I looked back and forth between the submit button and the list of items I needed.
Maybe I’ll just check one last time. Just to be sure. I checked again. Then I double checked. And triple checked. Priya, you’re being ridiculous! Just hit submit!
I hovered my mouse over the button.
One last time—
No! One, two, three, GO!
I clicked the trackpad on my laptop and gasped, immediately retracting my hand, my heart pounding as I watched the spinning wheel on my laptop transform into a message. “Congratulations! Your application has been submitted.”
I couldn’t help the wide grin that spread across my face.
When I checked the time, I saw that I needed to start getting ready. I closed my laptop, turned on my speaker, and started blasting my Dance Songs playlist, Cardi B’ voice coming through my speaker. I looked around my room and saw the horrendous mess that covered it.
Shit. If mom sees this, she’ll flip.
I started picking up clothes and throwing them into my closet, rapping along to the song. It was pretty vulgar when I thought about it. Elli always told me I was an enigma. She said I presented as so demure, but I was the most sarcastic person she knew with the most explicit music in my playlists.
As if she could hear my thoughts, Elli texted me.
Elli: What are you wearing tonight?
Priya: IDK. What do you wear to a NYE party?
The screen glowed with her face as she FaceTimed me, my music fading into the background.
“Sequins. Wear a lot of sequins and glitter, and just sparkle like a disco ball,” she said. I grimaced.
“The only clothes I have with sequins are my Indian outfits.”
“Oh! Wear one of the long-sleeved tops with high-waisted jeans! Do you have your thigh-high boots?”
I immediately thought of a velvet Lehenga top I had that was lightly speckled with gold sequins and slightly longer than most of the others. It was still cropped, but it looked more like a crop-top than a Lehenga choli.
“Yeah, tell me if this looks good,” I said. I pulled it out of the closet and set my phone down to put it on with a pair of black jeans.
“What’s your mom doing tonight?” Elli asked while I changed.
“She’s going to a New Year’s Eve party at her gym buddy’s house.”
“That’s so cute. I wish my parents had friends to hang out with. They’re just going to watch the ball drop, but not even according to West Coast time. They’re probably going to just watch the East Coast one at nine o’clock and call it a night.”
I could hear Elli’s eye roll as she dissed her parents. Whenever our parents used to have dinner together, Mr. and Mrs. Martinez always left by nine because it was “getting late,” and they meant it.
Where Elli got her wild side from, I had no idea.
“Okay, how does this look?” I asked her, adjusting the hooks on my blouse and holding up my phone so she could see my reflection in the mirror that hung on my closet door.
“Damn, baby girl! You look hot! Aaron is a lucky boy.”
I smiled, looking at myself in the mirror. The outfit looked a little wrong, but I figured I could cover up with a jacket or something and make it look more Western and appropriate.
Aaron is a lucky boy. Elli’s words echoed in my head.
“Should I wear a skirt and tights instead?” I asked, surprising even myself.
“Someone’s going wild tonight. Hell yeah, you should!” Elli whooped. I smiled as I went back into my closet and pulled out a high-waisted black skirt. It seemed like a lot of black, but I thought it looked good.
I put the skirt on, and once it was adjusted, I was shocked at my reflection in the mirror.
“DAY-um,” Elli exclaimed, and for the first time, I felt how right she was.
I looked good. I looked sexy, but also my age. I didn’t look like I was trying too hard or overdressed. In fact, I felt like I was a teenager, like I was enjoying my life, and the welcome overflow of emotions was almost too much to handle.
“All right, how should I do my hair?” I asked.
“I wish you had cut it before tonight, but that can be a ‘new year, new you’ kind of thing. What about a nice bun so you can wear hoops?” she suggested, and I loved it.
“’Kay. I’ll see you later.”
“Byeee,” Elli whined. I laughed as I hung up on her, my music resuming its normal volume.
Aptly, “Feeling Myself” was playing, and I rapped along with Nicki.
