Page 113 of The Rules of Playing with Fire

“I used to. I quit.”

“That didn’t look like you quit.”

“That didn’t look like you don’t smoke.”

“I can smoke. I choose not to.”

He smiled—not smirked, smiled. “Come up,” he said.

Instead of going to his room, though, he led me to the café inside the hotel. “You missed breakfast on my account,” he said as we occupied a table near the window.

“Not on your account. I woke up late,” I replied, perusing the menu. I ordered a vegetable sandwich and a latte while he got his usual double espresso.

“You’re so predictable,” I said when my food and our coffee arrived.

“Hmm, I always thought that was a good thing, like being reliable.”

He smiled, and I braved a direct gaze into his eyes. “Are you alright?”

His cup stopped halfway to his lips. After a slow drag on it, he placed it down with grace. Pulling in a deep breath, he asked, “Why did you come back?”

“I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Sitting across from him had always been a transcendental experience for me, as if there was a tangible connection between his soul and mine. Dallas, Montréal, or Mumbai. There was no difference. It felt like home wherever he was. I sighed and bit into my generous sandwich.

When we went up to his room, I settled on a couch near the window, gazing at the gray Arabian sea outside. While Mihir ordered water and coffee to the room, I called Sanjay and asked him to get his lunch because I didn’t know how long I’d be there.

Then he stepped over and slipped in beside me. I cupped his face. “Tell me, Mihir,” I whispered. “I’m here.”

He took my hand and jerked me into his arms, burying his face in my neck. I felt his tears on my skin as my hand cradled his head. His hair was as soft as it looked. I pulled him closer as he continued shedding silent tears. I could feel his pain as if it were my own. The weight of his sorrow was palpable, a desperate cry for comfort hidden behind his brave façade. My heart ached to see him like this.

He lifted his head, and I swiped his tears away with my fingers.

“Fuck, I feel so foolish,” he said, wiping his eyes with his palms.

I took his hands in mine. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t know where to begin.”

Speechless and motionless, I tried to grasp everything that had transpired over the last three months. There were too many things I felt at the moment. I was sad for his parents, I felt his pain, I felt confounded by his decision to break up, and I knew I couldn’t appropriately react to any of these, so I just held him.

“I had thought finding Kamte would lead me to my birth mother.”

“We’ll find her, Mihir,” I said with misplaced confidence.

“How?” He gazed into my face.

“I’m not sure right now, but don’t leave just yet. Give me a few days. I have several connections in the city. It could be a shot in the dark but still worth a try.”

“Mom said I shouldn’t have let you go,” he said, his arms tight around me. “And she was right.”

“But you did,” I whispered and withdrew from his embrace to stand. “And rather cruelly.”

“I want you back,” he declared in his usual determined manner and stood to face me.

I shook my head. “You could’ve talked to me. Instead, you chose to push me away in the most merciless way. It’s taken me all these months to come to terms with it. When a thing like that happens to you twice, it doesn’t take long to go into a spiral and think that it was somehow your fault. I must have something lacking in me for it to happen twice. If I didn’t have supportive friends, I wouldn’t have survived this, Mihir. And you were nowhere to be found. You can’t thrust yourself back in my life again because now you decided it’s the right thing for you.”

“I was in a terrible place, Sona. Why does no one understand that? My parents won’t talk to me. You’re pushing me away. Why can’t you all accept that I needed space? I needed time to heal, to come to terms with it. Why can’t you all cut me some slack? I felt shunned and ashamed. I felt as if everyone in my life was ashamed of me. My entire world changed, and everyone behaves as if I’m the one in the wrong.”

---