Chapter 12: Midnight Confessions
The silence in the car was a live wire, buzzing with everything unsaid. Dev watched the city blur past, his forehead pressed against the cool glass. The scent of new leather and her unfamiliar perfume was suffocating.
“I got a new car,” Priya said, her voice tentative, fingers tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel of the compact SUV.
“I see that.” His reply was flat. He didn’t ask about the trade-in, the financing. It was another change, another landmark he hadn’t been consulted on.
“It’s safer. Better mileage.” She glanced at him, her eyes catching the glow of the dashboard. “You’re very quiet.”
“Jet lag.”
The lie hung between them. The real fatigue was emotional, a weight in his bones. They pulled into the airport’s short-term parking, the tires crunching over loose gravel. She found a spot and killed the engine. The sudden quiet was worse.
“Welcome home, beta,” she said, turning to him with a forced brightness that didn’t reach her eyes.
She unclipped her seatbelt and leaned across the center console. Before he could process the movement, she was there. Her arms went around his neck, pulling him into a hug. It was tighter, more desperate than her usual embrace. Her face pressed against his cheek. He froze, his body rigid.
She held on for a long moment. When she pulled back, he felt the wet, waxy imprint on his skin. Lipstick. A bold, coral shade. She’d never worn lipstick to greet him before.
Her hand, small and warm, patted his back, then slid down in an absent, comforting gesture. It grazed the curve of his shoulder blade, his spine, and came to rest for a fleeting second on the small of his back, just above the waistband of his jeans. It was a fraction too low, a beat too long. A motherly gesture collided with the topography of a stranger’s body. His breath hitched.
“Alright, let’s get your bags,” she said, pulling away, seemingly oblivious.
As they stepped out of the car, a sharp whistle cut through the humid garage air. A security guard in a ill-fitting uniform was leaning against a concrete pillar, a smirk playing on his lips. He eyed Priya with open appreciation, then let his gaze swing to Dev.
“Hey, lovebirds! This is a parking lot, not a honeymoon suite. Save it for the hotel, eh?” He laughed, a single, grating sound.
Dev felt the blood drain from his face, then flood back in a scalding wave of humiliation. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
Priya stiffened. A delicate pink colored her newly sculpted cheeks. “He is my son,” she said, her voice clear but strained, laced with a dignity that somehow made it worse.
The guard’s smirk vanished, replaced by a swift, mortified confusion. His eyes darted between them—the stunning woman in athletic wear, the pale, tense young man. “Oh. Sorry, madam. My mistake. Sorry.” He touched his cap and hurried away, his boots scuffling on the concrete.
The correction hung in the air, more poisonous than the accusation. He is my son. The words should have clarified, sterilized the moment. Instead, they etched the guard’s implication into permanence. Dev felt branded. He couldn’t look at her.
“Ignore him,” Priya muttered, popping the trunk with a violent press of her key fob. “Foolish man.”
Dev heaved his suitcase out, the wheels thudding onto the ground. He followed her to the driver’s side, ready to get in, to flee this fluorescent limbo.
“No, sit in front,” she instructed, her tone returning to its maternal default. “Don’t be a back-seat passenger.”
He obeyed, sliding into the passenger seat. She started the car, the engine purring softly. As she reversed, the interior lights illuminated her profile again. And there, on her steering wheel, he saw it. A small, silver ‘S’ emblem. His medical student brain, always cataloguing, identified it. A Mercedes SUV. Not just a new car. An statement.
“You bought a Mercedes?” The question escaped, laced with disbelief.
“It was a good deal,” she said, focusing on merging into the exit lane. “Dr. Sneha’s husband knows a dealer. I… I deserved a nice thing, Dev. Is that so wrong?”
There was a challenge in her voice, a fragile defiance. He thought of the months of his absence, of her walking through their empty, silent flat. He thought of the snickering voices of his peers, calling him a mama’s boy. He thought of the guard’s leer.
“No,” he whispered, the fight leaving him. “It’s not wrong.”
They merged onto the highway, the city’s lights streaking past. In the dark, reflective glass of the passenger window, he saw a ghostly double exposure: the outline of his own anguished face, and superimposed over it, the elegant, unrecognizable silhouette of the woman driving him home. The lipstick mark on his cheek gleamed in the passing headlights, a bright, stupid flag of a territory he could no longer navigate.