Avasa (Part II)

I wake up. I can't move. Drab green walls again. And bandages. Lots of bandages. And beeping. And my body is aching all over.

"You're up," smiles Avi. She takes my hand and kisses my nose lightly. She sits next to me on the bed, fondling my hair.

I have a vague recollection of the previous night's events. "Where's Saima?" I ask. "And Moe?"

"Saima's packing your suitcase," she says. "Moe's gone to book us a couple of tickets. I'm getting you out of here."

This takes a minute to sink in. "How?" I ask.

"I talked to the doctor," she continues. "He says you'll get discharged tomorrow night. You're hurt, but there aren't any broken bones or internal bleeding. We can leave before your parents get back."

"Are you serious?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Do Nandini and Debbie know?"

"No. I thought I shouldn't bother them."

"How did you find out?"

"Your sister called me last night," she says. "I called Mohan and we took the next flight. Got here in a couple of hours." She looks out the window for a second. "Saima was amazingly calm. She found you, called an ambulance, checked you into the hospital. I was a wreck by the time I got here. I cried all the way on the flight. Saima and Moe kept me together."

I silently say a prayer of thanks for Saima and Mohan. "Do my parents know?"

"No," she says. "We kept it very hush-hush. We've told the doctors not to tell anyone. They understand. They know what it's like."

"Avi," I say, not sure where to start. There are so many things I want to tell her. I raise my hand to her face, and stroke her cheek. She buries her face in my palm and kisses it tenderly.

"Don't say anything," she says, covering my hand with hers.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I shouldn't have left you alone like that. It's just, I didn't want to see you get hurt."

"I know that, Nadya."

"I know I don't have any right to expect anything of you after the way I treated you. But I need you to know that regardless of how you feel, I still love you. Always."

Without a word, she gets inside the bed with me, and slips an arm around me, careful not to disturb my bandages and bruises. She cups my face in her hands and kisses my lips gently. "I was going to leave India," she says. "In fact, a few hours before your sister called me, I was just about catch the flight to Michigan. My bags were packed and everything. I was going to say goodbye to this country and to you forever."

I wait for her to continue.

"But I couldn't do it. I wanted to see you one last time. So I cancelled the flight. And two hours later, Saima called me. And I knew it then. I knew that you needed me just as much as I need you. I knew that I can't live without you. You see, I love you, too. Always."

Last night's events are coming back to me. "It was Yasir," I mumble.

Her lower lip is quivering with anger. "I know. Saima didn't see him but she guessed it was him. Son of a bitch. The problem is, we don't even have any way of proving anything. No-one saw them. Moe thinks prosecution will be a waste of time...and Saima thinks your parents won't even agree to it because it's 'in the family'."

She stares out into space. "If I ever see the bastards who did this to you...I will fucking kill them. I had sworn I would never let this happen to you...not after what I went through...I had promised myself that I would protect you, and I didn't."

I'm a little more awake now. I stare at her face quizzically. "What you went through?"

"Why do you think Bhai and I left India, Nadya?" she asks sadly. "When it happened to me, I was just eleven. It was a family member. Bhai was still young and my parents had died. All sorts of horrible scandals were being spread in the family. The police was useless. Everyone had shut us out. But he wanted me to live my life...so he went to Michigan and took me with him."

It all makes sense now. Why she's so strong and self-reliant. Why she wants to take care of me. She's been burned, just like me. And she's a survivor.

"Avi," I look at her longingly. My arms are aching too much, otherwise I would hold her in them. "Stay with me. Take me with you. Take me home."

She doesn't say anything, and we gaze at each other for a while. Then she gets up and locks the door of the room. She comes back, and starts unbuttoning my hospital gown, very gently so that I don't feel any pain. She pulls it to the side, so that she can see my body, the naked swell of my breasts, my black and blue skin. She peppers my entire body with soft, gentle kisses -- so carefully, so tenderly. She doesn't leave even an inch of my skin uncovered with kisses.

The pain is already beginning to subside. I am moaning her name. She is promising that she will save me. I never want this moment to end.

This is not sex. This is better than sex. This is an intimacy that I know I will never have with anyone except her.

******

I often wonder, how do you tell your lover exactly how much you love her? I mean, it isn't really something you can measure, right? For one thing, I don't even think it's a finite quantity, at least not for me. Nothing you say will ever do justice to what you're really feeling.

And it ticks me off, because it leaves me feeling unfulfilled and frustrated.

