“I always wondered what it would take to get me back to India. I guess now I know,” I said wryly. “I haven’t been since I was a teenager, and I didn’t like going then. It’s dirty and loud. Everyone expects me to be some doting, obedient girl who never expresses any opinions and never contradicts her parents. I don’t know how to be that girl.”
“None of us do. It’s why we became lawyers.”
I offered up a smile to show her I appreciated her attempts at levity. “You should have heard his voice. He sounded scared and panicked. The last time I heard him sound like that, he’d gotten the crap kicked out of him in junior high,” I said.
We continued down the freeway, zipping in and out of lanes.
In a soft voice, I said to her, “I thought about calling Alex. He was pretty close to Neel. Maybe he’d want to know what’s going on . . .”
She cast me a disapproving look. “It’s been over three months, Pree. He’s in New York, and you’re here. Let him go.”
I wondered how long Carrie had been waiting to say that. A lump formed in my throat while the slow burn of loneliness swept over me. I longed for the day when he wouldn’t still infiltrate all my thoughts.
“My brain knows it’s over. It’s just hard when there are so many reminders.”
“I’m just saying you have enough to worry about when you get to India. Maybe leave the Alex depression here in California and start fresh.”
She had a point. I would arrive in India and walk straight into a situation no one in my family had ever prepared for. I didn’t have room for Alex anymore.
6
The international terminal at LAX was crowded with parents carting around children, couples asleep on each other’s shoulders, and travelers having animated conversations. Even though moments earlier in the car I had resolved to let Alex go, I couldn’t help but remember that the last time I had been here was with him, and we’d been one of those couples sitting next to each other excitedly talking about our vacation to Australia after having spent Christmas with his family. It was the only vacation I had taken during my four years at the firm, and I’d timed it for the end of the year, when the Warden wouldn’t frown upon it as much.
Carrie might have been right, and I should stay away, but nerves got the better of me as I sat in a sea of strangers. I picked up my phone and dialed the first number in my favorites.
He picked up on the third ring. Hearing the familiar way he said “hey” and the low baritone of his voice gave me the same feeling I’d had when he used to pull me in to his chest and hold me.
“Where are you?” he asked, likely hearing the screaming kids and airline announcements in the background.
“The airport.”
“Oh?” I thought I could detect a small smile in the way he said the word, and I realized that he might have thought I was coming to New York to see him! When we’d left things between us, we’d said we were both better off with a clean break. It only made sense to keep talking if we planned on being together. Maybe he thought that was why I was calling him now.
“I’m going to India,” I said quickly.
“Oh,” he said again, sounding deflated. This time I definitely heard his disappointment.
“I know it’s been a while.” I lowered my voice, the closest thing to privacy in the crowded terminal. “There’s some stuff going on with my family, and I didn’t know who else to call.”
I could picture the way his chocolate-brown hair curled over his forehead, contrasting with his glacier-blue eyes. He was terrible about getting haircuts, and without me to remind him, I had no doubt he’d let it grow out since moving to New York. He thought the curls in his overgrown hair made him look like a weed, but I’d always thought they made him look younger and more carefree, a refreshing change from the corporate types in suits at my firm.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his concern evident.
I pressed the phone closer to my ear, wishing there weren’t thousands of miles between us. “Dipti and Neel were in a car accident in India.”
“Are they okay?” He knew better than anyone else how close I was to Neel.
“Neel’s okay. Or at least he was okay enough to call me and tell me Dipti and the baby suffered the worst of it.” I felt my voice falter. “I’ve never heard Neel sound so upset. It was bad, Sheep.” Without thinking, I used my familiar pet name for him. When we’d first met and he’d asked about my job, I’d joked that I was just another corporate monkey. He’d laughed and said he was a sheep, no different from every other lost soul in Los Angeles flocking to the entertainment industry. He started calling me “Monkey,” and I began calling him “Sheep.” We rarely used each other’s real names unless we were fighting.