Wanna Bet?: An Interracial Romance

by Talia Hibbert

  She held out her arms. “Want to give me that?”

  It took him a minute to understand. He looked at the collection of clothes and personal items he was carrying, the things that had slowly littered his room over the past weeks as he’d allowed himself to sink deeper under Jasmine’s wave. Then, his heart lodged in his throat, he handed them over. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  When it was over and they were gone, he stood in the room that had been Jasmine’s. It was bare now, the fairy-lights she’d strung up over the bed gone, the little decorations she’d placed on every spare surface absent. All was plain and sleek and cool again, blue and chrome and empty.

  He went into his own room and found it alive with memories.

  So he returned to the room that had been, but was no longer, hers. He sprawled across the bed, and finally fell asleep.

  It was like a riddle. How quickly can eternity end? Is inaction as real as action?

  Had he already given everything he had to Jasmine Allen?

  For a few days, it felt that way. As if he was drained, more of a ghost than a man. He lay on the bed with his hand on his phone, as if she might call, as if he might call—only he couldn’t. Because she’d told him to leave her alone.

  Pinal’s words settled in his mind, too big and heavy for his skull, and he tiptoed around them and stared at the ceiling and let his phone die.

  Seeking her out was a habit he broke by seeking out nothing. As long as he didn’t get up for more than the bathroom and a bite to eat, he couldn’t do anything he’d regret. As long as he didn’t leave the flat, he couldn’t find himself at her door. He’d discovered an odd sort of determination, somewhere in the empty space she’d left behind; a determination not to go after her. Not to pour anymore water onto concrete.

  Not because he didn’t want to. But first, he had to figure out how to make it matter.

  When the knock came at his door, he didn’t think for a second that it was Jasmine. So his heart didn’t drop when he opened it to find Mitch glowering like a ginger demon.

  “Jesus Christ,” spat the shorter man, his amber eyes sharp. “What the fuck’s happened to you?”

  Rahul sighed and stepped back. “Come in.”

  “You know your mother thinks you’re fuckin’ dead?”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “You’re right, she doesn’t. Because she called Jasmine yesterday to see where the fuck you were, and Jasmine told her you were snowed under with work, right—so she calls me, and the first thing she says is, Mitchell, why is Jasmine lying to me? And what the fuck was I supposed to say to that? Eh?” He’d followed Rahul into the living room as he spoke, and now he slumped down onto the sofa with a glare.

  Rahul took the armchair and tried to gather the explosion of emotions firing off in his chest. It wasn’t a good sort of explosion. It was the kind that burned and decimated and choked with foul smoke.

  “Tell me,” Mitch said. “What would you say with someone’s mam on the phone doing that bloody voice they do—”

  Rahul looked up. “Well, what did you say?”

  “I told her I’d come round and see for myself and report back. Which I wouldn’t have had to do if you’d been answering your phone, you shit. Where the fuck have you been? I haven’t seen hide nor fucking hair of you for weeks, but at least you’d been texting.”

  Rahul released a heavy breath. “I’m sorry about that. I was… distracted.”

  He’d been with Jasmine. He’d been drunk on a fantasy and desperate to make it real. Then again, he was starting to think he had been for a while.

  Mitch stopped snapping for a minute and stared at Rahul, frowning hard. The deep lines on his forehead cut into the freckles that blanketed his skin. Then he said, “Ay up, she dropped you, then?”

  Rahul ground his back teeth. “Who?”

  “Our Jas.”

  It was exhausting to realise that everyone in the world knew he was an absolute fool for Jasmine Allen. He straightened his spine and ran a hand through his hair, suddenly realising that he must look a state—must look as out of control as he felt. And that wouldn’t do.

  He pulled off his glasses and began cleaning them on the edge of his pyjamas. Mitch became a milk and ginger blur. Rahul cleared his throat and was relieved to hear familiar iron in his voice when he said, “I don’t want to talk about Jasmine.”

  Mitch snorted. “That’s a fucking first.”

