R&D

Chapter 21

The flight back to America was always worse than the flight to India. The flight to India was filled with excitement because you got to go to the fancy international airports, great plane food (not sarcastic), and endless entertainment options on the little TV that was in front of your seat.

But on the trip back, you just wanted it to be over. You were sick of the turbulence, sitting in a chair for 12 hours, bored of watching movies. You just wanted to be home.

After what felt like days, but was actually shorter because less layovers, they made it back to Salt Lake City on a Monday night. Their dad ordered a pizza for them. Ah, pizza. The first American food she'd had in nearly 3 months. It was so delicious. Or maybe she was just exhausted. Probably both.

Roshi, her mom, and brother passed out right after dinner. She woke up around 5am and couldn't go back to sleep. She scrounged the fridge and ate the leftover pizza. She was watching TV afterward and fell asleep on the couch.

The rest of the week was more of the same. Belle and Peyton came by one afternoon, ringing the doorbell and banging on the door in excitement to see their friend. Roshi opened the front door and told them both to leave since she was tired. They reminded her it was 2pm, and Roshi reminded them it was 2am in India.

Dev didn't text her at all that week. It was strange. Since she was back in the same time zone with him, the same town as him, she thought she'd feel closer to him. But without his daily notes like she got back in India, it felt like they were farther apart.

That Friday Dev's mom invited her family over for dinner. Roshi wondered if Mrs. Patel didn't know that she and Dev had broken up, but her mom told her that Mrs. Patel did know since she specifically mentioned how Dev wouldn't be home so Roshi could still come.

With or without Dev there, Roshi felt it would be awkward so she told her mom she was going to stay home. Friday night came and she debated on inviting Belle and Peyton over since she had mostly gotten over her jet lag but decided to just have some privacy. Privacy didn't really exist in India since there was always family around so she decided to just have some alone time.

It was Friday night and the familiar red and black Netflix logo was on the TV. Roshi was in her pajamas scrolling through the options. She realized she never finished the British show she started on the plane. The last thing she remembered was that the main couple was fighting. Sounded familiar.

As she was watching the show she saw a notification come up on her phone. She looked at it to see it was a WhatsApp notification. And it was from Dev. She sat up on the sofa.

Let me know when you guys leave my house then I'll come home after. I don't wanna make it awkward for you.

Roshi realized Dev didn't know she wasn't at his house for dinner. She decided there was no reason to not tell him.

I didn't go to your house, I'm at my house

She saw Dev was typing, and then quickly sent his two letter reply.

Ok

She saw him immediately go offline. She sat there staring at his message. He sounded defeated. Had he given up on them? His letter sounded as if he'd never give up, but the fact that he hadn't reached out after she was back in town and his response now wanting to avoid her made it seem like he had.

She scrolled back up and looked at the last week of messages he sent her, after she found out their meaning from his letter. They were all poems. Poems he wrote. She never even knew he liked to write. He never told her.