“What if we just forgot about everyone else?” I say. “We could live together. Just you and I.”
I angle my face forward. I want to touch her nose with mine, reach for her petal lips. But I am afraid I might offend her.
“Live together?” She looks past me, like she is seriously considering the idea. Then, as if it were the most natural, practiced move, she hooks an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. “Just you and I,” she says. “Do you know how many times I have thought of that?” Her breath is warm on my skin, her palm flat on my waist. She looks at my hair, my eyes, my mouth, and I feel like my heart might burst in my chest: I, who have never been looked at before. I, who have looked and looked from afar, too fearful to hope for more.
“Just you and I,” Farzana repeats, slipping her leg between mine and drawing my mouth to hers. “I would have liked that, Bela. Oh, how I would have liked that.”
17. I lie awake into the early hours of morning, Farzana sleeping next to me. The sky turns blush behind the parapet, a flock of mynahs chirps in the distance. I can hear the sounds of the street coming alive below. Under the peepal tree in the corner, the clang of the iron kettle from the chai-wallah’s cart where Farzana and I used to sip on weak tea, dipping our fingers into the sugar silted at the bottom. In the gully leading out to the main road, the chatter of grocers setting up their wares. We used to link arms as we navigated the shoal of customers on market days, pinching our noses against the tang of raw meat. A stray dog howls in the distance. Farzana was always afraid of the strays, convinced that one of them would rip Nabeela-Jameela to pieces. In the end, the never-dying cats were crushed under a learner’s bicycle while sunbathing outside the gate, just weeks after our parents allowed us to be friends again. How I ached in those days, despite our reunion. After mulling over the idea for a fortnight, I had decided to ask Farzana if she would consider returning to the third floor with me. But the news about the cats lashed my courage to shreds. This is all a silly fantasy, I told myself. Ridiculous and weird, just as Farzana had said. Why would she ever want to go back to that room of discards with me?