My Last Love Story (18 page)

“No second thoughts. We’re coming,” I said as I pulled Zayaan’s arm.

He allowed me to push him into the backseat. I took the front seat, and we were on our way. I turned around, grinning at my sweetie pie. He looked cute and slightly tense. I loved that he worried about me, but he really didn’t need to. And I was positive he wanted this as much as Nirvaan and me.

“Hey. It’s us, the three of us, like we always planned. And I bought special clothes for tonight. I’m not letting them go to waste.”

“Oh, baby, what have you got on…or not got on?” Nirvaan tried to snake his hand under my skirt, but I slapped it away.

The car swerved, and we were blasted with a lot of car horns and shouts from other drivers on the road.

“Drive. Don’t kill us before we get there,” I said, laughing.

I’d put a lot of thought into my attire and decided on a fairly new print silk shirt, a black thigh-length flared skirt, and brand-new black cotton undergarments. The only thing I wasn’t sure about with this whole affair was my body. I couldn’t seem to shake off my stick figure. I was hesitant about getting naked. It would get awkward enough without full exposure.

They’d dressed up, too. Nirvaan was in a crisp new Polo shirt and jeans while Zayaan wore a starched white shirt and stonewashed jeans. They smelled identical. Nirvaan always bought them the same cologne on their birthdays. I’d dubbed the scent Nirvana.

Ten minutes into the drive, Nirvaan’s mobile began to ring. “Shit. Can you fish it out of my pocket?”

“You’re just trying to get me to feel you up first,” I said, with an eye-roll. But I did as he’d asked while he made fake orgasmic sounds. I flipped the phone open and put it to his ear.

“Yo! What? Yes. Yes, he is.” He jerked his head away from the phone and darted a quick look at Zayaan through the rear view mirror. “It’s your
ummi
…your mom, man.”

Wow. Gulzar Auntie’s radar had struck again. How she managed to interrupt our dates every single time, I had no idea. Talk about possessive mothers. As Zayaan didn’t have a cell phone yet, she treated Nirvaan’s and mine as if it was Zayaan’s.

I made a face but handed the phone over, thinking how surprised Zayaan would be at midnight when we handed him his birthday present—the latest Nokia in lacquer black.

My internal glee faded as Zayaan’s expression changed from puzzlement to screaming horror. His face went white, and his ears flashed fuchsia. Most alarming was, he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Turn the car around.
Abu
had a heart attack.” Zayaan’s voice wobbled, but he sucked in a breath and went on, “Rizvaan is in trouble. The police are looking for him. They have an arrest warrant out for him.
Abu
collapsed after the police left, and my uncles rushed him to the hospital.
Ummi
’s waiting…I need to go. My sisters…I need to…I need…” He looked scared out of his wits. “Fuck. What do I do? What the fuck has Rizvaan done?”

My heart had begun to beat wildly as Zayaan spoke, and now, it was lodged in my throat. Nirvaan asked for the phone back and dialed furiously with one hand while whipping the car around in an illegal U-turn. The car swerved madly again, and we just missed hitting a van. Horns blared, and drivers shouted at us, but Nirvaan didn’t slow down.

Don’t think of the accident. Don’t fall apart.
I shoved my parents’ car accident out of my head and held on to the dashboard with both hands.

“Dad, something’s happened. Can you meet us at Zai’s house in ten minutes? Yeah. It’s fucking urgent. Great. And get money.” He shut the phone and floored the accelerator. “Don’t worry,
yaar
. Dad will take care of everything. You take care of your dad, okay? Okay?”

I swallowed, feeling Zayaan’s horror and pain as my own.

Khodai, please let Zai’s
abu
be all right. He’s a good man.

Rizvaan was a punk, always getting into trouble, always creating trouble for his family. But I didn’t wish bad on him either.

The guys debated on whether to drop me home first, but I wouldn’t hear of it. Zayaan needed me.

We parked the car on the street outside his house. The Jamaat Khana rose behind his house on a parallel street. The two matching buildings were connected by a narrow well-kept garden. The building complex Nirvaan and I lived in was just down the street.

