Impossible to Forget

Chapter Sixteen

Soooo sorry for the long wait! AP Testing and now finals are giving me no time to write! Plus every time I try to sit down and crank out some plot, I get nothing. My brain is so beyond fried!!! Well, once summer comes I promise to be as prolific as possible!!

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Perhaps the saying “If you fight fire with fire, you are going to get burned” actually holds some truth.

Look at what was happening to me. I tried to stand up to Ram by trying to mess with his head as much as he messed with mine. But so far, he always somehow managed to one up me. 

“Preeti.” I looked across the table at Mrs. Chowdury, who was looking at me expectedly. Flustered out of my mulling, I tried to decipher the piece of plastic in front of me. There was an odd shuffling of black lines and curves in front of my eyes that did not equal any semblance of language to me. In fact, everything around me was a little blurry. I tried blinking my eyes a few times to try and clear my vision.

“She’’ll have the same as me.” I heard Ram tell the waiter. 

“Ram! Let Preeti decide for herself.” Mrs. Chowdury admonished, but really I was glad to not have to choose. 

“It’s fine mom. You know I just ordered our favorite.”I opened my eyes to peer at Ram. It was a few moments before he came completely into focus. While grateful to have been rescued from an awkward situation, I still had doubts to his motive. He caught my stare and just shrugged. He just shrugged. A normal teenage boy shrug. A casual slight upwards movement of the shoulders accompanied by a slight tucking of the chin, and followed by a quick release back to a normal position. A shrug, not a mutant, maniacal, evil jerk victoriously, conniving shrug, no just, a normal shrug.  

I wasn’t very good company during dinner. Other than the occasional small talk, I resisted getting drawn into conversation. Luckily, Asha kept up a lively chatter distracting the parents from the quiet regard that Ram and I were holding each other in. I didn’t notice how much time had passed until after the first spoon of food was in my mouth. 

My eyes widened as the scalding hot liquid burned my tongue causing my to drop the spoon I was holding. As it clattered against the bowl, I was already reaching with both hands toward the glass on water in the center of the table. Desperately, I grasped the glass and raised it to my lips, only to find that it was empty. My eyes started to tear up as my tongue started to throb with pain.

Suddenly, a hand firmly grasped my chin forcing it up and soothing relief descended on my tongue. I sighed as the heat and pain started to abate. 

A drop of water fell onto my lower lip and trickled down my chin. It only now occurred to me what a picture this must look like to the other guests at this restaurant eating dinner. 

Here I was, my head tilted back, my mouth wide open and my tongue sticking out with Ram standing directly behind my chair holding a block of ice to my tongue. 

I would have at this point tried to take the ice from him, but his face looked so furious that I thought it best not to try to move lest he actually vent some of that anger on me. 

“Bring more ice.” Ram’s voice was calm, reflecting the calm at the center of his stormy eyes. All other discourse stopped and I heard a patter of footsteps and I could just imagine the waiter running to obey his command. 

Ram took his eyes off mine as he leaned forward removing the ice to inspect my tongue. 

“It’s swollen.” The lines of his neck were tense as he looked at his father.