Page 82 of Better Catch Up, Krishna Kumar

I’m pretty sure I’m starting to resemble a tomato at this point. “Relationships? Plural?”

Rudra chuckles. “No. Just one.”

“Who was it?”

He’s looking at me so bashfully I want to fling a pillow at him. “You wouldn’t know her.”

I do fling the pillow at him then. “Just tell me, damn it! I’m curious!”

Rudra catches it deftly, laughing. “Okay, okay, fine! It was this girl from my class, back in eleventh. We dated for three months before breaking up.”

“Why?”

He leans back, head against the wall and eyes on the ceiling. “This is going to sound really cliché, but we didn’t want the same things.”

I smile. “Thatisvery cliché.”

“Yeah.”

“So no one besides her?”

“Nope. Just her.”

“Why haven’t you dated anyone seriously since?” I ask, grabbing another pillow to smooth out about a hundred times.

“The same reason you haven’t.”

“And what is that?”

“Because we were pursuing our dreams.” I love the way he saysour; it makes me feel like he’s as invested in this conversation as I am. “You wanted to go to JHU, so you shut yourself off from theoutside world and focused on just that. I wanted Juilliard, have always wanted Juilliard, and want to sign with a record label for my music one day—I did the same thing.”

“How do you know me so well?” I ask, voice soft, almost a whisper.

“Because we’re the same... because I told you this before, Krishna,” he says, an incomprehensible emotion eddying in his eyes. “I’ve known you since we were kids. I was always there.”

Even if it was just in the background.

He doesn’t say those words, but they echo in my mind anyway.

“To be honest...” I say, ready to admit out loud what I’ve been keeping in my head all summer long. There’s something about Rudra that makes mewantto tell him, even if the truth is embarrassing to share. “That’s what this whole trip has been about for me, you know? I missed out on so much by doing all that.

“All I remember about high school is waking up in a panicked frenzy every day, ticking things off my to-do list because there was always something left and absolutely no time. And once it was all over, I realized I’d done everything I wassupposedto do—and yet, I felt like I’d done nothing. I know my friends”—the few I have—“think I’m boring because I have nothing to gossip about. Not anythingfun,at least. No parties, no sneaking out of the house, no kissing—all I have are grades and my spotless track record of following the rules to the tee. The first time I even drank, I did that wrong too.”

“Rarely is anyone’s first time drinking a good experience,” Rudra says. “The first time I drank, I ended up passed out next to the toilet. Woke up with god knows whose piss on my clothes.”

I can’t help but chuckle at that.

“And why are you talking like it’s all over? You’re eighteen, Krishna. You haven’t missed out on anything yet. In fact, you have so much to look forward to.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” I say, not harshly. “You did it all and also got into your dream college.”

“I didn’t do it all,” Rudra says. “I didn’t... you know.” He trails off suggestively, all toothy and shy and pretty.

I blush. “You’re still a virgin, Rudra Desai?” I ask teasingly.

“Yes, I’m a still a virgin, sunflower, and I’m not ashamed of it.” Rudra grins. “My ex and I—we did other things, but it wasn’t much. It never went there.”

It’s not fair, but the mere thought of him kissing someone, let alone getting to second or third base, makes me shrivel up inside with envy for that girl. It’s so unlike me. Or maybe it isn’t. Maybe I’m just that possessive, to be envious of someone’s past I was barely a part of.