Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
I mean, he’s the crazy one. How is he not asking these questions? What do they talk about when they see each other?
“But they aren’t the ones I wanted to spend my Saturday night with,” he says, breaking into my thoughts.
“Did you have fun though?” I ask hopefully.
“No.”
“Not even a little bit?”
“No,” he repeats like a grumpy boy.
“Stellan,” I warn.
He clenches his jaw in response.
“Come on,”—I smack his chest lightly—“tell me you had some fun at least. You always like to hang out with Homer and play your boring chess.”
He leans down. “Again, not how I wanted to spend my Saturday night. I wanted to come back as soon as you got home. But you wouldn’t let me.”
First, I want to pause here because he said home.
This is the first time he’s said it but every time he does say it, I have to take a breath and absorb it. Because it still feels unreal. It still feels so surreal and dreamy.
That we live together.
Six months ago when he told me that he loved me and brought me to his house to show me a part of himself that he hadn’t shown to anyone, we decided to move in together.
Well, duh.
He wouldn’t let me live with my parents—not that I ever wanted to but still—and he of course wouldn’t let me live alone, so we compromised and decided to live with each other. And since I wouldn’t let him in his childhood home where everything was so real and toxic for him, we decided to get a place close to my college.
Which means I got what I always wanted.
Him.
All his secrets. All his fire.
All his love.
Although right now he looks pissed that I wouldn’t let him come back home.
But that’s only because I wanted time to get the surprise ready for him.
That’s what this is all about.
That’s why he can’t touch me yet and that’s why when I found out I was going to be spending my entire day at rehearsals and couldn’t prep for it while he went to the gym—he goes every single day; yikes—I had to send him away so I could get everything ready.
“Okay,” I try to appease him. “How about I give you your surprise and then you can do whatever you want with me? Because remember? All of this”—I point to my lehenga and the table laden with all the stuff I’ve put together for tonight—"is for the surprise I wanted to give you.”
He studies me a beat before letting out a growly breath and easing his grip on me.
Stepping out of his embrace, I say, “Thank you.” Then grabbing his hand, I pull him to the table I was pointing at. “Okay, so! Today’s a little thing called Karva Chauth. Actually, not a little thing. It’s a very famous festival in India. On this day, married women fast from sunrise to moonrise for the longevity of their husbands. Don’t ask me what the words—Karva Chauth—actually mean. Well, my biji told me but I completely forgot. But what she also told me that it started long back as a way for women to pray for their husbands’ safe return from the war.”
It’s actually a very sweet ceremony.
Where, as I just said, women fast for their husbands or sometimes for their husbands to be. They get up before sunrise—which I did—and eat something called sargi sent to them by their mother-in-law. Sargi generally includes sweet fruits, coconut, and other Indian sweets.
Since I don’t have a mother-in-law or a future mother-in-law unfortunately, I asked his baby sister Callie to make me something sweet. And since she’s a baker, she baked me cupcakes and cookies. Just for the record, she’s the sweetest. We’ve become really good friends over the past few months, and I love hanging out with her. Plus all the other St. Mary’s girls of course. Because they all kick ass and for the first time ever I feel like I’m part of an actual family.
Thanks to the love of my life.
Anyway, back to sargi.
It’s supposed to last the women through the day and until the moon comes up, which is when they break the fast. It usually takes place like this: going up to the roof where the moon is clearly visible. They carry a big plate called thali with them that contains a glass of water or something called kachi lassi, a drink made of milk and water; a diya which is a small lamp and a sieve.
They look at the moon through the sieve and offer it water by tipping the glass a bit and letting the liquid drip down, followed by looking at their husband’s face using that same sieve. And then the husband offers the same glass of water to his wife to drink from, and feeds her the first bite of the day, thereby breaking her fast.