‘It doesn’t work like that,’ he argues. ‘People change, circumstances change. How can you have control over it? Love is not mathematics where you can get it right. There are no keys, no answer sheets.’
He looks at me suddenly remembering something. ‘Vicky? Is he doing better?’
I shake my head. ‘He’s blaming me.’
‘Why would he blame you?’
‘I don’t know. He’s talking to everyone but me. I feel like he’s punishing me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Remember that night we met? You said you have a crush on me because of my genetic lottery or something? But I could be a horrible person? Do you still think that?’
‘That you’re a horrible person?’ he asks. ‘No, not at all.’
‘What makes you say so?’
‘Are you fishing for compliments? Because that’s what it sounds like.’
‘I am trying to feel okay about myself because I spent last night feeling like I only care about myself.’
‘I have seen you care about your brother; I have seen you making sure your parents are comfortable around here, and you have been honest about your hate for my sister—’
I gasp. ‘I don’t hate her!’
‘I’m joking,’ he says with a smile. ‘You’re nice, Aanchal. You’re not horrible. And anyway, everyone’s allowed to be a little horrible.’
Just then the tour guide waves from a distance. As I walk back to the bus, I repeat to myself that I’m not horrible. I push out of my mind the thoughts of what Vicky’s father will do to him. I try to convince myself that it’s okay for me to have asked God to spare me instead of him.
‘You okay?’ asks Daksh.
I nod.
9.
Aanchal Madan
I’m alone in the room. Gaurav is in the game room trying to better the highest score on Daksh’s gaming console.
Maa–Papa have gone on the food tour of the island. With every passing day, they feel freer to enjoy themselves. There’s nothing more I like than seeing them without the burdens of every day weighing them down. It seems like this vacation has made them younger by two decades. Gaurav and I just have to work hard for a few more years and we could give them this experience repeatedly.
I’m staring at my open suitcase. In it, there’s a black swimming costume. When we were buying clothes for this trip, Maa asked me if I wanted a swimming costume because the hotel had three swimming pools. I told her what I told Vicky: ‘I don’t know how to swim.’
‘You don’t go to a hotel pool to swim, you do it to pass the time. They are shallow pools,’ Vicky said later, giving me a package. ‘This is what you will wear.’
He had got me a black swimming costume, a sharp one, the one that swimmers wear, where their thighs are visible, not the frock type I have seen on a lot of women. I had refused. And yet here I am, carrying the swimming costume gifted by Vicky, hidden in one small compartment of my suitcase.
But I’m thankful I packed it. This swimming costume will be how Vicky replies to my texts.
I put it on. And even though I’m alone in the room, I feel exposed, naked. I wear the bathrobe over it.
I text Vicky.
I’m wearing the costume, do you want to see it? I can send you a picture.