We rushed into the house. There were so many people there. The Mukhi Saheb was a popular man in the community, always there for people in need. It seemed the community was returning the favor. We waded through relatives, neighbors, and friends to get to Zayaan’s mother.

She sat on a sofa, stiff and unyielding, her sobbing daughters on either side, but when she saw Zayaan, she broke apart. He fell to his knees before her and gathered her up tight in his arms. He kissed her forehead, murmuring assurances over and over.

I stopped short, watching them. It was the first time I’d seen Gulzar Auntie’s head covered. Her face was unveiled, but the way she’d wrapped the long, dark scarf around her head, neck, and shoulders made my stomach lurch. It occurred to me that I’d have to cover my head, too, once Zayaan and I married.

Then, Kamlesh Desai walked in, and within half an hour, the house emptied of people. Zayaan’s mother was dispatched to the hospital with a relative and a chunk of money, and Zayaan, Nirvaan, and his dad set off for the police station to find out how best they could help Rizvaan. It didn’t look good. The police had accused him of planning extremist activities. And he’d absconded.

I took charge of Zayaan’s sisters and the house phone, which rang ceaselessly. People kept dropping in with news or to ask for news, and it got exhausting, explaining the same things over and over.

By midnight, the bustle began to taper down, and a couple of matronly neighbors offered to man the fort, coaxing Sofia, Sana, and me to have dinner and go to bed. Relieved, I sat with Zayaan’s sisters until they cried themselves to sleep, the poor girls. I left their room door ajar and went down the hall into Zayaan’s room to lie down myself.

I’d been in his room only a handful of times. Mostly, it was Zayaan who’d come over to my house, or we’d hang out in different places or at Nirvaan’s when he was around. So, I looked about in shy curiosity.

I tried to picture myself living here once we were married. The room was big and messy. It had two of everything—beds, desks, cupboards, windows. I knew he shared the room with his brother, but one side didn’t look lived in at all. Rizvaan was rarely home these days, Zayaan had mentioned. Rizvaan wouldn’t even come home at night, and it’d worried their father—justifiably, it would seem.

There was an old picture of Zayaan and his siblings on his desk hutch—two brothers, standing strong, shoulder to shoulder, their hands resting on the shoulders of their younger sisters. The brothers, being only sixteen months apart, seemed liked mirror images. These days, Rizvaan looked much older than his nineteen years with his full beard and mustache and hateful eyes—nothing whatsoever like his handsome, scholarly brother.

Zayaan had been awarded scholarships to several universities in India, the UK, and the US. Nirvaan wanted him to accept the Stanford scholarship. But I wanted him not to leave me behind. I wasn’t clever enough to be offered scholarships, and my brothers couldn’t afford to send me abroad to study. And no matter how much I was tempted to race after the guys to the US, I wasn’t going to let Nirvaan’s dad fund my education.

I was jealous. I admitted it. I was green with envy that the guys would live it up dorm-style for the next four years. Would they even remember my name after those drunken college adventures Nirvaan had vowed they’d have? Would Zayaan fall in love with a smarter, bustier college girl in Stanford? Would he keep his promise to come back and marry me, or would California snare him in her shiny web forever?

I laughed at myself for having such silly doubts. Of course, he would come back for me, for his parents, for his sisters. Maybe even his brother. Zayaan understood responsibility and was a man of his word. Nirvaan, I wasn’t so sure of.

I picked up another photo frame from the desk. It was from a picnic last year. The guys carried me like a hammock between them. They were laughing as I was screaming. Moments after it’d been taken, they’d flung me into the Tapi River and dived in after me.

I yawned, blinking at the alarm clock on Zayaan’s desk. My birthday was way past over. And from what I could tell, the guys’ birthdays would be spent shuttling between the police station, hospital, and search parties. So, we’d unwrap our presents a few days late this year. No biggie. Family came first.

Yawning again, I got under the blanket on Zayaan’s bed with the photo. One way or another, I was sleeping with my guys tonight, I decided with a smile.

I didn’t think I’d fall asleep. And I couldn’t have slept for long. When I woke, I was still clutching the frame to my chest. The ceiling lights were bright in my eyes. Even so, Rizvaan looked positively menacing as he loomed over me. He was such a creep.

