Page 99 of Isn't It Obvious?
“Now?”
“You can do it in the morning if you want. But then you’ll have to go to work right after.”
Yael groans and takes her phone to her room.
In the end, it’s the right thing to do; of course it is. But it’s painful to admit how good it feels to have Charlie on the couch with her, to have Sanaa cash in on her ability to work remotely to come home earlier for Thanksgiving than she’d planned.
Because she’s being taken care of by people who love her, and maybe she does need it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
FOUR WEEKS LATER
The Sophomore English Agendais set to go on an end-of-year holiday hiatus just in time for the winter break closure at Mia’s preschool. Ravi puts a pause on all his freelance projects until the new year, too, so the only thing left for him to do is edit the December Patreon bonus episode. He gets the rough cut of “Elle Takes an Edible and Tries to Explain to Her Roommate Why She HatesThe Great GatsbySo Much” the Monday of his last week of work and opens it immediately.
The moment he presses play, he knows it’s a mistake. All the time since he said goodbye to Yael, he’s lamented the fact that he only got this sanitized fraction.
But hearing this is much, much worse.
She speeds up when she’s making the points she’s most excited about, laughs at her own jokes, laughs harder at Charlie’s. Her pitch climbs occasionally in a way that would giveSEA’s most obnoxious reviewers an aneurysm. Sometimes she drags out the ends of her sentences, her vocal fry prominent.
This Elle sounds exactly like Yael, and Christ, does he miss her. He listens to it straight through, not clicking a single button in his editing software. Not even making notes to himself of what he needs to change. And then he turns his computeroff, downloads the file onto his phone, and brings it downstairs to listen again in his room.
When Ravi’s staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes and debating a third listen, Suresh gets home.
“What are you listening to?” he asks.
Ravi sits up, trying to look less pathetic.
He must take too long to respond, though, because Suresh continues, “Is it the librarian?”
Ravi nods. “A bonus episode that I’m supposed to edit.”
Suresh stands in the doorway still and quiet, as if carefully considering his next move. “You asked me how dating someone would be different for me than for you,” he says, “and I didn’t know how to answer you. But I thought a lot about it, and the difference is that for me, it’s not just about you and Mia. It’s about Margot.” He pauses then, clearing his throat.
“That’s true,” Ravi says slowly.
“The difference is that I don’t think I could fall in love right now, even if I wanted to. I was so in love with her. I still love her. So even if I did meet a woman that I had feelings for, it wouldn’t be fair to her, because I only just turned in the divorce papers and I’m too broken up to give my love to anybody else. You doh have that, Ravi. You could make room for one more person.”
Ravi swallows against the lump in his throat. “What if she decided it was too much for her?” he blurts. “What if she got to know Mia and then she left?”
Suresh’s face changes, surprised. “Is that what this is about?” he asks. Ravi shrugs. “Doesn’t she work with kids?”
“Teenagers,” Ravi says.
“I hear they’re more difficult.” When Ravi doesn’t respond, Suresh says, “She could leave. Of course, she could. But you haven’t even given her the chance to show you she wouldn’t. You like her owah?”
Ravi blinks back tears, still not sure what to say.
“If you don’t want to be with her, that’s a different story. But right now, it just seems like you’re torturing yourself, and you should stop,” Suresh says.
He slips out of the room, closing the door behind him.
EVENTUALLY, THE DAYSstart to go by faster, and the episodes begin to ebb. Sanaa has left Portland with the promise to return as soon as the semester ends. She and Yael and Charlie will go to the coast for New Year’s, just the three of them.
By the last week of classes, the heartbreak is something Yael carries rather than lives in.
She still has to hit send on emails to Ravi with one hand over her eyes, but she enjoys writing her outlines and recording the episodes again. Over lunch today, she shut-eye sends a rough cut of the bonus episode she recorded on Saturday night with Charlie (stage name: Tan; etymology: charlatan). It’s messy and casual and Charlie talks too loudly into the microphone on several occasions, but she laughs out loud listening back. It feels like good bonus content, the kind she herself subscribes to her favorite podcasts for.
