The pair took to arguing when Omkar’s absence left them nothing but each other to fight against. They were angry but Jarminder quickly collapsed into tears. Her anger at Omkar’s insolence could not compare to her fear of losing the only child she had left. She felt guilty. Maybe she even doubted herself for the things she had said. The fear that Neeraj felt could not be seen, though it was there inside him too. He held himself together like he had been trained to do. He looked at the empty road where his son had been and held his wife like a stem supporting a petal that was wilting.

The guilt that had taken over his parents affected Omkar too. After apologizing to Aria multiple times, his voice had been stripped away by it. It blew through him like white smoke, snuffing out the air in his lungs. He could feel the numbness it carried in his left hand, which gripped the steering wheel, and in his right hand, which held Aria’s. He knew that the love he felt for Aria, and his choice to be honest about it with his parents, was right. He never doubted that for a second, which was why it was so confusing to feel so wrong about doing something that felt so right. The wrongness of displeasing his parents was ingrained in him, like salt in the ocean. He could not separate himself from that indoctrination, much as he wanted to.

Despite what his parents had projected on him, Omkar had no plans to throw his life away. He had three classes to attend before figuring out their next steps, and so, once he made sure that Aria was willing to wait on campus for him to be done for the day, he drove them both to the crowded parking lot of his college. He bought Aria a container of breakfast hash and a pudding and led her to an open space on the green lawn just outside the cafeteria. He opened the lids for her. Watching her eat made him feel settled. Omkar was afraid that the way his parents had reacted to her would make her change her mind about him. He could tell that the impact of being so harshly unacknowledged and renounced had made her withdraw inside herself. It was true; Aria had been wounded by it. But it had also been the story of her life. It was a sensation she had unintentionally become an expert at holding, being passed from temporary home to temporary home, none of which was a family.