Sitara Khanna, a twenty eight year old librarian, is an acid attack survivor. With a half burnt face but a heart full of determination and calibers to survive in the world, she missed a certain element in her life. Love.
Yash Chaudhary, a twenty ni...
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I can't stop smiling as I sit in my mother's car on our way home. I probably look like an idiot but I don't care.
"What were you thinking, Yash?" she sighs.
"I was thinking I'd take the bus home."
"Yourself."
I can't even be irritated with her. I feel too good about what just happened. Sitara doesn't have a boyfriend. She walked me to the bus stop. And when I suggested going to that bakery/café with her, she said, "Sure." I was seconds away from asking for her number when my mother appeared. I'm upset we got interrupted, but it's not a big deal. I'll ask her later.
"Yes, myself," I say with a shrug.
I hear my mother hit the blinker seconds before she makes a right turn. I listen for that sound now, because it makes the car rides less jarring. Although going through rotaries still makes me sick, as well as some of the crazy turns. I never fully appreciated what a damn mess the roads are on the southern part until I lost my vision.
"Sitara got me three new books," I tell her. "I'm going to try to read them in the next week."
There's a silence. It's at least a minute before my mother says, "Do you talk to Sitara a lot at the library?"
"A fair amount," I say, unable to suppress my dopey grin. "She's nice."
"Yes, she is nice," Ma agrees. "But... has she told you about herself?"
"A little bit," I say thoughtfully. I search my brain for facts Sitara told me about herself. "She's from Chandigarh. And she's Punjabi."
"Did she... tell you anything else?"
I don't know what Ma is getting at. "Like what?"
"Like..." I hear the blinker again, followed by a slow turn. "About her life?"
"I guess not," I admit. She's right—I know very little about Sitara. I wish I did. I want to know everything about her. I want to talk to her all night until the sun comes up or something cheesy like that. "We mostly talk about books, honestly. And while we were walking to the bus stop, she showed me this bakery that smelled amazing. We're going to... I mean, I want to try it sometime. And... you know, she'd come with me... maybe."
And now I'm smiling like an idiot again.
"Yash..." Ma sighs. She sounds like she's going to tell me not to get my hopes up. That Sitara is probably just being nice to me because she's a nice person and she feels sorry for me. But that's not it. I know it.
"What, Ma?"
She's quiet for another minute. "I don't think I've seen you look so happy since you've been home."
"That's not true," I say, even though I know she's right.
"It is," she insists.
"Well..." I shrug. "Maybe I'm finally getting, you know, adjusted."
