The spicy, buttery kidney beans mushed on Naina’s tongue and mixed with long-grain rice, and she couldn’t find her voice around it. So she ate. Until she felt just a little bit stronger. When her bowl was empty, she reached for the basket of naan and started shoving the puffy flatbread into her mouth one perfectly charred mouthful after another.

Rage swelled and ebbed inside her. Her stomach churned a little, that particular sensation from when you ate too fast and after too long.

“I know every man is not Dr. Kohli.” She wiped her mouth on the brown napkins emblazoned with the yellow In-N-Out logo from her last meal here with Vansh. The paper and smell of restaurant napkins made the queasiness worse. “I just don’t know how to separate the ones who are from those who aren’t.”

If Naina had thrown the rajma and rice in her face, her mother would have looked less devastated. Instead of outrage, or fluttering, or tears, she nodded. An acknowledgment. “You do. You do know how to make separate. I was one who didn’t know.”

The thick knot of thorns scraping the inside of Naina’s throat became impossible to swallow around. She had to open her mouth to suck in a breath.

Her mother ran a hand over Naina’s head, stroking her hair away from her face. A few months back, the touch would have made Naina uncomfortable. Drawing solace from it would have terrified her. Now she soaked it up.

How many ways had Vansh ruined her? She missed his touchy-feely-ness. By now he would have touched her in ten places. An elbow bumped into her arm, a finger trailed down her neck, a forehead pressed into her shoulder. The million ways he had of comforting her. Of telling her things about herself with his body.

“Why would you say all this to me now? Why are you even here? Why did you stay with him for so many years?” The question slipped out and she almost apologized, but her mother put a hand on her arm.

“That stupid question and I did not raise stupid girl.” Her voice was too gentle for words that forceful.

“Oh, you raised a very stupid girl. If I wasn’t stupid, I’d know how to navigate this. You. Him. I’d know what to do with all this.” She circled her head with her hand, indicating the familiar buzz and crash of emotions that stormed inside her, that didn’t sort or straighten out no matter how hard she tried. “Me.”

“Of all women I know in world, only one know exactly what to do with herself, exactly how she wants, is you, beta.”

“Why would you say that to me? Why would you lie to me?”