A Girl Like That(71)

Porus grinned in reply. It was so reminiscent of the way he used to be before the Rizvi stuff happened that I felt the ends of my mouth turn up.

“How was your day?” he asked, changing the subject.

“Surprisingly normal.” I began walking closer to the sea, making sure to pick a path that looked clean—or at least garbage-, glass-, and jellyfish-free. Porus followed.

“A few of the others still had to do speeches in English, so I slept through most of that lesson. Our Physics teacher failed half the class in the mock exams—as expected. What else…? Oh yeah, our Math teacher called us brainless fools and said we would end up giving him a coronary. The rest of the classes were boring as usual.”

I had sensed some of the girls watching me from time to time—especially Mishal and Layla—but apart from that, nothing else. No one had tried to bother me that day, or mentioned the rumors in my presence. Maybe it was due to the pressure of final exams, but it seemed that for now they’d gone back to their old default of ignoring my existence. Not that I was complaining.

The sea was quiet that afternoon. Small waves rolled toward the shore, bubbled frothily over sand pockmarked with footprints and left it smooth once more. When I was younger, I was much too nervous about walking into the sea alone, clinging to Masa’s hand for dear life, feeling certain that the water would wrap itself around my ankles and pull me in if I wasn’t careful. Now, however, I stepped in, farther and farther, even though I had never learned to swim, my feet steadier than they had ever been before, feeling the water slide into my sneakers, seep through the shining black polyester of my abaya, up to my knees.

“What are you doing?” Porus’s voice was high, nervous.

I looked back at him and frowned. Did he think I was going to…? I felt the blood drain from my face as I realized that drowning was something I might have considered, might have maybe given serious thought to, a few days ago. I shook my head.

“I like being in the water,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

Porus bit his lip. “I … I almost drowned in the sea when I was seven.”

“Oh.”

I instantly felt like a heel.

I debated whether or not I ought to offer him my hand and encourage him to come in, but then decided against it. Porus had done enough for me as it was. I stared at his bandaged nose and his bruised chin. My heart twisted. I knew I would never be able to forgive myself if something else happened to Porus because of me.

I forced my legs back up the slippery bank, the bottom half of my abaya weighed down slightly by the water. But it didn’t matter. My clothes would dry soon enough in this heat. So would my sneakers, when I finally removed them in Porus’s car.

Porus held out his hand to help me climb back onto drier ground. But when I tried to pull away, he tightened his grip.

“I will marry you, you know.” His deep brown eyes were serious. “I don’t care about what happened.”

I tugged hard until my hand was free, ignoring the sudden warmth pooling in my cheeks. I wrapped my arms around myself, not knowing why my heart was beating so hard. “Porus. I am not marrying you.”

He was silent. The sea rushed forward, bringing with it white foam and debris.

“Why do you love me, Porus? Why are you so desperate to marry me?” I asked when the silence began to grate on my nerves.

There was a long pause before Porus answered again. “When Pappa died, I thought a part of me had been ripped out. I functioned, I joked, I survived, but I didn’t really live. Being with you distracted me at first. I mean, you are a pain, you know.”

I couldn’t help but smile at that. It was true. I was a pain.

“But,” Porus continued, “in some strange way, being with you reminded me of him again, of the things we did together, the stories he’d told me–the good times, you know. The day I first saw you here, I thought of him and that story he told me about Shirin, Khusrow, and Farhad. It was the first time I had thought of him without grief pressing down on my ribs. When I told you those stories from my book, it was like he was sitting right next to me. When I’m with you, I can almost hear him giving me advice again—like, ‘Say this to her!’ or, ‘No, you fool, not that!’ Like right now, I can feel him shaking his head at me for making you cry.”

I tried to laugh, but all that came out of me was this strange, strangled sound.

He exhaled quietly. “Zarin, you aren’t a bad person. Sometimes life does not go the way we want it to and we can’t really change that. But it doesn’t matter as long as we have someone to love us. Love is more important than anything else in this world. And you deserve love as much as anyone else.”

I felt his fingers brush my hand again, his pinkie gently linking with mine. This time, I did not pull away.

*

It was Masi who shot the missile. Masi who stepped into my room, minutes after my alarm went off on Monday, and stood before the door, glaring at Masa, who hesitantly stepped in as well.

I threw my covers to one side. “What is it? What do you want?”

“We are thinking of getting you married, Zarin, dikra.” Her smile could have given nightmares to a diabetic. “Do you remember Ratamai’s son, Kersi?”

Masa looked down at his hands; they were shaking.

“I am not eighteen, Masi! Besides, Kersi is his mamma’s boy, with no spine whatsoever. He probably still asks his mamma for permission before going to the bathroom.”