Counting Down with You(39)

“Of course,” Ace says, reaching for one. “Can you show me your favorite poem?”

“Yeah, sure,” I say and grab a translated Bengali poetry collection. I’m flipping through the pages when I realize Ace isn’t holding a poetry book at all. Oh shit. “Hey, wait, Ace—”

“Did you write these?” Ace asks, gaze straying from the frayed brown journal in his hands to look at me.

My nose wrinkles and I wring my hands helplessly. I should’ve been more careful when taking my books out, but being around Ace makes me lose my head. “Yeah, but it’s just for school. It’s not anything serious.”

“Karina, these are...breathtaking,” Ace says, his gaze is filled with some kind of strange awe that feels heavy on my skin. “This poem, ‘Unshakeable’? Is it finished?”

I know exactly which poem he’s talking about, and it causes my heart to race uncomfortably, until I can hear the staccato beat in my ears. No one was ever supposed to see that. Usually, I write poetry as a response to the world around me. Rarely do I ever put myself on the pages.

The poem “Unshakable” is the one time I dared to try, and I couldn’t find it in myself to finish.

somewhere there are birds that fly free
here, I am caged and can barely breathe
there is so much to say
these thoughts never fall from my lips
I am scared of so goddamn much
afraid these flames will burn
my fingers, they hurt from clinging so hard
I’m lost, I’m bruised, I don’t know what to do
I never thought I’d give up
but I’m starting to think I’m going to lose
it’s dark, it’s light, a hand reaches out
.........
“Ace, that’s personal,” I say, voice cracking. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. My heart feels exposed, lying on the pages for Ace to poke and prod at as he pleases. “Can you please give it back?”

“Hey,” Ace says, his voice quiet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... I didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

He slides my journal across the table, and I catch it with shaking hands. The irony of the moment isn’t lost on me.

“I’m sorry,” Ace repeats, reaching across the table and slowly taking one of my hands in his. His rings are cold against my skin, jarring me out of a strange sense of dissonance.

“No, it’s not your fault,” I say, shaking my head in abrupt, agitated movements. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to freak out on you like that.”

His fingers slowly slide against mine, interlacing them and bringing our hands to the center of the table. The longer we touch, the less I hear my heartbeat in my ears. The less I feel out of breath.

“Don’t apologize to me,” he says, his voice fierce. I look up and find his strange and beautiful eyes blazing in the sunlight coming from the windows behind me. The fire he keeps insisting I have inside of me is alive in his gaze.

I exhale deeply and sit back in my seat. “Sorry.”

“No apologizing,” Ace insists, squeezing my hand. “If you’re feeling up to it, we can keep studying. I still want to see your favorite poem.”

You’re something else, I think to myself. The thought makes me feel both hot and cold.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Ace says and lets go of my hand. I almost wish he hadn’t.

There’s change shifting in the air, and I don’t know how I feel about it.

That night, my fingers itch as I sit next to Dadu in the dining room. She’s peeling and cutting vegetables for tomorrow’s meal, and I’m doing my homework while music plays in the background.

“Dadu?” I tap my pencil anxiously against my textbook. I’ve felt off all day, and even counting backward in my head hasn’t helped. “When you met Dada, what was it like?”

My grandma fumbles with the potato she’s peeling and stares up at me from beneath her glasses. “When I met Dada?”

A part of me feels bad for bringing it up. Talking about Dada is a sore topic. I see how deeply she misses him every day, because all of her sarees are white in mourning. One day, when I was visiting her in New Jersey, I came across an entire closet full of colored sarees with a thin layer of dust coating them. I never asked Dadu about them, but it made me horribly sad to know she’d locked away the color in her life.

“Yeah,” I say, spinning my pencil between my fingers. “What was it like when you first met him?”

“Myra.” Dadu’s eyebrows pull together. “Your Dada and I had an arranged marriage.”

It’s probably stupid to compare an arranged marriage to an arranged tutoring situation. No, it’s definitely stupid. But it’s the closest way I can think of to relate to my grandma right now, so I press forward.

“I know. That’s why I’m asking. You were just thrown into the situation together, right? What was your first impression of him?”

Dadu hums, setting her potato back down on the cutting board. “He was handsome,” she says, smiling faintly. “I remember I was glad about that. He was very spa??abhā?ī, though. I didn’t expect that.”

I repeat that word, spa??abhā?ī. It’s not a word I’m familiar with. “What does that mean?”

My grandma pauses for a long moment, clearly searching for the right way to explain it. “He spoke his mind,” she says finally. “He said what he wanted and didn’t care what other people thought of him. He was a city boy, born and raised, and I was a country girl. It was strange for me to see how bold he was. I admired that in him sometimes, and thought he was a rascal the rest of the time.”