  “Mitchell.” Rahul put on his glasses and tried to convey exactly how fucked up his head was with a single look. “I do not. Want to talk. About Jasmine.” Just saying her bloody name felt like swallowing razor blades.

  Apparently, he’d succeeded with the look. Mitch nodded slowly, his face as somber as it ever got, and said, “Fair enough. Just know that… if you do, at any point, you can call me.”

  Rahul took a breath. “Okay. I appreciate that.”

  Their eyes met over the coffee table. Then Mitch slapped his thighs and said, “Alright, you miserable fuck. Match of the Day?”

  And that was that.

  Rahul went to work the next day, and did a decent job of pretending he’d never stopped showing up. When his line manager demanded to know why the hell he hadn’t called in, he managed a half-decent excuse that she was apparently prepared to swallow. Probably because he was good at his job, and it hadn’t happened before. Definitely not because he was at all believable.

  Work helped. It always did, so he should have known, but he felt like he was relearning everything. He felt like he’d been dropped into an alien reality, a parallel universe where he was prepared to attempt to exist without her.

  Which was how he knew Pinal had been right. It shouldn’t feel this hard to function.

  He texted the bartender, eventually. Boris. They talked a bit. Went for a run together, because Boris lived in some idyllic little town that had paths winding through tall, leafy trees. When they met up, Boris had asked about Jasmine.

  Something about the look on Rahul’s face must have told him all he needed to know. Boris changed the subject and didn’t bring her up again.

  They’d met in the morning, and the newborn sun peeked through the trees that surrounded them. The summer heat was cooling off, a sharp breeze wicking the sweat from Rahul’s skin as he ran. He’d felt as new and as ancient as the pale sun. He and Boris had agreed to run together once a week.

  Maybe it was something about that decision that made him ready to face his mother. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. But the next day he went over to the house he’d grown up in, the house he’d been avoiding in the last year. Ever since his father died.

  Turned out he was afraid of ghosts.

  Mum was alone, which wasn’t unusual for a Sunday morning. His youngest sisters would be upstairs in bed, his older sisters at their own homes dealing with their own families. So there was only Mum in the quiet of the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up and her long hair trailing down her back in that familiar, dark ribbon. A dark ribbon streaked with silver now.

  He didn’t bother announcing himself because she knew each of her children and grandchildren by their footsteps. He just walked into the kitchen and sat down at the vast wooden table at its centre, and watched as she kneaded chapati dough on the counter. She stared out of the kitchen window. Probably watching the birds.

  “You finally come to see your mother,” she said after a while, her tone even.

  He rubbed a tired hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Get over here and help me. Lazy boy.”

  He shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, moving to stand at the counter. He towered over her. He took after his father. Her profile was sharp and achingly familiar. She was almost too bright to look at, too warm, and he felt like hissing and backing into the shadows because he knew that if he didn’t, she might make everything better.

  He was rather attached to his pain.

  The sideways look she gave him was as cutting as only a mother’s could be. But she softened it
with a slight smile as he scooped up some dough and got to work.

  They fell into a silent and familiar rhythm, working together on food that would feed his family later in the week. His heart rate, always too fast and thundering lately, slowed. He almost forgot to feel like he was missing something, like part of him had suddenly disappeared.

  “So,” she said after a while. “How is Jasmine?”

  His throat tightened. Still, he forced out the words, “She’s fine.”

  Mum turned to look at him fully for one, long moment. Then she said grimly, “Hm. As I thought.”

  He knew exactly what she meant by that and wished to God he didn’t.

  But then, misunderstanding wouldn’t have saved him from her next words. “Your father always told me you’d marry that girl.”

  Rahul kept his eyes on the pale dough before him, on the patches of flour dusting the marbled countertop. It didn’t stop his father’s face from appearing in his mind’s eye. Just what he needed; the memory of one of the people he missed most in the world, while he was trying not to think about the other.

