When Dimple Met Rishi(69)
CHAPTER 43
Rishi frowned. Was it just him or was everyone acting weird tonight? “I was just kidding.” He squeezed Dimple’s hand gently. “By the way, I know we were going to do the dining hall tonight, but what do you feel about Portuguese instead? I was thinking maybe Rios. It’s a bit of a walk, but Ashish is a total Caldo Verde fanatic, and they make it well, so . . .”
“That’s fine with me,” Dimple said. “Celia was supposed to tell me what she wanted, but I guess she’s just going to have to deal. If she ever shows up.” She sighed.
“She having problems with Aberzombie number two?” Rishi asked, trying to keep the distaste out of his voice.
“I think so,” Dimple said, another gusty sigh making her shoulders heave. “I feel so bad for her. They’re being totally awful about the talent show too, and she was all messed up about it. She doesn’t take crap, you know, but these people totally unnerve her, I can tell.” She glanced up at him, the edge of the hoodie in the way, so he could see only half her eye. “I’ll shut up; I know you despise them.”
“No, I wanted to know. I care about Celia. Maybe Maximo wouldn’t mind letting her be on our team.”
Dimple gave him a grateful smile. “I thought about that too, but she didn’t want me to ask. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll work out. Maybe she needed the night off to think or something.”
“Maybe,” Rishi said thoughtfully. “Hey . . .” He looked behind them to make sure Ashish wasn’t within hearing distance. He shouldn’t have bothered; the boy was absorbed in his phone again, thumbs and fingers doing a furious dance on the keyboard. It was possible that this wasn’t the best time to have this conversation. But the thought had built and built in Rishi’s mind until he couldn’t contain it anymore.
“Yeah?” Dimple looked up at him, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip. That lip. Rishi was fairly certain he could write an epic poem about it.
“We’re leaving in three weeks.” The fog sucked the tremor of inflection in his voice, and the sentence came out sounding flat, lifeless. Rishi tried again. “I mean . . . Insomnia Con’s going to be over then. It’ll be back to real life.”
Dimple’s voice was tiny when she spoke. She was pointed forward so Rishi couldn’t see her face at all. “Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that too.”
“You have?” He couldn’t figure out whether she was happy or sad or what. It felt like there was a rock in his stomach, slowly grinding away at his internal organs. “And what have you been thinking, exactly?”
She glanced at him then and quickly looked away. “I don’t know,” she said quietly.
“Right.” The rock was now on his chest. “You don’t know. . . .”
“You’re going to MIT. I’m going to Stanford. Those are on opposite coasts.” Each sentence she spoke was devoid of emotion. She sounded like she was reading an instruction manual. Karl the Fog burned Rishi’s nose, and he felt suddenly, irrationally angry at a weather pattern.
“Right.” He swallowed, his hand still loosely clasped around hers. He didn’t want to be the first to pull away, but was he making things weirder for her? “So you . . . you’re saying . . .”
“I’m saying they’re on opposite coasts.” Dimple looked at him full on, her eyes searching behind her glasses even as she kept walking. “So it’d be stupid, right? To attempt to continue this?” The way she said it, like she wanted him to argue, made his heart lift. The stomach/chest rock shrunk hopefully. She turned back toward the street. “I mean, everyone says long-distance relationships are the worst. Like, it’s just an idiotic way to go into your freshman year at college—attached to someone.”
“Right, right,” Rishi said, as if he were seriously considering her points. “But, I mean, people say all kinds of stupid crap about college. Like, you’ve heard about the Freshman 15, right?”
She snorted. “Yeah. Dumb.”
“Exactly. Exactly.” Rishi grinned. “And what about the whole fraternity/sorority thing? People actually think joining one of those is the only way to go through college.”
“That’s true,” Dimple said thoughtfully. “Like paying to make friends really deepens the college experience.”
“Right!” Rishi laughed and looked at Dimple until she glanced at him, too. She was smiling. The rock turned into a blob of warm, gooey honey. He tugged gently on her hand. “So . . . ?”
She shrugged. “I guess, um . . . I guess we can try to make it work or something.” But she was smiling so big she couldn’t finish her sentence as nonchalantly as she’d started it.
Rishi grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to him, lifting her up by the waist while she shrieked indignantly. He set her down again and cupped her cold face in his hands, aware that Ashish was now watching them, most likely with a judgy expression on his face. “So we’re doing it? We’re making a serious go of this thing?”
“As long as ‘this thing’ doesn’t involve shaadi for the next decade,” Dimple said, pushing a finger into his chest.
He laughed and kissed her softly, breathing in jasmine and coconut. “Dimple Shah,” he said, his mouth still against hers, “if I get to do this with any regularity, I’ll gladly put marriage on the back burner for the next century.”