Chapter 9 — The Morning

The first bus from Rishikesh to Delhi was at six AM.Aanya was at the bus stand at five-forty with her bag, which was not a large bag, which was the bag of someone who had packed for a trip they intended to end quickly.Kabir was there.She stopped when she saw him. He was sitting on the low wall outside the bus stand, a cup of chai in each hand, looking at the road as if he had been there for a while.He looked up when she stopped."Six AM bus," he said. "I know your approach to things."She stood on the road with her bag. "How long have you been here?""Since five-fifteen." He held out one of the cups. "It's from the stall around the corner. Probably not better than Shiv's but it's hot."She took the cup. She sat on the wall beside him. There was a specific absurdity to this — sitting on a wall at five-forty AM with a cup of bad chai, on the morning after the most complicated day of her adult life — and she felt it and held it and let it be what it was."Priya?" she said."Asleep. She knows I'm here. I told her before I left." He looked at the road. "She said tell Aanya she hopes Delhi treats her well."Aanya held the cup with both hands. "Of course she did.""Yes," he said.They drank their chai. The town was beginning its morning — the first autos, the temple bells starting somewhere up the hill, a vendor setting up a fruit stall with the efficiency of someone who had done this ten thousand times."I'm not going to ask," he said. "About what you're carrying. You've made it clear that it's yours and I'm going to respect that." He looked at the road. "But I need to say one thing and then I'll let you go."She looked at him."February," he said. "I didn't handle it the way I should have. I—" He stopped. He was choosing carefully, she could see it. "There was a version of that morning where I didn't let you leave without a real conversation. I chose the version where I did, because I thought it was the right thing. And now I'm here and I don't know if it was."She looked at the road. The light was coming now — the very early version, grey and then faintly gold."It was the right thing," she said."How do you know?""Because you said 'I am with someone.' You said it clearly. And I knew. And what we did—" She looked at her cup. "Was something that existed in a specific moment and had its own weight and is done." She paused. "You choosing Priya is not a betrayal of February. February doesn't require anything from you now."He was looking at her."What does it require from you?" he said.She felt the question land in the specific place it was aimed at."What it requires from me," she said carefully, "is to be someone who made choices and lives inside them honestly."He was quiet for a moment."I want you to be happy," he said. "Whatever that looks like. Whatever you're navigating. I want—I know I don't have standing to want anything for you, but I do."She felt something move in her chest. Not grief, exactly. The older, quieter thing."I'm going to be happy," she said. "I'm — it's going to be hard for a while and then I'm going to be happy." She looked at him. "I promise you that."He looked at her.She looked at him.Five years of a pact. Three days that rearranged something. One night in February that had produced the largest fact of her current life. One day in Rishikesh in which they had both behaved as well as people could behave in the circumstances."The pact is closed," she said. "Whatever we made on the steps five years ago — it's complete. We showed up. We saw each other. It's done." She held his gaze. "You're free, Kabir. I want you to know that. You're completely free."He looked at her for a long moment.Then: "Are you?"She thought of Devika. Of the guesthouse bed. Of what was growing in her that she was going to love with everything she had."Yes," she said. "I am."The bus announced itself around the corner with its horn.She stood. She picked up her bag.He stood too.She looked at him in the early morning light — this man she had known for three days at twenty-two and one night at twenty-seven and one day at twenty-seven, which added up to less time than most people gave a stranger and more time than some people gave a lifetime."Take care of her," she said."Take care of yourself," he said.She nodded.She turned and walked to the bus.She did not look back.She had learned, five years ago, that looking back on the steps of a ghat was expensive, and she had learned to not do the expensive things when she could help it.