  “I agreed with him,” Mum said mildly. “Not at first. She was much too flighty, and you are such a grave boy. But eventually, I realised, that is a sort of balance. So I agreed with him, in the end. I usually did.”

  Rahul managed a grunt.

  “You have nothing to say?”

  He sighed. “I love her.” It was a relief to say the words. To say them aloud without seeing Jas’s eyes widen in horror, the way he’d always known they would. One thing about he and Jas; she surprised everyone else constantly, but she rarely surprised him.

  “I know that,” Mum said. “But there is a difference between the feeling and the action.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “There is.”

  Mum gave him a sideways look. “You talked to her, then?”

  I pushed every dream I ever had onto her in a filthy stairwell and wondered why she ran away.

  “Yeah. I talked to her. But right now I’m taking a break from… from needing her.” Not from loving her. He’d already tried that. Didn’t go so well.

  “Hm,” Mum said. Then, after a moment: “Perhaps that’s wise. And what about everything else?”

  “Everything else?”

  She stopped working the dough. “The way you’ve been tearing yourself apart. Worrying about all of us. Working too hard. Trying to be your father.” Every word was like a blow.

  Rahul swallowed, his jaw tightening. He tried to say something, but his mind was raw and messy and his words weren’t fucking working.

  She seemed to understand that, because she turned back to the dough. The steady motion of her hands was soothing, hypnotic. “I love you very much. I know you are a big boy now, but you are my child, and you always will be. The only adult in this family is me. You understand?”

  That, at least, dragged a smile out of him. The muscles in his cheeks felt rusty. “I don’t know about that, Mum.”

  She swatted his arm with a flour-dusted hand. “Don’t you argue with your mother. Get back to work.”

  22

  Now

  She held it together for nearly two weeks. Ten days, to be precise. She was almost proud of herself.

  On the ninth day, Dad and Marianne returned from their cruise. On the tenth day, Dad picked her up for dinner, pulling up in front of her flat and barrelling out of the car with his arms wide and his grin wider.

  When she saw him, her heart caught in her throat. The edge of her razor-sharp anxiety, of the pain that clung to her like a parasite, faded for a breath. She ran at him like a child and threw her arms around him. Breathed in the fabric softener he’d used since she was a kid. Heard his familiar rumbling laugh. Felt something that might have been happiness. It was rusty and heavy and awkward to bear, but it still warmed her up like a soft blanket in winter.

  She took a deep breath and shut her eyes and squeezed him so tight, she was surprised he could breath.

  “Bloody hell, Jazzy,” he laughed, pushing her back slightly. “Let me have a look at you.”

  He always did this. Whenever they spent any time apart, he’d squint down at her as if she’d transformed and say, Let me have a look at you.

  “Hmmm,” he muttered, his expression dramatically wary, as if they were in a pantomime. “You look right mature. Sensible, like.” He flicked the collar of her starched up shirt.

  “I’ve been at work, Dad,” she smiled.

  “Work.” He wrinkled his nose. “Don’t know why you can’t be a good girl and eat bonbons all day.”

  “If I did that, I wouldn’t be your daughter, now, would I?” Smiling felt strange. Uncomfortable. Not because she hadn’t been doing it—she had. She’d smiled manically at everyone she saw, every day since that night she’d fallen to pieces. She’d sparkled brighter and laughed harder and charmed more people than ever before, but it had been as uncomfortable as scraping at candle wax.

  Now she meant her smile, and she’d almost forgotten what that felt like. The realisation sobered her.

  She felt her happiness fade, and then she wanted to slap herself. Was that the best she could do? Three minutes of contentment without him?

  Deliberately, she calmed. There was no point getting angry over things she couldn’t control. She only had time for useful emotions now.

  “You alright, Jazzy?” Dad’s dark eyes were shadowed, concerned as he studied her, and serious this time. A frown creased his brow, turning his rough features into something most people would find terrifying. But she could never be afraid of the father who loved her so dearly.

