25. 🍸 Side Car 2.0

**KEKE**

***One and a half years ago***

Krish says, “My father chose my bride and arranged the details before he died. I’ve known since I was eighteen.”
My body turns to ice. “What?!”
“Lower your voice, Keke. Someone will hear you.”
For four years I’ve hidden in the shadows. For four years I’ve not breathed a word to anyone except my family that I love this man…
My family.
During my last extensive conversation with my parents, we spoke in G-rated language that produced an R-rated hurt. They disowned me for living in sin with a man not of my race or religion. My dad said I was all but going to hell while my mother cried in the background.
When I’d hung up, I dusted my hands of the two people who brought me into this world.
All for a man and his promises.
I want to shout. Break things. Slap his face.
Then I think of Krish’s family who has become my own. They have been nothing but kind. Treating me as a cherished member while my parents estranged themselves.
They’ll never know how their son and brother used me and cast me aside.
Not from my mouth.
I love them too much to taint their view of Krish, and love in my book means protecting those you care for.
“Say something, Keke. Tell me I’m an ass. Tell me I disgust you.” A ghost of his charming smile touches his lips, tainted by the self-loathing in his eyes that can’t even begin to mirror mine.
I go numb, hardly recognizing my voice. The tone is that of a robot fresh from the assembly line. “For over eleven years you were... assigned to someone else, yet you strung me along with promises of a future?” My register changes to do a damn good imitation of him. “Keke, you’re amazing. Keke, I want you always. Keke, you’re the only one for me.” I shake my head, trying to reconcile the man I love with the player he turned out to be.
At this moment I can’t, but maybe in a few nevers’ time.
Krish’s eyes flit to mine before resting on the headboard. The very one we had to move to keep it from slapping against the wall when we made love.
Love.
What a joke.
A joke on me.
“You have every right to hate me, Keke. I wanted to be with you... forever. I tried... I can’t.”
I look at him in disbelief. I’ve sacrificed more than my soul to be with him and in ten minutes, he has destroyed everything. Destroyed us.
I hung on his promises of telling his mother, his family, the world, I was his. He always said he was biding his time, waiting for the right moment.
And like a fool, I believed him.
Getting shot was the roughest time of my life. My lowest point. Not only had my best friend disappeared for parts unknown, I had months of recovery ahead of me. My parents stuck by my side. They never wavered in their belief, their faith, that I would one day walk again. Mom gave up her job to be at the hospital during the day and Dad came every evening, sleeping on a lumpy bed just so I wouldn’t wake up alone.
After all that, their sacrifice… their patience… their understanding, I gave it up for a love I thought was true and everlasting.
And Krish chose his family over me.
Now, I’m not a basic bitch who can’t understand a person’s customs or religion. Krish sees it as his duty to marry his family’s choice.
What I don’t get and what I can’t forgive, is how he never told me about his obligation. I had a right to know before we hooked up. I had a right to make an informed choice.
That’s why the ache is so deep in my heart.
And the anger I feel towards him shakes my entire being with rage.
To my parents’ credit, they raised my brother and me in a strict religious home. We couldn’t curse or even wish our enemies ill. As an adult, I rarely do. For this event, though, I forget my upbringing and let the harsh words fly, “Fuck you, Krish, and damn you to hell. Just go. Leave. Enjoy your life without me.”
He reaches out, his eyes as lost as my love for him. I jerk my leg away before he can touch it with his traitorous hands.
In one move he stands, heading for the door. Knowing me as well as he does, it is the best option for him if he wants to keep his balls intact.
Krish stops and leans against the door, his eyes hooded from the glare in my own. “There was never a show, Keke. I’m leaving this afternoon to attend my fiancée’s graduation ceremony from Brown University on Friday. We’ll marry by the end of the year.”
Before he turns the handle, he kills me with, “I love you, Keke. I always will.”
He leaves, shutting me and the child I had to discover, out of his life for good.


I’m packing the last articles into my toiletry bag when Suda, Krish’s mother comes to say goodbye.
A regal woman with an imposing air, Suda was a famous Bollywood actress before she married Krish’s father, Vihaan, a telecoms king. He had jumped early onto the cell-phone bandwagon and parlayed a two-thousand-rupee investment into a billion-dollar empire in less than twenty years. He then moved the family from Jaipur to Dubai to get in on the real estate deals. He died when Krish turned twenty-one. Through our conversations about his father, it was Krish’s greatest dream to become the man his father wanted and to make him proud.
I missed the writing on the wall. A man from Krish’s culture and background could no more go against his family’s wishes than I could abide by mine. Funny how we’re all human, yet who we are and how we grow up makes us more different than night from day.
Suda holds a cup of tea, and by its fragrance, I know it is her special brew. We often shared a cup after she came to say good night to her grandkids.
“I made you this. One last cup before you go.” Her deep brown eyes water. “I will miss you, Keke. You have been a great help to my daughter and the boys.”
Her daughter, Ganika, is a flighty girl-woman, more concerned about shopping than her children and it was no wonder the boys clung to me like vines. I hated to leave them.
Especially when in a little over seven months, I’d give birth to a cousin they’ll probably never get to know.
I drink the tea as we talk, mostly about the boys and the fun times we had. Much like at Arjun’s and Sachi’s place, I was part of the help but Suda never treated me as such. Neither did her daughter... or her son.
Damn, I love him still.
Krish did me dirty in a thousand ways. I should hate him.
It’s just a damn shame love just doesn’t leave overnight.
“No need to thank me, Suda. I was just doing my duty.”
My duty…
Krish.
In the past, Suda tolerated Krish’s artistic side, but she has never given up hope he would one day take over his father’s business. It seems everything is going her way as she announced Krish’s engagement during a celebration last week. After the wedding, he plans to take the lead of his father’s company.
To share the news, the family organized a celebration for friends, family and the workers.
And on that morning, I learned I was pregnant with Krish’s child.
I could only describe my emotions as all over the place. I was smiling one moment and crying the next. When Suda came to get Anik and Ajay, the two little boys I took care of, I made up some excuse why I couldn’t attend. Having to wear a fake mask of happiness during the party for Krish’s new life made bile rise to the top of my throat.
That was two weeks ago. Two weeks to the day Krish left for the States and I gave my notice.
I’m leaving and not looking back.
I want nothing from Krish. Nor his family. My child and I will make it on our own.
Of that, I’m certain.