by Sajni Patel
A wounded frown crossed his features. “No. I came here to apologize and make up for what I did. I came here to . . .”
“To what?” I arched a brow. “It better be the truth—”
“To tell you that you’re worth the wait. If it’s after USMTO or after graduation or after the Olympics in four years. I’ll wait for you.”
“You don’t mean—”
He stopped my words short with a passionate kiss that left me heady and my skin buzzing. He spoke against my lips, “You’ve been in my head since the first day you spoke to me freshman year. My thoughts have been absorbed by you since the first study session. This program was the only thing keeping you from total takeover.”
“And now it’s complete,” I whispered.
“Now there’s only you.”
“Amit, I . . .” I glanced down at my knees squished between our chests.
“Need space. I know. But this time I won’t screw it up and be a dick. Text me whenever you need anything, whenever you want to talk. I’ll be there. I promise. And I’ll text you to check in on you, okay?”
I nodded.
He slid away and put everything into his backpack. “I’ll probably call you just to hear your voice too.”
Twenty-Six
How was a girl supposed to act around a boy who had fallen for her? Amit kept his distance but texted throughout. He gave the space I needed to focus on Muay Thai but always let me know he was there for anything. He still hadn’t confessed about the foundation, which was pretty cool. He didn’t want to take credit. He didn’t want to use it to score points.
What are you up to? he’d texted.
Punching Bob, I replied during a brief rest period, guzzling water like it was the last bottle on Earth.
Who’s Bob and what did he do to you??
Bob’s the punching dummy. He looked at me wrong this morning. Lol!
Sounds like he had it coming. Knock his head off.
Knocking Bob’s head off was impossible, but he gave great resistance to my kicks and punches. Sparring had become the top outlet for aggression, stress, and anger. Bob got his butt kicked repeatedly. Fellow boxers intermittently fought with me in the ring in between bursts of other exercises and drills and breaks.
“You got this,” Natalia said with an approving slap on my shoulder.
I shook my arms and stretched my neck, repeating her words in my head in an ongoing echo.
“Weigh-in!” Coach yelled.
I lifted my tank top to wipe my face with the hem of my shirt and froze when my one unblocked eye caught Amit in the corner. He gawked at me. Or quite possibly my now-exposed abs, with their many muscles and jutting hip bones. What did he think of that? Too muscular for a girl? Too skinny to be attractive?
Ugh. Get out of your head, Kareena!
I dropped my shirt and waved, drawing him out of his blushing stupor so he could wave back. I stepped onto the scale, knowing I’d be doing this in a week on tournament grounds.
“You’re at one-thirty,” Coach said.
“I’ll pack on the calories.”
“You’ve been packing them on, right? A pound here and there since the last weigh-in isn’t good. Can’t hover on the edge of your weight division.”
“Yeah. Eating right with high caloric intake.”
“Stressed?”
“You have no idea,” I muttered. He didn’t know about Papa. He knew Papa got really sick every now and then, but not how bad. He wasn’t top tier level to be in on that.
“Try not to be. The fight will go as well as you determine it to. Train hard, be mentally in, keep your cool, find your balance, and you will be your best.”
“Sure.” Easier said than done.
“Good workout. Get some rest. Carb-load tonight.”
Amit and I met halfway after Coach excused me. Being around my sweaty self should be enough to keep this boy at bay.
“What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to say hi,” he replied.
“At my gym?”
“Wanted to see you in person. I wanted to support you during practice. By, uh, being hidden and quiet.”
“Thanks. I definitely could not focus if I’d known you were here.”
“Seeing you punch Bob reminds me how badass you are.”
I laughed. Bob had it coming. “In case you want to try something, Romeo?”
“Exactly.” He grinned and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “How’s your dad?”
“He’s much better.”
“Good. I’m glad! Coming home soon?”
I softly replied, “Hope so.”
“Oh,” he said and frowned, genuinely disappointed.
“I should go. Gotta get some housework done.”
“Need help?”
I grabbed my duffel bag and shot him a playful look over my shoulder. “Thought we agreed no more house calls?”
“Ugh, yeah. Maybe Lily can come over?”
“She has some family thing going on. Thanks, though. I’ll manage a couple of loads of laundry and cleaning.”
My phone beeped, muffled inside my bag. I dug it out just outside the doors to the gym on the way to my car.
Papa is coming home today!
I smiled at Mama’s message and texted back:
He’s better?
He is for now. There’s some better news to add, tell you at home.
I bit my lower lip. What did that mean? Good news could be anything. Is Papa in remission? Is Papa cured? Did they find a cure? Did he . . . win the foundation money? I eyed Amit suspiciously, but the boy would not let on.
“Good news?” Amit asked.
I smiled because I couldn’t help it. It was wonderful news. “Yes! My dad’s coming home tonight.”
“Nice! He’ll see the flowers, then?”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms. “How did you know I hadn’t taken them over?”
“Didn’t know for sure until now.”
