The Vibrant Years(89)
Binji took the journal and clutched it with both hands, her breathing labored. Then suddenly she gave him a hard look. “Okay. And?”
He looked confused. “I just want you to read the journals.”
“No, you don’t,” Binji said. “What else do you want?”
He smiled and caught Cullie’s smile in her eyes.
They watched him, waited.
“And I want you to watch the film.”
Binji’s grip tightened on the journal, but her gaze was clear and strong again. “Why?”
“Why?”
“You want me to watch the film and then put it away in my cupboard?”
He looked guiltier than a puppy who’d pooped in the house. “Just watch it first. Please.”
“Don’t manage me. Don’t treat me like I’m some little old lady.” It was a phrase Binji hated more than anything.
“I would never do that.” He looked at once terrified and delighted, and Cullie’s heart did another slow melt.
“What do you plan to do with it?”
He tried to look innocent, but Binji’s eyes stayed sharp on him.
“Just tell her the truth,” Cullie said.
“I want to make a documentary about the making of Poornima. With you.”
“Absolutely not.” For the first time she sounded like herself. Her Badass Binji.
“There’s a Blu-ray DVD of the film in there. Just watch—”
“I said no. Thank you for finding me and telling me about Oscar.” Her voice caught. “But this is far behind me. I have no interest in digging it up.”
“But—”
“Oscar said I get to decide.”
He looked at Cullie for help. Cullie had no idea what the film was about or why a man had dedicated his life to rescuing it after trying to destroy it himself. But evidently it was not something Binji wanted to revisit. She wasn’t going to budge.
“Will you at least think about it?”
“No.” Binji fixed him with a look.
Silence hung in the air.
Binji didn’t make a move to leave. Cullie realized she didn’t want to leave.
“You shouldn’t have lied to my granddaughter,” Binji said, finally breaking the silence. “Oscar would have been ashamed of you for that.”
“I know.”
“Then again, he would have been proud that you didn’t go through with it.”
Rishi’s eyes met Cullie’s. “That had nothing to do with Dada.” Every bit of charming commiseration was gone from his voice. The sincerity that had felled Cullie was all that was left, his heart naked in his eyes. The heartzap in Cullie’s chest felt like live wires shoved into her flesh. “I didn’t do that for him. I did it because I couldn’t bear to lose Cullie. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“But I don’t even know who you are,” Cullie said, the words sticking like lies on her tongue.
“You do, Cullie. You’re the only person on earth who knows exactly who I am. Everybody else sees a figment of the media’s imagination, a story. Even my family, they see themselves, our memories. You see only me.”
Binji pressed the journal to her chest. “I’m going to go home now.”
“I’ll take you,” Cullie said, because her heart wasn’t being the neutral organ it needed to be. It was being irrational again and hurting in the most unnatural way. And her eyes were wet again.
“No, you won’t.” The finger Binji pointed from Cullie to Rishi and back was filled with purpose. The look she threw the box was filled with sadness as she put the journal into it and picked it up. But it was neither sadness nor purpose that was in the look she fixed Cullie with. That one blazed with something entirely different, something tinged with hope but also regret, even envy. “You’ll stay and figure this out. Because you’re lucky enough to still have that option.”
“Thanks for staying,” he said the moment Binji pulled the door shut behind her.
She turned to him. “Did you mean that?”
“Outside of lying about Dada and your Binji, I’ve meant every single word I’ve ever said to you.” His remorse shone in his filterless eyes, as bright and huge as all his emotions. “Except for one thing.” He took a step closer, and her body leaned automatically into his.
Her own feelings at seeing him again felt outsized inside her. “And what thing was that?”
“That I wanted to take it slow.”
Before the words were fully out of his mouth, she grabbed his jaw and pushed her lips into his. And his hands were in her hair, pressing her close, so close it was like he’d never let her go.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ALY
Watching the film stock take up the flames after I set fire to it was like losing her all over again. I had to stop it, and this time I could. That strip of celluloid is the eternity we have together. I knew as the melting film fused with my skin that I would do everything to build it back. I would push back death for it.
From the journal of Oscar Seth
Joyce isn’t wrong. Proving discrimination or conflict of interest as grounds for you not getting the segment is going to be hard,” Radha said on the phone, unable to hide her glee at finally getting to sue Joyce and SFLN under the lawyerly seriousness she was attempting. As Aly’s best friend, she thought it was her duty to get Aly to manage her expectations.