He locks his phone, the one he’s been texting on discreetly all night, and turns to me. ‘Better than I could have imagined.’
‘I felt...’ I hesitate. ‘I felt normal for a minute. And then I felt guilty for feeling normal.’
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘The guilt is the cover charge for any moment of peace.’
‘Like Aman should’ve been there,’ I say. ‘Or Megha. That we’re not allowed to... dance without them.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I just miss him so much.’
‘Me too,’ he says. ‘All the time.’
We fall into a heavy silence after that. I make shapes with my toes on the sand. The waves wash them away periodically. We sit like that for a while longer. Finally, I break the quiet.
‘We should probably go back?’ I ask.
He nods, not looking at me. ‘Yeah.’
He helps me up. And we walk back towards the distant lights of the resort.
27
Raghav
The next morning, I wake up to the feeling of a crushing hangover. Which is a change from the usual anxiousness. So that’s good. Aditi’s still sprawled on the bed, drooling like she always does, gross but also cute. I sit there waiting for her to wake up, and when she doesn’t, I tiptoe out of the room.
A little later, I’m standing in front of a breakfast buffet that seems to stretch for miles. And yet the place is packed. Even more packed are the tables of guests where there are the little pyramids of fruits and pancakes and omelettes and croissants. A lot of food will get wasted today. Before today, I thought only Indians and others with terrible inequality are cheap, but no, it’s a worldwide phenomenon. I’m happy about that.
I load up my plate too, giving into the trap that maybe, just maybe stuffing my face with food will make the hangover go away, when time and again it has been proved otherwise. I walk past the many tables—honeymooning couples holding hands over plates of pastries, families trying to coax their kids away from the chocolate fountain, forcing them to eat some fruit. They all look like they belong here.
Then I see her.
Aditi is standing by the waffle station, rubbing her eyes. She’s wearing a simple white dress, and her hair is still slightly damp from a shower. She looks... lighter today. Less haunted. When did she wake up?
‘This is... a lot,’ I say as I walk up to her pouring honey over her waffles.
‘They have five different kinds of honey,’ she tells me. ‘Got to try them all.’
‘Isn’t all this a bit much?’ I say.
Her eyes light up. ‘I know, right? I’m so excited.’
Strange choice of words. I haven’t heard that from her. I don’t point it out and we navigate the buffet together, like a team trying to make the most of it.
We find a table outside, overlooking one of the infinity pools. Kids are already splashing in it. Lucky bastards.
‘They will never know true happiness,’ she says, pointing at the kids. ‘If they get everything now, what’s there to level up?’
‘Sounds like sour grapes,’ I tell her.
‘Maybe,’ she says with a smile.
For a while, we just eat, the silence comfortable for the first time in a long time. Just two normal people on a vacation.
‘So,’ she says finally, pushing a piece of pineapple around her plate. ‘What’s the plan for today?’
Again, these are a few words I haven’t heard from her. Or me. They are new. They were once potentially ugly, but now, here, they sound manageable. The question hangs in the air.
