Falling into the Chaos

Five: Handling marriage proposals with the grace of a squawking duck

Two of everything in this house—where I was enjoying a pudding cup for breakfast on the floor because there wasn’t much furniture, and.... the pudding because I was done with dieting for the dress.

Or any other reason.

I went in search of shoes and grabbed my water bottle before meeting Aditya  and Cheeku  outside.

I was proud to report there was water in that bottle. I had debated spicing it up with something stronger but day drinking alone in an empty house felt like an altogether different level of drunkenness.

It was a plateau I didn’t want to hit.

I had polished off a bottle of wine and a block of cheese last night but that was different.

Totally different.

From the shelter of the porch, I watched Aditya  go through his phone while Cheeku  used his leg for sparring practice.

If he noticed her attack, it didn’t show on his face.

Kinda like how all memory of our friendship didn’t show on his face.

Of all the people I’d guessed I’d run across in Musoorie, Aditya hadn’t even made the list.

That boy’s singular mission had been getting the fuck out of this town. He’d hated farming and farm life and the entirety of this place—and I’d shared a lot of those sentiments with him.

We’d been united in our desire to hit the road and never look back.

Funny how that worked out for us.

But the part I really couldn’t reconcile was that my old friend seemed angry with me. Not only was he not happy to see me, I had the distinct impression he didn’t want to see me at all.

That was strange, right?

And yet here he was, leading a dozen goats into my weed patches.

Also strange.

Then again, people changed.

This sleepy town had changed in hundreds of little ways. It was still sleepy, dotting the landscape with old stone walls slowly sinking into the earth, but now there were quaint shopping centers, coffee shops with strung-light patios, and signs announcing high school football games and upcoming festivals.

My memories of this place weren’t cozy.

It should be....but never.

I’d managed through the years I was left in Nani's care and some of that time had been happy though I barely remembered who I was in high school.

Hell, I couldn’t remember who I was before falling down the wedding rabbit hole to hell.

Shit happened and it made people different in the process.

If Aditya  was a grouchy, glarey man now, who was I to judge?

Nobody.

That was not in my job description.

“Zoya!” Cheeku  yelled.

She abandoned Aditya ’s leg and ran toward the porch, her dark, tangled hair flying behind her and the sword scraping along the brick walkway. “We brought all the good goats. We left the naughty ones in the pen.”

“You have naughty goats?”

She barreled into me, her little arms locking around my waist and her face pressed to the squish of my belly.

"Two of them,” she mumbled into my shirt.

“They learned how to get out and they went to the dog run and made all the dogs angry. And they did it at four-fucking-thirty in the morning. That’s what Adi  said. He said the bad word. Not me. I didn’t say fucking. He did.”