“What do you want?” The question is simple. Too simple. His heart beats against his chest in a way that’s so normal I can’t stand it. A simple thing, a heartbeat, to make sense of the mess this summer has become. Two months ago, Charlie was still here. I’d never been to Asia at all. I didn’t know Lena. I only knew what I thought was the truth—my truth, Charlie’s truth—never mind all the dark layers beneath it.
“I don’t know what I want.” What I don’t tell him, but what I’m thinking, is how it’s not about wanting at all: I need to know what happened to Charlie, to determine whether my secret is safe. My stomach turns when I think about what Lena would do if she found out that Adam is the lesser of my evils. My palms are sweating, and I’m struggling to figure out the best way to answer Adam’s question. “I think I need to stick this out, figure out as much as I can about what was going on with Charlie. I can’t explain it. I can’t not chase this now that we’ve started.” Adam pulls back from me a little, tilting my chin up so I’m forced to look into his huge green eyes.
“I’m not going to see you again, am I?”
“I think you’ll do okay without me,” I tell him. What I don’t tell him is that he’s far better off this way.
“You were way too good for Charlie,” he says. His eyes pull down at the corners, and I look away to avoid tearing up again.
“You didn’t really know him.” It’s weak, unconvincing.
“Neither did you.” He hugs me again, drawing me into his chest, and all I want is to hit pause at this moment so I can stay in it forever. All year, I tried to put Adam out of my mind. I have him now, and we can’t be together. It seems so unfair. Underneath that there’s the same pulsing guilt I’ve felt since I met him. Miserable, relentless, unforgiving. So many times, I tried to choose. Then Charlie stripped me of the choice altogether.
The door to the café swings open and Adam and I break apart. Lena strides toward me, ignoring Adam.
“I paid.” Her voice is cold. “But you already knew that. Or at least expected it. Am I right?”
I reel, feeling as if I’ve been slapped. But how could she not be angry?
“Bye, Adam,” Lena says. “Be sure to send Aubrey that info. The guy with the houseboat. I’m sure you two will be talking anyway.” Adam’s eyes dart to me and I nod, urging him away with my eyes. His presence will only fuel her fire. And we’ve already said our goodbyes.
“I’ll email you,” he tells me. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks back the way we came, disappearing into the throngs of people that line Mahatma Gandhi Road. Clouds of dust rise up behind him until a chai wallah’s cart obscures him altogether.
“You disgust me,” Lena says, her voice thick with venom. Her eyes are a monstrous black color, and I’m so shocked by the strength of her anger and what it looks like, her hair floating around her small frame like a false halo, that for a second I can’t speak.
“You dragged me out here—took advantage of me—just to sleep with some guy?” Her voice is accusing, unforgiving. “You act like you’re in this with me, like you really need this—journal or whatever—like you’re my friend. And really you just want a free ticket to see your new boyfriend. You’re as sick as Charlie.” She’s nearly yelling now and I’m backing away, and the few people who are leaving Trishna’s stare. We’re these two white girls, behaving in the worst possible, most American way.
“Aubrey,” Lena continues, “I want to kill you this instant.” I know by now that she’s melodramatic, but somehow this time I don’t doubt her.
“Lena, let’s—”
“Shut up.” Her voice slices through my words like a razor. “I just want to know one thing from you. Did he know?”
“Did who know?” I’m nervous. My palms are clamming up.
“Cut the bullshit, Aubrey. When did you tell Charlie you were cheating on him?”
Relief floods my entire body. She’s still only talking about that. For a second, I thought she meant something else. “It only happened once,” I say.
“When did he find out? Tell me, Aubrey. TELL ME.” There’s a crowd gathering now: a little boy leading a cow ten times his size, a well-dressed middle-class woman in a pink and orange patterned kurta, three men eating from the kinds of tin trays they have at roadside food stalls. I just want to get out of there as fast as possible.
“I tried to tell him a few times,” I say quietly. “It just never worked. He never wanted to listen. I finally told him three months ago. When he was visiting me at my parents’ place in Illinois.”
“Your parents met him.” Her voice is dull, flat.
“Of course. They never would have let me visit him those other times if they hadn’t.”
“What was the date?”
“Why?”
“You don’t have the right to ask questions right now. Just tell me the date.”