. EVERYTHING.
He was kissing my tears, drop by drop, tasting them. An old ache and a new anger.
His fingers were in my hair; mine were stroking the back of his neck.
‘A mistake,’ I said as his lips took mine in a hypnotic embrace I wholly returned. It wasn’t the mistake, it was the complete lack of empathy.
I wanted to break away from this man, but I couldn’t. My fingers were on his shirt… This is why I had to change cities.
His fingers were underneath my top, which he had freed from the waistband of my trousers, and were stroking my bare back in an up-and-down motion. I shifted into him, feeling his hardness. I was kissing his chest. Little wisps of love.
Andrew unhooked my strapless bra, and the only reason it didn’t hit the floor was because we were breathing each other. He pulled me closer, and I did the same.
An alarm went off in my bag; it came as a warning. I pulled back and fastened my bra.
I picked up my bag and walked to the front door.
‘Myraah,’ he called.
I don’t know why I turned. It was a reaction perhaps.
