Omkar picked her up and spun her once around. When he put her down, he looked toward the store to make sure his parents weren’t watching and kissed her softly on the lips.
CHAPTER 33
The sound of the shower towed Omkar from his sleep. Because of the strange hour, he knew that the person showering was Aria. The jealousy he’d felt at seeing the strange man drop her off the previous night had not gone away. Instead, it had festered over the course of the night. Seizing the opportunity of her room being empty, he pulled a shirt on over his boxers and ran downstairs into the storeroom. He rifled through the compartments of her backpack, finding nothing until his fingers grazed a piece of folded paper. He pulled out Luke’s letter and unfolded it.
It took him a moment to accept the words that were written on the paper. The cursive that had impressed Aria infuriated Omkar. He read the signature over and over again, etching the sound of the name into his soul like a vendetta. The letter Luke had written made him feel as if the life that he had imagined with Aria was falling apart before it even manifested. The idea of another man being with her made every inch of him recoil. He wondered if the man who had written the letter was the same one who had dropped her off last night. His mind tortured him with the potential that she might have said yes to the proposition the letter contained. Whatever feather the letter spoke of was not inside its folds. He was mauled by the idea of her having given it back to him.
When the sound of the shower upstairs stopped abruptly, he shoved the letter back into her backpack and zipped it. He ran back upstairs and lay in bed. Omkar listened to every sound that Aria was making in the bathroom with his heart furiously beating. The jealousy and betrayal he felt was like a fever sickening the marrow of his bones.
That day at school, Omkar could not concentrate. Every word his professors spoke was nothing more than a mediocre copy of another person’s genius. Though he felt like hours had passed, whenever he looked at the time, the minute hand had only traveled inches across the surface of the clock. He was no longer OK with Aria wandering around the city. He decided to tell her so just as soon as he saw her later that day. Having lost his appetite, instead of buying food at the cafeteria, he watched the other students in the outdoor common area. Catastrophe scenarios rose and twisted and fell like a molten swelling within him. It seemed to Omkar that everywhere he looked, all he noticed was other couples in love.
When his classes had finished, he spent a volatile 20 minutes fighting with himself to focus on one of his assignments at a table in the library before giving up. Determined to find Aria no matter where she had gone for the day, he let his feet carry him across the checkered marble floor like horses let out of the racing gate.
He had driven a three-mile-wide maze up and down the neighborhood trying to find her, and when he did, she was walking back toward the store. He parked the car and got out to open the passenger door for her.
Aria greeted him warmly at first, but quickly registered the somber mood he was displaying. “Is something wrong?” she asked, preparing herself for bad news. She scanned her memory to try to find some mistake she might have made that might have displeased Omkar’s parents but could find nothing.
“I just had a really crappy day at school,” he snapped.
“Well, why?” Aria asked, put off by the fact that a bad day would translate to him taking it out on her in this way.
“It doesn’t really matter. I just need to go home and take a shower,” he said.
Omkar parked the car directly in front of the store. He got out to open Aria’s door for her when Neeraj came bolting out. “Omkar, where is the key to the safe? I tried to take the cash in to the bank today and couldn’t find it.”
Omkar sighed with frustration. “Oh my God, this isn’t even the cherry on top of the cake. This is a rotten cherry on top of a bowl of ice cream that has melted,” he said out loud. Aria started laughing hysterically at his analogy. Omkar searched his pockets and scoured the crevices of the car, while Neeraj and Aria stood on the lawn watching him.
Eventually, Omkar stood up, defeated. “I must have left the keys back at school,” he said. “Look, Papa, I need you to watch the shop tonight. I have a project due and my study group is lazy so we’re way behind on it. I will find you the key – I just need you to watch the shop for the night.”
He stood there with bated breath, waiting for Neeraj to respond to his request. Neeraj folded one of his arms on top of his potbelly. He used the other one to accentuate his scolding. “I’m really angry at the moment ya, I’m really angry at this Western culture because it is … it is totally gotten into your mind ya. You have become totally brainless lately. Totally brainless you have become. How do you expect to have a good job or a good life with this irresponsibility? It is totally rubbish, Omkar. Totally rubbish.”
Neeraj walked back into the store and Omkar, looking dejected, told Aria to come with him back to college. Even though she trusted Omkar to understand his own father better than she did, Aria was confused about how Neeraj’s response could have been taken as consent.
Omkar drove back to his college, withdrawn and in complete silence, hoping that the library where he’d been studying had not yet closed for the night. There was
