“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.
Aly didn’t care. “My expectations from this job are already dashed. Maybe this will help the next person who dares to have these expectations.”
“Oh, honey, I am so incredibly proud of you. Also, this is not the last job on earth.”
“It probably is.” Age was not on Aly’s side, but she’d never know if that was true until she looked. For some reason she was filled with a belief that she would find something, that everything would be okay. “I’ve done everything I could. And it’s amazing how much knowing that helps.”
“You know what else you can take to the bank? That I’m going to make this as hard for them as possible, because the problem is how easy it is to keep doing what they do.”
“I know you will. Thank you.” That’s all she could ask for.
When she let Radha go, she felt good, powerful to be hitting back. She felt rash. RASH. In all caps, it blazed inside her.
“You okay?” Ash asked.
“Not even a little bit,” Aly said into the giant—and perfect—cup of coffee he had brought her in bed. “But obviously, I no longer care.”
Ash had stayed over again last night. It made Aly feel bohemian and wild. Yes, sleeping with her ex-husband was the wildest thing Aly had ever done. And she didn’t care that it was. “It’s about time I took a page out of Cullie and Ma’s book.”
He grinned his lazy Ash grin and stroked her hair. “Maybe they’re the ones who took a page out of yours.”
For some reason that hit her right in the heart.
Cullie had found her feet again. Actually, it felt like she had found love. Which, surprisingly, made Aly understand why her own mother loved Ashish so much. An unexpected joy gripped Aly every time she was in Rishi’s presence, or rather, in the presence of the way he looked at her daughter.
Bindu was fine too, albeit not as fine as she wanted them to think she was. She and Ash seemed to have found a new ease in their relationship that Aly had never noticed had been lacking.
The only thing not fine was Aly’s work.
“Well, Joyce really hates my guts,” she said.
He looked at her over his own coffee, salt-and-pepper hair skimming his bare shoulders. “She’ll get over it. You’ll make it impossible for her not to.”
This time his words landed on her like a punch. She had the urge to push him off the bed, but they were forty-seven and he might break something. Putting down her empty cup, she snatched his from his hand.
“Hey!” He tried to take it back, but she moved it out of his way.
Instead of fighting her for it, he angled his body so he was leaning against the headboard of her bed. Her bed. Not theirs, because he’d walked away. Because she’d inspired him to chase his dreams. If that wasn’t a damned irony, Aly didn’t know what was.
“You’re mad at me?” he asked. “Why?”
“Didn’t you promise to figure things out by yourself?”
“You think I was being critical.”
She raised a brow. “Of course you were. You’re doing what you always do. You find the thing that plays on every one of my insecurities, poke at it, and then act like you didn’t do it? That’s the definition of gaslighting.”
“Aly, come on. Do you have to bring that psychobabble into every conversation we have?”
Okay, great. This was great. This was great for the feelings she’d started to have again. The fact that something inside her recognized him as a part of her didn’t mean anything. It was just comfort. They weren’t married anymore. Twenty years of investment in a family wasn’t at stake anymore. She didn’t need to look the other way when he did this to her.
“It’s not psychobabble. It’s how I feel. I struggle with my need to please. Look where it got me with you.”
The regret in his eyes was real. Not his usual I want to get you off my back. “It wasn’t gaslighting. I meant it. I can’t imagine how anyone might not like you. You wouldn’t hurt anyone, even for a price, and you take a personal interest in the happiness of everyone around you. You are literally the best human being I know.”
“Don’t do this, Ashish.”
He pushed a curl behind her ear. “Do you not believe this is how I feel?”
“The kicker is that I know you do. But that’s only one part of it. You also know that I torture myself over how important it is for me to be liked. You knew that when you said what you said. You were making fun of my need to be liked. None of this other stuff. Only after you hurt me do you realize you’ve been a dick. Then you backtrack. But you have the need to be a dick to me, to be hurtful, and I don’t understand it. Don’t make that face. So much of our marriage was you poking a reaction out of me and me taking the bait.”