  “I’m not alright,” she said slowly. Cautiously, even though she’d thought about these words often, practiced them with Asmita. “I’m safe, and I’m well, but I don’t think I’m alright, and I’d like to talk with you about it.”

  He blinked. Worry was etched all over his face. She could almost see his urge to take down whatever dragon she was facing, but he reined himself in and said, “Alright, then. Let’s get in the car, shall we?”

  “Okay.”

  “You still want to eat?”

  She shot him a grin. How much easier it felt, now that he was home. “What do you think?”

  “So,” Dad said, leaning back in his seat. The waiter had been despatched with annoyingly specific menu choices. Their drinks—beer for Dad, lemonade for Jasmine—were served. The restaurant was quiet, the soft hum of voices rising around them. He tapped his tattooed fingers against the table. “What’s going on, my darlin’?”

  She took a deep breath. She’d practiced this part too, or rather, thought about it so much and run over it so often that she knew it by heart. “Something happened while you were gone. And it made me realise some things.”

  He looked at her for a moment, his face unreadable. He could do that, sometimes, turn blank and hard, and it unsettled even her. Finally, he said, “Something bad?”

  “Not exactly. It was perfect, at first. Then I made it bad.”

  He frowned. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

  “You don’t even know what happened.”

  “But I know you shouldn’t blame yourself!” He sat upright, his expression fierce.

  She sighed. “Sometimes I should. When it’s my fault, I should. But that’s a discussion for another day, I think. Today I want to talk to you about… about Mum.”

  She’d expected his expression to shutter immediately, to close up again. It always had, ever since that one Sunday. The first Sunday Mum hadn’t come, or called, or answered the phone. The first Sunday she’d ceased to exist.

  He didn’t pull away, though, or shut her out, or change the subject with a sharpness that dragged over her skin. Instead, he sighed, and sank back in his seat and said, “I see.”

  It had been years since she’d brought this up. She’d learned not to, eventually, though it had taken a while. A while before she’d swallowed down her questions, before she’d stopped sitting at the bottom of the stairs on Sundays, before
she’d started crying where he couldn’t see, because he’d be sad if he caught her. And she couldn’t risk making Dad sad when she didn’t even have a mother, now, could she?

  She’d started to think of her life as a patchwork quilt. If she sat and traced the stitching, she could pull apart every piece in her mind and see where the whole had begun.

  Her fingers felt weak and bloodless when she reached for her lemonade. She was trying not to drink alcohol anymore, which was a motherfucker. Trying to stick with water, actually, but that could get pretty fucking boring, and this conversation warranted the extra sugar. She had to get her energy from somewhere, because recently she felt like she had none. Or rather, like she had only the smallest, meanest amount, and she had to ration it out so fucking carefully, or she’d power down halfway through the day like a robot.

  She sipped the lemonade, feeling better already. Placebo effect, he’d say, and laugh at her with gentle eyes.

  Don’t think of him.

  No, she could think of him. She could. Choking her own thoughts, she had decided, was a bad move.

  “Alright, princess,” Dad said, sounding more resigned than anything else. “What do you want to know?”

  “Know?” Jasmine shook her head. “I know everything I need to know. She left for reasons that she thought were valid and that I will never understand, because I’m supremely biased. She’s never coming back, and if she did, I’d tell her to piss off anyway. There’s nothing I need to know. I just want to talk.”

  So that’s what they did. The words were slow and stilted, at first, like a smattering of pebbles knocked loose and rolling down a cliff’s edge. But they gained weight and momentum, until they were tumbling free, one thought rushing into the next and knocking over the third, Dad’s words blurring with hers.

  “I thought you didn’t want me to talk about it—”

  “I didn’t. I wanted you to forget it ever happened. I wished you were littler so you wouldn’t remember. I thought that was best—”

  “But I didn’t understand, and I had so many questions and all I could think was that she didn’t want me because there was something wrong with me—who doesn’t have a mum? That’s how I thought about it at the time, you know. And the older I got the more I realised that it was fucking me up, but I didn’t know what to do about it—”