Page 110 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
“Iknewwhere to turn for what,” Nori continued in a hushed tone. “I knew where we’d find the vegetable vendors and where the hardware store was going to be. Even this tea shack is familiar. And that tree. And this old bench.” Her fingers ran over the smooth grain in the wood.
“What do you mean?” Vir asked, hoping he was wrong. Hoping she wasn’t remembering things. She wasn’t supposed to remember.
Nori looked up, her eyes widening with excitement. “I’ve never been to these places before. That market… this tea shack… they weren’t here the last time I was here. But I—was I with you the whole time? Four years ago, during your treatment? Maybe I left Delhi and came here for a bit. That would make sense—”
“You were with me the whole time,” Vir blurted out. It wasn’t the entire truth. But not a lie either.
Nori didn’t say anything for a while. An odd heaviness bled into her mood the longer she sat sipping her tea in silence, her gaze focused on the view ahead.
Vir’s words hung in the air between them, thick, heavy, fragile, making him hate himself for speaking them. And he considered offering her the truth. Just tell her everything and let the chips fall where they might. But if he didn’t—if he just stayed quiet—they’d be colleagues for a whole semester. And neighbors. Maybe even friends.
And he wouldn’t ask for anything more. Just as long as he got to stay by her side. Because the alternative was too unbearable to even think of. He couldn’t watch her remember everything and leave. Not again.
“Do you know about the Proust effect?” she spoke abruptly, pulling him out of his thoughts.
Vir nodded.
“Reliving memories through sensory stimuli,” Nori explained anyway. “My therapist lent me this book one day,In Search of Lost Time. The protagonist tastes a madeleine dipped in tea, and it triggers his mind to release long-forgotten memories from his childhood.Involuntary Memories, he called them.
“I didn’t remember all the Taekwondo lessons I’d taken during my… lost years. But once I started learning again, my body already knew the moves. I know, Proustian memory isn’t exactly the same as muscle memory, but… I’d say it’s similar. Our neurons store seemingly vague connections and patterns with sensory things like tastes, smells, textures, and sounds. They form all these pathways and associations we don’t even realize. So now I—I taste foods I don’t remember eating, smell new things, listen to music released in those years. Hoping, maybe something will help me recall the time I’ve lost.
“I wonder if there are bad memories stored somewhere that would be better left forgotten. But what if there are good ones, too, that I—” She stopped to swipe her sleeve across her cheeks. “I get this feeling sometimes, like I’ve forgotten something important. Like I’m missing something crucial, and Ihaveto remember. I have to. But I just can’t.”
There were good times, Nori.Vir stared at her.So many of them. But I wish you never remember the bad ones.
He looked away, wincing as the guilt dug its claws deeper into his gut.
No.He wasn’t going to tell her. He couldn’t. But he refused to lie to her again.
If she remembered on her own, he—he’d beg her to stay.
If she remembered… he hoped she never did.
Nori
Nori watched Vir in the rearviewmirror as she drove away from his neighborhood.
He had his relatively small bag of groceries raised high above his head, while he walked past his landlord’s front yard, dodging the little bell-collared goat’s attempts to whack it off him the entire time.
With a laugh, Nori redirected her focus to the road in front of her. She had so much left to prepare for her first lecture on Monday, and that meant instant ramen for dinner again. She’d have to check for meal delivery services in the area if she didn’t want to survive on noodles and toasted bread for the next six months.
Unloading her groceries from the car a short while later, she came across a bag with a pair of clinking coffee jars inside, only one of which was hers.She’d obviously have to return the other to him. And soon. Or the poor guy wouldn’t survive.
The thought filled her with a giddy sense of relief, and a silly smirk appeared on her face, refusing to go away.
What waswrongwith her?
She was acting like some infatuated teenager around a man she’d met only a day ago. A man who was clearly still pining over his first-love-slash-ex-girlfriend, too.
That cheesy pebble-giver.
If the woman had the audacity to gift him a pebble and attach all that meaning to it with the penguin story, why did she leave him then? And why didn’t she take the dumb rock with her when she did?
Stepping inside with her bags, Nori slammed the door with more force than necessary, and the heavy oak panel bounced off the frame and stood rattling on its hinges. She winced before closing it again, softer this time.
Turning the latch, she huffed loudly. She wasdoneembarrassing herself.
Vir was a colleague, and maybe they could be friends again like they’d been years ago. But she had better things to do with her time than crush over a guy who was busy pining over someone else.