“Huh,” I muttered, shaking off the coincidence of Amit showing up to ask about Papa right as Papa was being released from the hospital. “Did you know about my dad coming home today?”
“How would I know?”
“That’s not an answer.”
He scratched his forehead.
My hands fell to my hips, my back straight, my game face on.
He admitted, “Yeah . . . I knew.”
“How?”
“My uncle’s research project.”
“I thought your uncle was just taking consensus for sick people in general.”
“I didn’t lie. He was taking a consensus.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“I’m here to see you because I really miss you. But, yes, also because I wanted to see your reaction about your dad getting to go home.”
“I feel like you knowing this much about my dad is an invasion of privacy.”
“I didn’t look up his status or anything. It’s work.”
“So you know the status of all these medical records?”
“I know when patients get admitted and when they get better or worse past a certain range. I mean, your parents signed papers allowing my uncle’s company to view that info. If it makes you feel better, you can know something that no one else does about my dad. He has this rash—”
I slapped my hand over this mouth. “Ew. No, thanks.”
He laughed and mumbled behind my palm, “But it’s so interesting.”
My hand dropped to the car door. “Maybe after USMTO, you can have dinner with us.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Why not? I had an awkward dinner with your parents, so it’s only fair that you do the same with mine.”
“Except your parents really like me. I could tell. I’m very lik
able, you know?”
I grumbled under my breath. Darn, him. He was right.
-
The sun had set by the time I reached the house. After parking on the street, I hurried up the driveway and rushed through the foyer, bounding to my parents’ room and forgetting to knock. Mama helped Papa down to the bed. He saw me first and smiled.
“Papa!” I beamed and bounced down beside him on the mattress.
“Beta, careful,” Mama chided.
“Sorry.” I flung my arms around Papa in the gentlest enthusiastic embrace I could manage. “You’re home already!”
“Already? Been gone forever. Thought I’d never make it back to this bed.”
“Eh. It’s not the best mattress, to be honest.” I pushed down on the pillow-top.
“Better than the hospital one. Not that I was awake long enough to complain most days.”
“We should get you to my massage therapist.”
“Sounds like a date.”
“Speaking of dates,” Mama intervened, and I winced. “How is Amit?”
Ugh, Mama. Horrible segue. “He’s fine. Why do you ask?”
“He was at the hospital.”
“To bring you flowers? Because the roses on the table are from him for you, Papa.”
“I saw,” he said. “They’re bright and cheery and make the entire room smell nice. Thank him for us.”
“Then what did he deliver to you?” I said, biting back the hope that the foundation had actually come through.
“His uncle did, actually. We didn’t realize Amit was his assistant. Did you by chance tell him about our situation?”
“No. I mean, I told him you were sick a lot, but not the financial part. He must’ve learned that from the data he was gathering for the company. I had no idea he helped with a foundation until that day his uncle was talking to all of us. Amit never told me. Still hasn’t. So, what happened? Did you get the money? Because I want to believe they’d help us but didn’t want to get my hopes up.” I wrung the edge of my shirt in anticipation.
“Negative child,” Mama said with a cluck of her tongue. “It’s always important to have some hope to look forward to.”
“I didn’t mean to sound negative. I mean, what if it doesn’t happen, though? Are we putting all our hope into this?”
“No. It’s just another thing to put our hope into.” She took my hand in hers and beamed. “Well, the foundation did make a decision.”
My heart pounded in my chest.
“And this cycle’s recipient is Papa,” she said with a crack in her voice and tears lining her eyes.
Oh, crap. I lurched toward her and Papa and hugged them both. Mama cried in my arms. I’d never seen her cry and I held her tighter, scrunching up the back of her shirt in my fist. I clenched my eyes tight and tried not to bawl. My entire body shook. It trembled from keeping in the sobs, from relief, from gratitude, from the emotions that sprang out of my parents.
Papa. Well, he was hardcore. He didn’t cry with Mama, but his voice was strained when he spoke, which made me clench my eyes tighter to keep from crying. “So emotional. There. We’re going to be okay. We’re always going to be okay.”
We had a family hugfest, a Mama cryfest, a laughterfest. The only thing that brought Mama out of her tears was Papa eventually changing the subject, no matter how much I asked about the details. I mean, how much was the foundation money for? Did it cover everything? Did it cover just this visit or our entire medical debt? How much was that debt?
But nope. In all of this surrounding Papa and the immensely huge win, he asked about me. “Why don’t you tell me about training?”
I happily snuggled against his arm while Mama showered. I told Papa about everything from the girls’ athletics social group to the fundraisers to me kicking butt in practice. He didn’t let me stray back into the foundation talk, wouldn’t give up actual numbers or other details.
“Don’t worry about that. Let us worry about it, huh?”
I nodded.
“And Amit?”
“Hmm?”
Papa grinned. I’d never seen him smile because of a boy in my life. “He’s a nice kid.”
“Mhmm,” I muttered suspiciously.
“He visited me every day at the hospital.”
