Page 187 - Leadership in the Indian Army

"And my mother is not a young woman anymore," he was saying.

"They're so afraid all the time. Laila, look at me."
"You should have told me."

"Please look at me."
A groan came out of Laila. Then a wail. And then she was crying, and

when he went to wipe her cheek with the pad of his thumb she swiped his

hand away. It was selfish and irrational, but she was furious with him for

abandoning her, Tariq, who was like an extension of her, whose shadow
sprung beside hers in every memory. How could he leave her? She

slapped him. Then she slapped him again and pulled at his hair, and he

had to take her by the wrists, and he was saying something she couldn't
make out, he was saying it softly, reasonably, and, somehow, they

ended up brow to brow, nose to nose, and she could feel the heat of his

breath on her lips again.

And when, suddenly, he leaned in, she did too.

* * *

In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble frantically to

commit it all to memory, what happened next-Like an art lover running

out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could-a look, a
whisper, a moan-to salvage from perishing, to preserve. But time is the

most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn't, in the end, save it all Still,

she had these: that first, tremendous pang of pain down below. The slant

of sunlight on the rug. Her heel grazing the cold hardness of his leg, lying
beside them, hastily unstrapped. Her hands cupping his elbows. The

upside-down, mandolin-shaped birthmark beneath his collarbone,

glowing red. His face hovering over hers. His black curls dangling,

tickling her lips, her chin. The terror that they would be discovered. The