As I was finishing up my eye makeup, my mom appeared in my bathroom doorway. She had her hair up in her usual professional bun. She had on a red V-neck sweater and black ankle pants. My mom was a very simple woman when she wasn’t getting dressed up for an Indian party or going to work.
I paused my makeup application to watch her analyze my outfit. I wanted to pull my skirt down and make my shirt longer and tell her I was going to change. I could see the desire to nag swarming inside her; I was about to say I was going to change, but she beat me to the speaking part.
“I’m heading out now. What time do you think you’ll be home?” she asked.
“Um, around twelve-thirty?” I said and she nodded.
“Have fun. You know the rules,” she said. Then she turned away and walked out of the room.
That’s it? I thought, stunned. No lecture on my outfit? No shaming me for looking trashy instead of classy? No lecture on the rules I already know?
I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to understand my mom’s odd behavior. Then, hurrying to catch her before she left, I set my mascara down and walked to the staircase just as she was opening the door.
“Love you, Mama. Have fun. You know the rules,” I joked.
She looked up at me with a laugh that lit up her eyes, and a genuine smile spread across her lips. “Love you more,” she said before leaving the house.
I walked back to my bathroom, my face splitting with a smile as I felt the pieces of my life fitting together correctly. It was strange to be living like a teenager, strange to believe I was a teenager, but it felt right.
“Did I not feel right?”
It was Dimitri’s voice. I sighed, closing my eyes. It wasn’t the first time. That familiar voice had been popping up in my head randomly for the past two weeks, ever since the day I told Aaron about my diagnosis. It wasn’t often enough to be worried, and I knew not to reply. It was just… residual symptoms that might never go away. They were probably just my thoughts wandering, not an outside voice at all.
So I ignored it and continued doing my makeup and styling my hair. Once I had my earrings in, I stood back to admire my work.
You look good, Priya. Enjoy the night.
I grabbed my keys and a cardigan and sent Aaron a quick text that I would be at his house soon. I knew he probably wanted to have at least one drink that night, and I didn’t mind driving. Behind the wheel was almost a happy place for me. Besides, I couldn’t even drink if I wanted to because of my medication, which I took on a nightly basis. There was a clear warning label. “Do not mix with alcohol.” I wasn’t about to test it and see why that label was there.
As I drove down the familiar roads to Aaron’s house, I thought back to the day a week earlier when I officially met his parents as his girlfriend.
Ms. Chen knew me from class, but she asked questions about my personal life that would have been out of place if we were in school. After some digging, we found out she had had my sister in her class nine years ago. Aaron’s dad was surprisingly engaged in the conversation. It was a shock to my system seeing a dad so involved in conversation at a family dinner.
The topic of my parents came up, of course, but when I had to talk about my dad, I found myself getting closed off. It usually wasn’t a topic I had a hard time talking about, but I felt myself getting insecure and defensive of my mom’s situation. I knew what the aunties in the Indian community said about my mom at gurudwara, temple, whenever she went. She still had some friends there, but going wasn’t the same since my dad left. Whenever people brought up my dad or when those aunties saw my mom, their eyes told a story of sadness, pity, and sympathy, as if my family needed their strength to go on.
“What does your dad do?” Ms. Chen asked.
“I think he does something in accounting, but he and my mom got a divorce when I was six. I haven’t spoken to him in almost eleven years,” I said, hoping it would end the conversation.
“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” Ms. Chen said, and I had to count down from five to keep myself from making a scene or having an unfortunate reaction. The fact of the matter was, having my dad out of our lives was a blessing, and for some reason, I had the sudden urge to make that known.
“It’s totally fine. My family is doing really well. I don’t have any ill wishes toward him, but I think it was the best thing that could have happened,” I said, not looking up and taking a bite of the fish on my plate. I commented on how delicious it was, but the air was still tense.
Finally, the conversation shifted thanks to Mr. Chen changing the subject, and I was grateful for his intervention.
After dinner, Aaron’s parents cleaned up, insisting that Aaron give me a tour of the house, and I felt the desire to open up to him more about my dad.
