Page 84 of Unfolding Ethan

I couldn’t speak because every time I tried to, I wanted my mom beside me even though it seemed selfish. I stared at her paintings in the art room, her faint smell lurking in the air. I tried not to cry when I got ready for the funeral the next day. It was an Indian cremation, so everyone had to wear white. Dad was being strong for me and Karan, but I could hear him sob in their room when I couldn’t sleep last night.

I didn’t cry when they burned her body. I didn’t cry when they gave us her ashes. I didn’t cry on the way back. I didn’t cry when Dad gave an excuse to be in the hospital and drown himself in his work or Karan leaving for his university. I didn’t cry when Ethan cuddled with me, hiding his face and crying silently, wetting my T-shirt.

I couldn’t cry.

Turning to Ethan, I looked at him. His eyes were swollen with crying and glistened with tears. I wiped away the stray tear from his cheek and looked at him.

“Ethan?” I asked, my voice strange to my own ears. “Will you make me forget?”

“What?” He sat up. “What do you mean to make you forget?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and straddled his lap, noticing the sharp intake of his breath. “Please.” My voice broke and I closed my eyes, clutching his shirt. “Please make me forget.”

His hands cupped my cheeks. “Kiara, sweetheart, I can’t make you forget about what happened like that. It’s wrong.”

I shook my head and opened my eyes, my vision blurry with tears. “Please, Ethan, I am begging you. I don’t want anything else. Make me forget.Please.”

“I’m not going to be intimate with you just because you want to forget about what happened.” He was angry, but his voice was soft and firm. “Bella, I apologize, but I can’t give you what you need right now. You’re not in—”

I was furious.

“Fine.” I tried to pull away from him. “I’ll go ask someone else to make me forget.”

He pulled me back to the bed and hugged me. “Kiara.” His voice was throaty and I knew I hurt him by saying that. I shut my eyes closed, listening to his wild heartbeat. “Don’t. If we do this now, you will regret it later or hate me for this. Just stay.”

“But I want this, Ethan.”

“But you don’t need this right now, Bella.” He took a deep breath. “Look at me.”

I did, his warm breath fanning on my cheeks as he pulled me closer. I kissed him, his hands holding my waist, and he pushed me back on the bed, hovering above me. I closed my eyes, feeling the hot, wet kisses on my neck, his hands sliding over my legs when I wrapped them around his waist.

“I know you don’t want this, Bella,” he said, holding my hands away from him and pinning them on the bed. “You’re crying. I can taste your tears on my tongue. Open your eyes and look at me.”

I did and a small sob broke out of my throat, I quickly hid my face, curling into a ball, and he let me.

“I am sorry.” I apologized, my voice muffled as I cried.

“It’s okay, Bella, I am here.” He gently stroked my back as my body shook with sobs, and I kept muttering I was sorry for what had happened, what I had said to him and how I behaved. He let me cry, stroking my hair and muttering sweet words to me.

I cried and cried and cried. Until my whole body bled with the pain of realization that my mom was no more and wouldn’t make me gulab jamuns on my birthdays. She wouldn’t correct my mistakes when I was painting with her, she wouldn’t hug me, oil my hair, or sew back the broken stitches on my clothes. She wouldn’t repeat her love story to me or convince me that Ethan loved me. She passed away.

I let the hurt swallow me whole and cried.

And through all of that, Ethan was beside me, stroking my hair and back, telling me it was going to be okay. Just like I had when his brother died.

Twenty One

We Broke the Bed

Ethan

Seeing Kiara break after her mom’s funeral was one of the most heartbreaking things I had ever witnessed. She had begged me for something I couldn’t give her when she was suffering, and she had finally cried, sobbing in my chest for hours until her body got exhausted and she slept. I didn’t leave her, even when she told me she was fine. Because that’s how I had felt when my little brother had passed away.

“Do you want anything else?” I asked, kissing her cheek and standing up from her bed.

It had been a month since we both were called to the principal’s office and Kiara was slowly getting better as time healed even the deepest wounds. She was focusing her mind more on studies than ever, writing rarely and playing the piano. But I hadn’t seen her paint or sketch.

“No,” she said, her nose buried in her notes as she solved a math equation. “Wait, is this right? I used the formula, but I am not sure.”

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