I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, arranging my skirt beneath the blanket. I looked at the wide open doors of the room and his cupboard with relief. There was a half-filled duffel bag open on his bed.

Is he running away or surrendering?

He smirked, like he knew I was uncomfortable with him in the room, but he turned his back on me without saying a word and resumed stuffing his clothes in the bag. He didn’t even zing me with some jaundiced comment about sleeping in Zayaan’s bed, and for a moment, I was nonplussed.

I stood up, thinking he must be too stressed about jail or whatever to be nasty to me. “It’s good you came home,” I said, setting the picture back on the desk. “Everyone is so worried.
Abu
is in the hospital and—”

“
Abu?
” he cut me off, his mockery making my back stiffen. “Ah, yes, my dear
abu
, who has blessed the union of my little brother and his little slut.” He chuckled, as if greatly amused. “You’ve fooled everyone, haven’t you, with your good-girl act?”

A door clicked shut, and I prayed it was the cupboard I’d heard.

Before I even turned from the desk, I knew how much trouble I was in. Blood began to pound through me. The veins in my wrists, my temple, my neck throbbed. My heart started hammering against my chest, and I wondered if it would break my rib cage and leap out.

I wanted to run and pound on the door till someone opened it. I should’ve screamed the house down.

But I couldn’t move. I’d frozen at the sight of the gun in his hand.

“Let me out of the room, Rizvaan. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” I hoped I sounded bolder than I felt.

He nodded, many times. “Yes, I am.”

The solid sincerity in his words jarred me. In that moment, I realized there was nothing I could do or say to stop what was going to happen next. Rizvaan knew he was doomed. Tonight, he’d either be locked away or be ostracized forever. He wasn’t going to go down alone. That, too, was clear on his face.

He wanted someone to blame, and he’d found me.

Yet I appealed to him. I begged him to care about his father, his mother, and his sisters, who were sleeping just down the hall. I begged him to think of his brother, of his family’s reputation. I warned him of the women in the living room who’d hear the gun go off.

Please, Khodai, let him shoot me fast.

He laughed.

“Those aunties were snoring like whales,” he said, “when I walked past them.”

He was entertained by the idea of them startling awake and screaming at the gunshot. He estimated, by the time they labored their fat bodies up the stairs and succeeded in breaking down the door, he’d be long gone out the window. The only hitch in the scenario was, he didn’t want to shoot me. It was too easy a sentence for the countless times I’d snubbed him.

When he told me point-blank what he intended, I threw up.

“
Tcha, tcha, tcha
. None of that now. Think of it as a bargain—your life in exchange for your virtue. As for your reputation, it’ll be our secret. You’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you? You and your Romeos…you think you’ve been so clever, fooling everyone. But I know. I’ve always known about you. What’s one more Romeo between those beautiful thighs, hmm?”

It happened fast. One second, he was debating on how to exact my pound of flesh, and the next, he was on me. I didn’t know how he’d come close enough to press the gun to my forehead.

“Lie down.”

I was numb. I felt such terror and disbelief and revulsion that I couldn’t breathe. My throat closed up, and I didn’t think I could’ve screamed even if I’d tried.

I didn’t try. I could only beg.

He pushed me down on Zayaan’s bed. I believe he did that on purpose. He straddled me when I struggled, caught my jaw in a bruising grip when I tried to bite him. He reminded me that if I didn’t care to be a good girl, there would be hell to pay—and not just for me.

He tore my flimsy panties off with one hand. The hand pressing the gun to my cheek didn’t even tremble. He fumbled with his jeans and pulled his cock out. I didn’t know why I was watching.

I cried when he penetrated me—not because it hurt though it did. I cried because he was surprised I was a virgin. He called it a bonus. He didn’t smirk. He wasn’t cruel. He looked so much like Zayaan that my heart shattered.

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at him then.

But I snapped them open when I smelled him. He’d sprayed Zayaan’s cologne on himself. I dry-heaved, sobbing uncontrollably. When he finished, he thanked me for my cooperation and spit on my face.

I’d always known evil existed in the world. That night, I realized it lived inside me.