Chapter 5 — The Walk

Priya had a friend in Rishikesh — a yoga teacher who ran a studio on the ashram road — and she went to see her that afternoon with the naturalness of someone who had arranged this in advance, which she probably had. She handed Aanya a key she'd been given to a friend's guesthouse nearby and said: "Kabir said you usually just figured out accommodation when you arrived. I hope you don't mind I—""That was very kind," Aanya said. She meant it and felt it fall slightly wrong in her chest. The kindness that made everything harder.And so Aanya and Kabir walked along the river in the October afternoon.It should have been easy. It should have been the conversation they'd both prepared for — the friendly catching-up, the genuine-but-managed version. She had prepared for it. She had specific topics in mind, the conversational equivalent of handholds.Instead what happened was: they walked, and the Ganga moved beside them, and the October light was exactly the same as it had been five years ago, and all the prepared conversation fell away the way prepared things did when the actual moment arrived."Do you remember," he said, not as a question, "the man who tried to sell us ayurvedic medicine for insomnia?"She laughed before she could decide whether to. "And you told him I was a doctor and that we were very particular about our supplements.""And you were not a doctor.""I was very emphatically not a doctor." She looked at the river. "He believed you completely.""I have a trustworthy face.""You have a face that looks like it would not bother lying," she said. "Which is different."He looked at her sideways. "Is it?"She looked at the river.They walked in silence for a while. Not uncomfortable silence — the other kind. The kind that meant there was too much to say to locate where to start."How are you really?" he said. "Not the — not the café version."She considered."I'm navigating something," she said. "That's the honest answer. I'm in the middle of something I didn't anticipate and I'm—" She looked for the word that was true without being too true. "Managing it.""Alone?""By choice."He looked at her. She could feel it. "That's not always the same as the best option," he said."No," she said. "But it's mine."He didn't push. He had always known when to let a thing rest. It was one of the qualities she had — the word she used in her own head, in the months after Rishikesh, when she was learning to put the three days in the place where they could exist without taking up too much space — loved. One of the qualities she had loved."I think about that night sometimes," he said. The river moved. "The steps. What you said about not wanting to do the thing. The exchange-numbers-and-fade version.""We did something better," she said.