Page 105 - You Only Live Once [BooksLD]

that it’s a new season, a new beginning. Maybe it isn’t too early, or too late,
but the right time to express my desires to her.

I won’t ask for much, just a glass of wine in the evening and a cup of
coffee the next morning. Maybe that’s not it, I want more, I want all of it. I
find myself in a dilemma as it is hard to express into words, but the longing
in my heart is simple proof that I also wish to be part of the time in between
- the wine and the coffee.

You’re not the perfect girl, the kind that books and movies talk about.
You’re not even close to my mother’s definition of perfect. You’re
imperfect by all conventional definitions, yet I am deeply in love with you.

While I am lost in a world of my own making, Alara reaches Ricky’s.
Her presence feels as comforting as the taste of tea-dipped biscuits. Uncle
Ricky and Alara share a cold stare. I guess I will have to make a lot of effort
to patch things up between them.

Alara tells me, ‘I feel that Maria is hiding something.’
‘Why do you feel so?’

‘I just don’t know.’
‘Okay, let’s leave before it starts to rain again.’

‘How are we going?’
‘By boat.’

‘What? Are you kidding?’
‘No. I am very serious. Where is Parvathi?’

‘They’re busy with some new enrolments at the orphanage. She
suggested that we tour the orphanage next week.’

‘Oh!’ I let out a sigh, but am inwardly too happy to have Alara by my
side for the whole day.
I call up the local fisherman Deep who wears a cap like Captain America,
and had promised me a ride in exchange for 500 bucks.

Twenty minutes later, we find ourselves right there, in the moment, cut
off from all the worldly chaos. All we can hear is Deep rowing the boat,
telling us weird stories every fifteen minutes or so of travellers he has met

so far, and taking pride in his knowledge of the ocean vegetation, spotting
dolphins, and fishing mackerels and pomfrets. He tells us how the hippies
discovered Palolem and made way for Israeli travellers, Russians, and