Yes, My Accent Is Real by Kunal Nayyar

Author:Kunal Nayyar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

I took a breath and decided to call her from the car, just to see how she would react.

“Hey, I’m at the store; want something?” I asked.

Silence.

“No, I’m good,” she finally said. “See you later?”

I drove home, shaking with anger, sadness, confusion. All the monsters in my head were coming true.

I didn’t call her all day. Around 10:20 p.m. my phone rang.

“Come over tonight,” she said.

“I saw his bus.”

She didn’t say anything. Her silence made her sound like she was staring at the floor.

“Did you hook up?”

She began to cry and said, “I don’t want to break up with you, Kunal, but what’s the point? I’m graduating soon. In May I’m gone. So what are we doing anyway?” Her response was brilliant. She had accomplished several things:

1. She didn’t confess to hooking up with him.

2. But she didn’t deny it.

3. She didn’t break up with me.

4. But she implied that we should be broken up.

We had reached an unspoken stalemate. We were still boyfriend and girlfriend without being boyfriend and girlfriend.

A few days later, while I was driving by her place, I saw the green Volkswagen bus again. That fucking bus. But I pretended that the situation didn’t exist. Out of sight, out of mind. Except I saw the green bus again the next day. Then the next day I saw it again. Soon the green bus was parked outside her apartment every night. It became an open secret that everyone knew about, including me. But I just didn’t want to accept it. I just wanted her to love me. I wanted her back.

I decided I was going to fight for what we once had. I was going to fight for love. I was going to win her back.

“For her birthday, we’re going to go to her house and win her over with a song,” I told Caleb, a friend in the theater department who I knew could play guitar.

“Of course, great idea,” said Caleb. I loved his positivity. There was no judgmental scolding of “Kunal, dude, she’s cheating on you, forget this witch.” Everyone loved Grace—even then—and they understood why I wanted her back in my life.

So with Caleb and a few other friends, we practiced an a cappella version of “The Still of the Night.” They took it really seriously, and we all rehearsed it like our life depended on it. Well, at this point, I really felt that my life did.

The plan: I would knock on the door to surprise her, we would start softly with doo-wops, and when the chorus kicked in, I would ask her to slow-dance with me on her front porch.

On the night of her birthday, we showed up at her doorstep. Parked in front, like always, was the green bus. I didn’t care. At that moment I didn’t care if he was inside the house with her. This was my chance to win back Grace, and no amount of tattoos could get in my way.

I knocked on the door.

She answered. I caught a glimpse of Jeff on the couch as she closed the door behind her.

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