“I was never really a daddy’s girl, ya know?” I said abruptly as Aaron and I lounged in his room—the bedroom door open, of course. I don’t think Aaron expected me to come into his room because the floor was riddled with clothes, his cross-country bag, and even some books. We lay on his bed, heads pointed in opposite directions. I gazed at the white walls in his room, which were decorated with prints and posters of his graphic designs. Aaron hummed at my random break of silence and let me continue without responding, but he felt around on the bed until he found my hand and grabbed it.
“My dad had a heavy drinking problem, ever since I was born,” I explained. “I remember one time, my parents were arguing downstairs, and my sister was with me upstairs, trying to keep me entertained and as oblivious as possible to what they were talking about. I remember the conversation as clear as day, though. My dad drank too much that night, of course, and picked a stupid fight with my mom over why she allowed me to be such a menace. My mom is a total pacifist now, but when she was in that marriage, she was constantly being triggered. That night, my dad was yelling about something stupid I’d done, I can’t remember what, but I remember specifically my dad saying I was a curse. He said they were supposed to stop after my sister, and that he had never wanted me.” I let out a nervous chuckle, and Aaron’s hand squeezed mine.
“My mom shouted back at him and said that if he didn’t want to be in my life, if he didn’t want to be in our lives, he was more than welcome to leave. And lo and behold, a few days later, I came home from school with my sister to find my dad was gone. It was just a few months after that when the divorce papers came, and he was out of our lives for good. I think he tried to keep in contact with my sister, but a few years later, we found out he remarried and started a new family. She cut him out as well.”
Silence fell between us, but it wasn’t awkward, uncomfortable, or even bad. Aaron was just digesting the information I’d told him.
“Priya?” he said eventually.
“Hmm?”
“You’re the strongest girl I know. Not sure what you’re writing in your personal essay, but you’ve got plenty to write about that will get you into Berkeley. Just saying, that story almost brought me to tears.” I laughed as I turned to my side and shoved him. He smiled as he sat up and looked down at me, untangling our hands. I leaned up, rested my weight on my right hand, and looked at him. He resumed talking.
“I know you don’t need to hear all that cheesy ‘you’re so strong, you’re a blessing, blah, blah, blah,’ crap. I know you know all that, but I do admire your strength. And thank you for telling me.”
I smiled. I was falling harder and harder for him.
“Wow, your room is way cleaner than last time,” I commented when I walked into Aaron’s room, marveling.
His floor was spotless, his chair was placed perfectly under his desk, and for the first time, I noticed there was a bookshelf covered in pictures and paraphernalia in the far left corner of the room. I walked over for a closer look at a picture that showed Aaron in a red sweater wearing overalls. He was riding a kid’s plastic tricycle with the widest grin on his face. It easily became my favorite of the few photos I had seen of him because of how happy and adorable he looked in the picture.
“Don’t get too excited. I cleaned up just for you, but all my crap is in the closet,” he said. I laughed at that, walking to his bed to sit on the edge and looking back at him where he still stood in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of Adidas soccer pants and a t-shirt, and his hair was wet. He smiled at me, but his eyes didn’t light up as they usually did.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
He nodded and tried to smile wider.
It didn’t work. I only narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms, not backing down.
He moved to sit next to me and sighed. “Did you submit all your applications?” he asked. I nodded. He looked up and rolled his neck slowly, eliciting a few popping sounds. “I feel like I’m not going to get in anywhere. I don’t know, my essays were really bad. I didn’t know what to talk about, and you know I suck at essays. I’m just… a little worried.” He shrugged before flashing a weak version of his boyish smile again.
I softened my posture and gaze and held my hand out. He took hold of it, and I swiped my thumb along the back of his knuckles like he had for me when I needed comfort.
“Aaron, you’re literally perfect for all the schools you applied for. You are bound to get in somewhere, if not everywhere. You’re a well-rounded, intelligent, and personable individual, and when I read your essays, I saw that shine through. And you know me, I’m a harsh editor of essays. You’ve seen the way I edit Elli’s work,” I added. Aaron chuckled, nodding and gripping my hand. “So don’t worry. You’re an amazing candidate, and all the schools will understand how lucky they are to have you.” I squeezed his hand.
