"Did we?" He was looking at the water. "I've wondered. Whether it was better. Or just — more dramatic. Whether the five years would have been easier if we'd just—""They would have been easier," she said. "Easier isn't better."He thought about this. "What were they like? The five years."She thought about how to answer this honestly without answering it entirely. "Full," she said. "Hard in the good ways. Some hard in the less good ways. But full." She paused. "Yours?""The same." He was quiet for a moment. "I met Priya a year and a half ago. Which means the first three and a half I was—""Living your life," she said."Yes. And being bad at relationships because—" He stopped. "I kept comparing things to a standard that wasn't fair to anyone."She felt this land. She felt the weight of it and she let it land because that was all she could do with it."And then Priya," she said."And then Priya," he said. "Who is not comparable to anything because she's just—herself. Entirely herself." He paused. "It's disarming, actually. There's no—maneuvering. She says what she means and does what she says.""That's a good person," Aanya said."Yes," he said. "That's a very good person."They walked. The light shifted. The hills across the river went from gold to shadow."Kabir," she said. "I'm glad you found her."He stopped walking.She stopped too. She looked at him."Are you?" he said. Not accusing. Genuinely asking — the way he always had, with the directness that came from actually wanting to know.She held his gaze. "Yes," she said. "It's complicated. But yes."He looked at her for a long moment. Long enough that she became aware of the specific quality of his looking — the room-getting-warmer quality."I'm sorry about February," he said.She felt something shift in her chest. "Don't be," she said. "We were— it was what it was. And it's done.""Is it?" he said quietly.And this — this question, this specific question, in this specific voice — was the most dangerous thing he had said all day."Yes," she said. She said it clearly. "It is."She started walking again.He walked with her.
She thought: I need to leave tomorrow morning. Early. Before any more of these conversations happen.
