Chasing Shadows by Swati Avasthi

Author:Swati Avasthi [Avasthi, Swati]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-375-89527-2
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2013-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

Savitri

39 days and 3 hours after

When I get home after chasing Holly, mint perfumes the air. In the kitchen, a small bunch sits on the counter and the cutting board is stained green. I tear off a leaf and hold it to my nose. I slide it onto my tongue, pin it against my palate, and suck on it. It is so strong it burns, but I keep it there.

My mom, who is rolling out circles of atta for roti, has her back to me. I watch her as she puts one on the open flame from our stovetop. The dough puffs into a balloon and then falls when she takes it off the heat. I pick up the rolling pin and press my palms into a little mound of flour that my mother has poured out. She glances at me and smiles. The flour is cold and silky under my fingers.

Corey loved watching me cook and helping me prep. Last year, when I improvised a subzi using broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms and spiced it on the fly, he said only people who were truly comfortable in their skin could whip up a new recipe. He loved the oddest things about me—my cooking, my loyalty, my vocabulary, of all things.

Before the SAT, he asked me to quiz him and he handed me an alphabetized vocabulary list. I looked at the paper—250 words, none with a definition attached.

“Okay,” I said, a little confused, and started. “ ‘Abjure.’ ”

He missed a plethora of words as I filled in definitions. When we got to pellucid, we got stuck. I said, “I’m not sure either. I’ll have to look it up.”

“What are you talking about?”

I showed him the sheet of words and he realized that he had given me the wrong paper.

He looked at me, puzzled, and then said, “We got all the way to the Ps.”

He came over to my chair and tipped my chin so I was looking up into his eyes. He traced my lips with his finger and said that he loved all the words that were in my brain that could just slide out of my mouth.

My chest hollows out; it doesn’t seem possible, but I physically ache. He loved those parts of me I kept hidden; he saw them and brought them out. And now . . .

Well.

Time to pack them away again.

How could I think about leaving him behind?

“Mom?” I say.

“What’s wrong? Wait, just a minute.” She tilts her head toward me as she pulls a roti off.

“I don’t think I can . . . go to Princeton,” I say, and peel the dough off the counter.

“What? Why not? Is there a problem with—”

I shake my head and tears drop onto the counter, splatter in the flour.

I give the dough a quarter turn and then roll it again. She sighs and then leads me over to the table and sits me down. I rub my fingers on its smooth top and then put them to my cheek.

“I know you miss him.

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