He took a few deep breaths before looking up at me and smiling fully and genuinely. I think it was the grounding feeling of our clasped hands more than my words that helped most. I glanced down at our hands again, but before I could say anything more, I saw him lean forward in my peripheral vision and felt him kiss my cheek, stunning me and freezing me in place.
Aaron laughed at my reaction, and I continued to blush as he stood up and walked to his closet. Aaron and I had never kissed more than each other’s hands. Even though I told him I needed to take things slowly early on in our relationship, I had never outlined what my specific physical boundaries were, especially before I had told him about Dimitri. I’d felt a little less anxiety over it since then, but I was still struggling with the idea that I was moving on too quickly from Dimitri. And when I thought of the possibility of any physical intimacy with Aaron, I felt extremely anxious. It was strange. Although I had memories of kissing Dimitri, I had never kissed a real guy before. Did I really know what a realistic kiss was like? Would I be bad at it? Could someone even be a bad kisser? If so, I would probably be that someone.
“You look amazing, by the way,” Aaron said, bringing me back to the present. He took some clothes with him into his bathroom. I looked down at my skirt and played with the edge of the fabric. I didn’t feel too self-conscious about my outfit, but I did feel some nerves—just anxiety, or some excitement too?—coursing through my body.
Didn’t people usually kiss at midnight? Would Aaron expect that tonight? What if I was a bad kisser?
When I saw Aaron through the opened bathroom door a few minutes later, wearing a gray crewneck sweater over a light blue button up with black jeans, my anxiety rattled up higher.
How did a girl like me land a guy like him? The thought crossed my mind, and I was transported back to the feelings I’d felt with Dimitri. That familiar feeling terrified me.
Things were moving too quickly, and although it was moving in the direction I wanted it to, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to leave Dimitri in the past, and I wasn’t sure if I had completely moved on yet.
A part of me felt like I had, that I was confident about moving forward, but this relationship was still so new. I wondered whether I was just excited by the idea of the relationship rather than the actual relationship itself. The butterflies I felt with Aaron were exhilarating, but they weren’t what I’d had with Dimitri. In spite of the fact that Dimitri was a hallucination, he still felt more real than this relationship did. Dimitri and I had known each other for years—at least, that’s what my memories told me—and I could trust him. Were my feelings for Aaron all just some honeymoon-phase blindness? Was he actually this great? Would this relationship survive past the school year? Or even past the next month? It felt too new, too unstable, like it didn’t have a solid foundation.
To most people, infatuation and new feelings were exciting, but to me, they also brought doubt and made me want to shore up my defenses. Everything seemed too surreal—and after living in a world that was completely surreal—I had a hard time trusting infatuation.
So when I looked back at Aaron, busy fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror, I wondered if this relationship was worth investing in.
“You’re allowed to not have your shit together and to be unsure of your future and to explore everything the world throws at you.” Elli’s words echoed in my head, and I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
Aaron looked at me in the mirror and winked, and I couldn’t help but grin back. His dimple flashed at me as he finished up his look.
“You ready?” he asked, stepping out of the bathroom, and I smiled, nodding and standing up.
At the party, I stood next to Aaron as we chatted with some people from the cross-country team.
“Yo, bro, I swear on my life that I did not steal your lunch in the third grade!” Cameron said to Aaron. How the topic of their third-grade antics came up, I couldn’t remember, but it was hilarious to listen to.
“Bruh, I swear you did! That’s literally how we became friends,” Aaron said, his grip on my hand tightening as his frustration heightened. I laughed at the ongoing fight and looked at Amanda, who was at Cameron’s side. She was holding a drink in her hand and laughing hysterically, maybe a little too much, and I couldn’t tell if it was because of the argument, her drink, or the fact that she and Cameron had recently started to date. It seemed like she was deep in the honeymoon phase as well.
“Shit… is it really?”
“Oh, my God. You’re so drunk,” Aaron groaned, shaking his head.
