Mazhai.

Mazhai... (Rain)

xxxxxxxx

The first time they meet, she is running down an alley in the pitch black, and his car is big enough to be smack dab in the middle of it even without trying to, and his headlights are off so she doesn't really see it.

Not atleast until she's too close and has to slam her hands over the bonnet to stop herself from crashing through his windshield. He raises a hand to turn the interior lights on and her eyes are on his eyes, and they are brown and warm and bewildered yet shocked and there's something about the almond shape of them that gives away his ethnicity. Indian, her heart sighs and her lungs exhale, and suddenly she feels a dozen times safer.

Because she's not in India, but she's dressed like one, and a racist white asshole had just decided that that meant she was giving away free groping rights.

She wasn't.

And when she had tried to tell him to eff off because why the hell not, he had decided he would chase her through the streets with his gang of equally racist a-holes.

She would have been fine with it all, really. Except, she didn't really know these streets. She was only visiting this part of town for the sake of this pre Diwali bash that her Uncle had thought she would enjoy, and she simply hadn't had the heart to refuse. He had already spent the money on the tickets anyways.

So she'd made her little cousin brother tag along, and eventually it had been fun enough that she'd sent the kid home alone in his car when the party had moved to the bar down the street from the Community Hall hosting the bash.

Mistake. Clearly. But still.

The whirrrr of the automated window on his side being lowered pulls her back to the present, and she clutches her purse tighter in her hand to drive away the pain, thanking the Gods above she never lets it leave her hands (ever,) when she's outside of the house. Slowly, she walks around to the passenger's side window, eyes fixed on his own, the shock in them being replaced by curiosity and confusion.

She knocks on it, and he lowers it too, and the first thing she asks probably makes her just as racist and a hypocrite too, but she doesn't care in the moment. "Indian?" Her voice is shaky. He nods, and her eyes catch on the v shaped furrow in his brows as she nods to herself, letting herself release a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding in.

"Can I trust you?", she asks, and his shoulders are still tense but his face relaxes, and he nods, then tells her again with words. "Yes, yes, you can." He waits a breath, then, he's reaching to press a button, and she hears the click of the door unlocking, and "Get in", but it is more request than soft spoken command.

She gets in slowly, methodically. Her hand reaches out for the handle, then the door is open, and one foot in before the other, clothes out of the way of the door, and then she pulls the door closed.

The light seems harsher inside the car, and she shuts her eyes tight, sure she's going to give herself a headache today. He seems to understand because he turns it off, and then there is silence for a moment before he talks again. "Do you want to go to a police station?" She breathes. In. Out. No. Too many complications. Her Uncle worrying. Her cousin in trouble. Her parents a half world away and wanting to support her but still not being able to keep from judging her circumstances.