From Twinkle, with Love
Page 45

Mummy didn’t exactly tell me, but what if the steps you’re taking to make things right just make things wronger? What are you supposed to do then?
Huh. I hear footsteps. Wonder who’s coming down the path.
Love,
Twinkle
Twenty
Thursday, June 25
My room

Dear Mira Nair, It makes me laugh now that I thought my life sucked before. Haha, Universe. Joke’s on me. I get it.
Where do I even begin with chronicling this train wreck? Where?
Oh, yes. The path and the footsteps. It turned out those belonged to none other than Sahil, who came to sit by me on the boulder. I scooted over and wrapped my arms around my waist.
“You cold?” He immediately took off his hoodie and set it around my shoulders.
I protested, but only mildly, because it smelled incredible, like lemon and stars and boy. And it was also very, very warm. I pulled the sleeves over my fingers and moved close to him, so our thighs were touching. “Thanks. You’re so warm.”
“Sure.” Sahil put an arm around me for good measure. He should hire himself out as a portable heater for outdoor spaces. “Things didn’t go so well with Maddie?”
I glanced up at him. “You saw that?”
“A little bit of it, not much.”
“Yeah. She wasn’t interested in accepting my apology. I’m not who she thought I was or some such.”
He pulled me closer, and I let my head fall against his chest. “That doesn’t seem very fair. Especially since Maddie has changed so much over the past year.”
I looked at him. “Right? That’s what I said. It’s not just me?”
“Psh, no way. I mean, even I could see it, and I rarely speak to Maddie.”
“Exactly! And she was all, ‘How could you do those interviews with my friends, blah, blah.’”
“Wait, the interviews at the cabin?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You know, the ones you set up?”
“Yeah … but we talked about it that night. I thought you decided not to use those.”
“No, we’re definitely using those. And we’re not editing anything out either, even though I know you told Maddie we were.” I scrunched up the sleeves of his hoodie in my fists.
“But … you wanted to apologize to everyone for the way you acted.”
“I did. I do.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t have anything to do with the interviews, though.”
When I saw his face change, I added, “Don’t worry, most of them told me to air that at the festival. They’re—they’re vicious, Sahil. They’re not like us.”
He was still looking at me, and he pursed his lips.
“What?” I asked, getting a little annoyed at the look on his face. Why couldn’t he just agree with me?
“Maybe one or two of them have had their unpleasant moments. But for the most part? They’ve been great at working with us. You just told me you’ve even begun to consider some of them your friends. I saw you and Victoria out there. I was looking around while you were making your speech. Francesca? Lewis? Taylor? Sherie? They were all so excited and happy for you. I’m pretty sure they all consider you their friend too.”
“So just because they consider me their friend I shouldn’t tell the truth about them? I should be hypocritical?” I asked, feeling my temper rising. “It’s because I’m their friend that I have to do this, Sahil. They need to see themselves unmasked. And you know what? After this? I won’t be invisible anymore. I won’t be that disposable wallflower Twinkle Mehra. Everyone will realize I have important things to say and that they should listen to me.”
“I’m not saying you don’t have important things to say,” Sahil said, his face serious. “And I’m not saying that they haven’t done bad things. Some of them are downright jerks. But do you want to stoop to their level? Do you want to risk all the friendships you have made, all the minds you have changed? Is this the type of art you want to create? Because when we first talked, T, you were all about empowering people. About breaking glass ceilings to champion the underdogs, about speaking pure truths.” He shrugged. “So maybe this isn’t about revenge anymore. Maybe this is about speaking the truth. But still. It … it doesn’t feel pure. It doesn’t feel like you.”
I stared at him, arguments dying in my head. Was he … right? Had I completely lost sight of my art, of why I was doing all of this to begin with? What would I achieve by showing people at their worst? If I wanted to empower people, to make them feel included and seen, this definitely wasn’t the right way.
So maybe … maybe Maddie was right too. Just because those people had lost their heads at the party, just because they’d gotten mad at each other, didn’t mean I should air their secrets and grudges publicly. I thought about all the fights and arguments Maddie and I have had, all the things I’d said about her to other people like Dadi and Sahil and Skid and Aaron. What if someone recorded those and then aired them at the festival for everyone else to see? For Maddie to see? How would I feel?
I put a hand to my mouth. “Oh my God,” I said softly. How had I turned into such a monster? How had I become this person who couldn’t even see what she was doing was so blatantly wrong? And after I’d apologized to Lewis and the others, too.
Sahil smiled softly down at me. “It’s okay, T,” he said. “We all make mistakes.”
“I can’t believe I … I couldn’t even see it, though.” I blew out a breath and looked at the stars glittering in the lake. “I think I was beginning to lose myself there, Sahil.”
“That’s okay,” Sahil said gently. “Because I’ll always be here to find you.”
I looked back at him. At his deep, kind brown eyes. Those bushy eyebrows. That strong, stubble-dotted jaw. “Why are you so nice to me?” I asked, my heart racing. I brought one hand up to stroke his jaw, his chin, his chest and, without even thinking about it, moved even closer to him.
“Because, in case you haven’t figured it out,” he murmured, cupping my face with one big hand. He brought his face closer; his lips brushed mine. “I’m a total fool for you.”
In the distance, I heard, “Yo, Neil! You made it!”
I jumped back. Sahil stared at me, his hand now cupping empty air instead of my face. “Are you okay?”
“Fine!” I said, smiling brightly. “I just … I have to go do something.”
“Right … right now?” His eyebrows were raised all disbelievingly.
“Yes. But! We’ll pick up where we left off, okay? I promise. Sahil, I’m ready now. To take things forward between us.” I held his gaze.
A slow smile spread across his face. “Really?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“Really.” I took a deep breath, got up, and handed his hoodie back to him. Going up to Neil wearing his brother’s hoodie just felt wrong.
It was time. It was time to end this whole N thing once and for all. I had made my decision. Part of the shiny, future Twinkle dream or not, Neil wasn’t someone I wanted to be with. He was something I’d thought I desperately needed for a while. I’d needed to believe I was meant for bigger, better things, and the only way I’d known how to do that was to invent this love interest for myself who was bigger and better than me. But now I saw it: Neil wasn’t bigger and better than me. He wasn’t bigger and better than Sahil. He was just him, and we were just us. Sahil was the one for me. Sahil was the only one who made sense.
I had taken only a few steps when I heard crunching footsteps and then Brij was suddenly in front of me. I glanced at Sahil in confusion to find him watching us curiously. “Uh, hey, Brij,” I said. “I’m in a little bit of a hurry now, but we’ll talk later—”
“Twinkle, wait.” He was looking at me weirdly, his almost-black eyes bright and intense. He licked his lips and tucked his hands into his camo jacket. “I have to tell you something.” He glanced at Sahil. “Hey, Sahil.”
“Hey, Nath.”