“He did?” I sat up.
“Yes. What a sweet kid. We should invite him for dinner one day soon.” Papa yawned as his eyelids drifted closed.
I slipped out. The shower squeaked off and I snuck into my room. I lay in bed for a good half hour, wide awake, and tapped the cell phone on my chest. I had lots of words, and endless feels, for Amit right now. But how to word them all? I had no idea. Was text even an option? A phone call maybe? But would I break down and cry again in front of him?
Mama knocked on my door.
I immediately sat up, leaving my phone on the pillow. “Come in.”
“Was wondering if you’re going to prom?”
“Uh, no. Why would you think that? Have you been talking to Amit?”
“Amit?” she asked innocently, her voice a little higher than normal. “Why? Did he ask you to go?”
“Mama . . .” I groaned, eyeing her. She was for sure up to something. “Since when do you encourage me to date boys?”
“Not boys plural. And just one date. It’s prom!”
“Prom doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“It means a formal dance, the only one you’ll have with your friends, the last event before graduation, a high school milestone.”
“Still means nothing to me. I’m just thinking about USMTO, you know?”
“Well, if you decide to go, we approve.”
“It’s the weekend after USMTO. I wouldn’t even have time to find a dress—” I stopped myself. “Do you have a dress for me?”
She grinned, walked out of my room, and returned with a plastic-draped hanger. Mama turned on the light and laid it across my bed with such reverence, as if it were a wedding gown.
I placed my hand over the zipper before she did. “Mama! How much did this cost? You have to take it back.”
She gently slapped my hand away. “Nonsense. I ordered it from Jaipur, and it was not much; much cheaper than American prom dresses. I’d been putting aside a little money every now and then for this for over a year. Besides, the foundation did something wonderful, eased our burden enough to let us enjoy this. On top of that, because I told everyone about my daughter going to the Open, the nurses all remember you, and they pitched in. I bought this, on sale, huh, from an already low price with a tiny fraction of that money.”
My heart swelled as I remembered the conversations with the nurses about finances and write-offs and foundation grants. Wow. People in the world really did care. There was such a thing as paying it forward.
Mama unzipped the bag and pushed the plastic back. We both gasped, even though she’d already seen it. She studied my face for a reaction.
I’d never been into dresses or skirts. I did, however, love pink and all things that glimmered. “Okay. I’m totally in love.”
I touched the intricate threading and stonework over a pistachio green and baby pink chaniya choli. I hadn’t worn something this fancy in years. I hadn’t worn a skirt in just as long.
“You look very nice in pista.”
“It’s so shiny and sparkly.” God, I loved sparkles.
“I knew you’d like it!” She clapped her hands once. “Try it on.”
“Oh my god,” I muttered but didn’t deny the excitement bubbling in my chest.
I changed in front of Mama right next to the bed. The heavy green skirt kissed the floor. Shimmering pink designs of paisleys and petals outlined in gold threading glimmered all throughout. The top was sleeveless and ended a few inches above my belly button in the traditional fashion. It was snug and glittery and disp
layed my abs like no one’s business.
Mama draped the matching dupatta over my right shoulder and tucked one corner into the front, left side of the skirt. She grinned ear to ear, her palms pressed together at her lips.
I felt like a desi princess, even when my mom turned me to face the mirror above my dresser. Traditional clothing in a culture that I felt didn’t fully accept me, in colors depicted by society as girlish accentuated by muscles that many didn’t consider feminine.
“You are so beautiful. Perfect!” Mama added with a glimmer in her eye.
I twirled back and forth, mesmerized by the swish of the flowing skirt. “Now I have to go, huh?”
“You are smiling! You love it! You go if you want to go. You go with Amit if you want to go with him. Go with friends if you want to be with just friends. Live in happy moments. That’s all life should be sometimes.”
“And what if I break a shin at USMTO?”
“Go to prom on crutches. We can color your cast to match the dress.”
“Mama . . . what if I epically fail at USMTO?”
“Then go to prom determined to try your best again next time. Prom and USMTO are two different things. If one doesn’t turn out the way you want, it doesn’t have to affect the other. It doesn’t have to affect the rest of your senior year or your life.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay. Let us know what you decide.” She kissed my forehead and slipped out of the room as I changed.
I carefully placed the garment back onto the hanger inside the plastic bag and hung it in my closet. Lying in bed, I found myself constantly looking at the dress and imagining going to prom with Amit and friends.
Ugh. What have these people done to me? What has this boy done to me?
I couldn’t get Amit out of my head, everything about him since the first day we met years ago to the insignificant and awkward run-ins to everything between getting paired up by Mrs. Callihan to tonight was crowding my emotions.
Rolling the phone over and back, my thoughts meandered toward the chaos of his beautiful mind, to the program Amit had been working on, to all the patient records he’d seen, to the fragments I’d read last night, to the glimpse of a final, working version. The miracle program to better healthcare. The one that shouldn’t exist in all its complexities.