I looked up at him, and then at Cameron and Amanda as they began to chat. My life had become so normal since dating Aaron. People actually knew I existed, and I talked to people beyond Elli. I wouldn’t say I had any more friends than before, but I definitely had a lot more acquaintances.
“Excuse me for a second, but I want to dance with my best friend!” Elli’s voice carried over the music as her hand gripped my free wrist. I smiled when she appeared, looking as radiant as ever in her all-over sequins minidress with a decorative tiara on her head and a boa around her neck. I looked up at Aaron as she whisked me away, and he smiled and gave a slight wave.
“Are you having a good time, baby girl?” she asked, as we found a spot in the dancing area and began to move to the music. The whole bottom floor of the house was dark, lit only by colorful lights strung up around the walls and TV screens. Hip-hop music blared through the surround sound system. I was a terrible dancer and didn’t know how to move with the music, but I still swayed from side to side.
“Yes! I’m really surprised, but yes,” I said, yelling to be heard and laughing at Elli’s loose, free movements. She wasn’t really dancing, but she wasn’t creating a total mess of herself either. So I just resolved to calling it an interesting freestyle.
The song changed, and we gasped, recognizing the new song as “Feeling Myself.” It was the perfect song for this moment, exactly what I needed to get into the mood as my body began to move with the bass and the beat. Soon, I was doing body waves I didn’t even know I could do, and Elli was hollering at the top of her lungs.
I had never felt so free, so happy, or so young.
After dancing for a while, my lungs were screaming for water. I fled to the kitchen and looked around for some red cups before getting myself some water from the filter in the fridge. I stood in the kitchen area and watched Elli, who was basically in her element. I couldn’t concentrate hard enough to recognize the song playing now, as my heart was beating too loudly in my ears, and I was still desperate for water. Elli laughed along with a friend who had joined her on the dance floor in my place.
My eyes moved throughout the house to the backyard where I spotted Aaron playing a round of beer pong. He tossed a ball into a red cup, making his side of the table erupt in cheers and the other side in groans.
“I know you miss me.” I heard Dimitri’s voice in my right ear, a prickling sensation sweeping across the back of my neck.
All of a sudden, the music around me faded away, and all I could hear was my heart beating powerfully. I was hyper aware of Dimitri’s eyes on me, although I didn’t know where he was standing in the room, so I simply looked down to avoid searching for him, my body tensing up on defense.
Don’t reply, Priya. Don’t reply.
“Look at me,” he said. Somehow, I resisted the temptation to lift my head up and look directly in front of me. I knew I would see his hazel eyes.
I sensed his hand stretching out to grab a piece of my hair. “It’s still long. Just how I like it.” His words sent chills down my spine, but my body remained rigid for a little while longer.
I took several shaky steps forward, pushing past Dimitri and away from the kitchen counter, continuing to look down. Once I was far enough from my previous spot, I gained the courage to slowly pick my head up and look straight at the beer-pong table. I avoided the gaze that I knew still followed me and walked toward Aaron. He was finishing up his round of beer pong, it seemed, as there were only two more cups left on his opponent’s side of the table. I hovered nearby until he’d shot the Ping-Pong ball across, and when the teams erupted with groans and cheers, Aaron turned toward me and smiled.
“Cheater.”
“Whore.”
“Slut.”
The dark voices enveloped me. I shook my head instinctively, trying to shake them out. They weren’t too loud, but they were harrowing, nonetheless.
I’m not married. I’m not with anyone but Aaron. I am NOT that girl.
But what if I am?
I looked back up at Aaron, hoping his image would be cold water on these thoughts. His head was slightly tilted as he looked at me. I smiled up at him, and he mouthed the words “you okay?” I nodded and gestured to him to finish the game. I needed some fresh air and a moment to calm down.
I tried to walk as far away from the vapers as possible and headed for the far back end of the backyard. There was a low, brick wall that lined the property, and I sat on it, watching the party and Aaron. The voices and the feeling of being watched had dissipated on their own as I found my new seat, leaving me with a brief feeling of relief. I looked at my phone and saw that there were only thirty minutes until midnight.