And usually I can deal with it, but there are some moments where the tenderness pent up inside me is so intense that I think I'm going explode. Like right now. I'm lying awake in bed, and staring at her. She isn't moving. She is fast asleep. I'm aching to touch her, but I don't want to wake her. So I'll content myself by just gazing at her...her beautiful cropped hair flopping over her heart-shaped, slightly freckled face, her chiselled nose, her corrugated, fierce eyebrows, her pronounced cheekbones, her soft pink lips, her closed eyes, the corners of which crinkle whenever she smiles.

She is my warrior, my rock, my truth. Avasa -- her name means 'independence.' Dark circles lie under her long eyelashes, reminding me of everything we've been through together. I AM, because of HER, and every time I close my eyes and remember, it only serves to reinforce how she validates my very existence.

We've been living together in Michigan ever since we left that day. She's going to law school, and I'm studying social development. Nandini and Debbie call us often. She and Deb still perform with other bands. Nandini and Samir are finally living happily ever after.

Mohan and my sister got married -- which I find sooo cute -- and last I heard, he's been trying to convince her that Velcro is really part of a larger scheme to increase noise pollution and snag perfectly good clothes, and anyone who doesn't agree with him is just jaded. I suspect the honeymoon has been interesting.

My parents don't speak to me any more. I believe they publically disavowed knowing me. I was heartbroken. I wrote them letters. I don't think they ever read them. I've given up on it now.

Avi and I -- well, we're closer than ever. I don't think I could've survived what happened without her. She went with me to every single therapy session. I have never been so scared in my life...but she gives me a reason to keep living.

She proposed to me soon after we got here. We got married in Vermont. The sex keeps getting better. She lets me top more often now. It's all very new to me, though. I mean, she even asked *me* to strap it on a couple of times...now what is THAT about?

She stirs. I think she's waking up. I lean over and kiss her neck. She puts her arm around my back, letting me get on top of her. "Morning," I whisper. She smiles at me, and we kiss.

I move down her body, kissing her breasts through her T-shirt, my hands on her waist. She starts breathing faster. I can hear her heartbeat.

"Babe," she's saying, her sleepy eyes so full of love.

"Hmmm?" I murmur.

"I just had the weirdest dream."

"Yeah?" I ask, lifting up her shirt and kissing her stomach.

"I dreamt that we were back in India...you, me, Saima, Mohan, Nandini, Debbie and Samir."

"Really?" I push her shirt further up to reveal her bare breasts.

"Yeah, we'd just finished a reunion concert."

I take her nipples into my mouth hungrily.

She smiles blissfully. "I was teaching in a college. You were a human rights activist."

I look up at her and start kissing her chin and neck. "What else?"

"We'd all pooled in money, and started running an orphanage."

I let my hands squeeze her breasts. She moans. "And what happened at the end?"

"I don't know." She squints, as if trying to remember. "It didn't say."

I kiss her eyes. "So it could be a happy or sad ending."

"It's a fifty-fifty even split."

"Do you think it's worth the risk?"

She wraps her arms around my back tightly. "For me, anything's worth it if it might make your dreams come true." She rolls me over so that she is above me, and kisses my mouth. "I know you want to go back to India, Nadya. I know you want to go back so badly that it hurts. When the furor has died down, we'll go."

"You mean that?"

"You know I would go anywhere you go." She kisses the tip of my nose. "You've been watching me sleep for the last hour, Nadya. What've you been thinking?"

I'm blushing. "Something I can't really put into words." Does she even know just how much I love her?

"I can make a good guess," she says impishly. Then, she gazes into my eyes and says, simply, "I know."

******

THE END

GLOSSARY
Bhai (pronounced bhaa-ee): term of endearment meaning "brother"
Desi (pronounced day-see): used to describe anything and anyone that is part of Indian or Pakistani culture
Yaar (pronounced yaar): a close friend, colloquially, the Hindi equivalent of "dude"
Beta (pronounced bay-taa): child, term of affection used by parents to address children
Qawwali (pronounced kuvv-aali): a special type of Sufi music
Jori (pronounced joe-ree): couple
Shalwar (pronounced shull-waar): a type of baggy trouser that women wear
Kameez (pronounced kuh-meez): a type of shirt that women wear, sometimes sleeveless, which has slits on the sides and comes down to the knees; worn with a shalwar
Dupatta (pronounced du-putt-taa): a kind of long scarf that a woman wears around her neck; worn with shalwar kameez

NAMES
Arjun (pronounced Ur-jun)
Avasa (pronounced Uh-vaa-saa)
Deborah (well, you know this one :-) )
Gauri (pronounced Gaw-ree)
Mohan (pronounced Moe-haan)
Nadya (pronounced Naad-ee-yaa)
Nandini (pronounced Nun-dih-nee)
Saima (pronounced Saa-im-aa)
Samir (pronounced Suh-meer)
Yasir (pronounced Yaa-sir)