Page 90 of Isn't It Obvious?
“Christ, Yael. You thought I—you thought I figured out that you were Elle, and then I had sex with you without saying anything?”
“How am I supposed to know? You didn’t tell me,” she says, but her eyes start to soften.
“I didn’t do that.”
“But you didn’t tell me, either. You saw meyesterday.”
“You’re right; I didn’t,” he says, taking a deep breath, trying to figure out what else he needs to say. What else hewantsto say. He started writing it out last night when he got home, but he’d planned to finish tonight, and now he can’t even remember the parts he already had down.
“You were being so fucking weird, and even after I got your text today, I didn’t think you wereyou. Because that would’ve been a horrible thing to keep from me,” she says, her voice straining. “You must think I’m so stupid.”
“I have never once thought that.”
“How did you figure it out?” she asks. Her voice is quieter than before, but she’s still staring at him in a way that makes him wonder whether she descends from Medusa.
“When you were on the phone with your parents,” he says, “you called your stepdad ‘Pops.’”
“That’s it?” She pushes an incredulous laugh through her nose. “That’s not, like, an uncommon name for a parent.”
“There were other things that made me wonder,” Ravi says. Her brows lift, imploring him to continue. “You said you were Jewish, and I saw your copy ofThe Catcher in the Rye. I think I subconsciously knew you were sort of… like her. The way you talk in book club, even. Your voice is different, but the cadence is the same.”
“Book club,” she says slowly, “was definitely before we had sex.”
Ravi sighs, brushing his fingers through his hair. “That part was retroactive. I didn’t wonder until I was at your place with you.”
“And you didn’t say anything.”
“I didn’t think it was real, Yael! I thought I was just looking for her in you. For you in you, I guess. And it felt terrible, thinking that I could do that to either of you. That I couldhave my hands full of you and my head full of someone else. Or have you in my head when I was talking to her.”
His voice strains around the words. Yael exhales, her eyes closing. Like she knows exactly what he means.
“And then when I knew I found you, I had to leave.”
A realization seems to dawn, followed by a look of concern with a little bit of guilt around the edges. “Oh my God, are Mia and Suresh okay?”
“Nobody’s injured. But no, not really.”
“What happened?” she asks, taking a step toward him.
He extends his hand between them, and she hesitates but takes it. When he runs his thumb along her pulse point, she sighs. “They went to meet Margot during her Willamette Valley winery tour, and she decided to leave two days early.”
She drops his hand and pulls him into a hug. It feels so good to be held, he worries he might cry. He might do or say something he shouldn’t, just so he can stand here like this a minute longer. “I’m so sorry,” she says.
“It was the first time she’d seen Mia since January.”
“That’s horrible,” Yael says. She traces his spine, and he tightens his hold around the small of her back.
“Suresh slept with her.” He pauses, listening to her sharp intake of breath. “I think I’m mad at him. I’m worried about him, too.”
“Of course you are. I would be, too.” Her hand wanders up to his nape, and when she drags her fingers against his scalp, he lets out a shuddering sigh, burying his face into her neck.
He’s dying to kiss her. More than kiss her, really, he wants to collapse into her. He wants them to take up the same space, every one of their molecules intermixing.
YAEL STRUGGLES TOthink, wrapped up in Kevin Ravi Kissoon. She wonders, briefly, if some elemental part of her knew who he was, and that’s why it has always felt like this.
It doesn’t really matter, she supposes. All that matters is that he’s here now, and he’s hurting. “I wish you’d told me earlier,” Yael murmurs. “I would’ve been there. Even just to talk.”
His breath brushes hot against her neck. “That wouldn’t have been fair to you,” he mumbles.