I felt the cool, crisp air hit my skin and turn it clammy. I rubbed my arms and shivered. I preferred the chill to the overwhelming heat that was inside the house.
You don’t belong here, Priya. The voice that echoed in my head was my own this time, and as I looked down at my water in my hand, I thought about whether this world—the world of high school, parties, and normalcy—was for me. I had always wanted to leave Saratoga and move on with my life. I wanted to move on to bigger and better things, and not look back. I had always planned not to look back. My life was set—I was going to move to Berkeley, Elli would follow a year later, and we would live together and move to wherever the hell we wanted after that. Maybe we would try out Southern California for a few years. Elli loved the glitz and glamour of LA, and I dreamed of attending UCLA for business school.
However, now there was a new factor I had to think of, and that factor was headed my way.
“Hey, aren’t you cold?” Aaron’s voice was slightly slurred. He plopped himself down beside me on the bricks and would have fallen back if I hadn’t grabbed him and let him lean on me. I wasn’t one to be amused by drunkenness, but he was so sweet and wanted to make sure I was okay; so I couldn’t help but smile at him.
“No,” I said, surprising myself as I set my water down and wrapped my arms around him, pulling myself closer to him. “I’m toasty warm with my personal heater.” I nuzzled my head against his chest and felt his deep chuckle against my face. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed tightly.
“I think this is the first time you’ve initiated this kind of physical affection with me,” he said.
“You might have to get used to it.”
He hummed as he lay his head down on top of mine. “I like the sound of that,” he whispered into my hair. I squeezed him tighter, enjoying the warmth that flooded my system. It was a weird sensation, this feeling of safety in his arms, this comfort and peace. It was a new feeling, but I didn’t want to fight against it. I wanted to embrace it and see where it carried me. Aaron was an outside factor I was happy to take into consideration. I wasn’t stupid—I didn’t think we were getting married or anything, but I was open to seeing where this relationship went.
All of a sudden, we were pulled from our happy moment by the sound of excited screaming in the house.
“One more minute!” someone yelled, and people started heading in. Aaron lifted his head off mine and moved to stand up, taking away my warmth and making me feel alone. He looked down at me and tilted his head.
“Do you not want to watch the ball drop?” he asked, looking down at me.
“No. I’ve seen it drop every year.”
He smiled before reaching his hand out for me to take. Hesitantly, I placed my hand in his, unsure of why we couldn’t just remain sitting, but when he pulled me up and into him, I realized why sitting was not the optimal position.
We looked at each other, and my heart raced. This is it, I thought. I had pictured kissing Aaron thousands of times before, sure, but every time I imagined it, the image of him somehow morphed into Dimitri’s face—or I got so anxious about it that I had to stop my imagination before I had a heart attack. I had no idea how to kiss. I had no idea how to be remotely affectionate beyond hugging and hand holding.
“Ten… nine… eight…”
As people counted down inside, Aaron’s head remained still, watching me for any indication of what I wanted to do.
Kiss? High five? Laugh?
“… three…two…one…” I smiled and in a split second made up my mind. I quickly pulled Aaron down so our lips collided. It was a little rougher than I had intended, but when his lips sealed over mine, warmth flooded my system as if someone had replaced my blood with pure euphoria.
“Happy New Year!” Everyone yelled around us, and Aaron’s arms gripped me tightly and hoisted me up. I laughed against his lips and felt him smile back. My hands moved up from his sweater, and my arms wrapped around his neck. I had to break away to quickly catch my breath, but immediately, I sealed my lips back together with his.
It was pure joy, feeling his soft lips against mine, like fireworks going off in my body as the blues and reds and purples of real fireworks went off all around us. I was so enraptured by his lips, I barely noticed them.
When he set me back down on the ground, I begrudgingly pulled myself away and looked up to see him breathing heavier than usual, matching my own breathlessness.
“Happy New Year, Aaron,” I said. Aaron laughed and I couldn’t help but smile widely at the sound of his happiness.
“Happy New Year, Priya.” He leaned down and captured my lips again for another perfect kiss.