Chapter 51: The Way She Asked Without Words
The sky that morning was pale — not gray, not gold, but something in between. A quiet, hesitant color. The kind of sky that waits to know how the day will unfold before it chooses how to feel.
I sat at the breakfast table, poking at toast I didn't feel like eating. The scent of jasmine rice and fried garlic wafted from the kitchen, but it didn't reach me the way it usually did.
My mother moved around behind me, silent and soft. She didn't ask why I was quiet. She didn't ask why I'd left my sketchbook out the night before, open to a page that held only one word in careful pencil strokes: Oriana.
But she noticed.
She always did.
And sometimes, when love feels new and exposed, silence becomes louder than shouting.
She poured me tea and sat across the table, her eyes scanning the morning paper without really reading.
Finally, without looking up, she asked, "You went to the school festival last night?"
I nodded. "Yes."
"With friends?"
I hesitated.
Then: "With Oriana."
She flipped the page slowly.
I watched her eyes. Not sharp. Not accusing. Just watching.
After a while, she asked, "Did you have fun?"
I looked down at my tea.
"We let go of a lantern together."
That was all I said.
But in my heart, I whispered everything else:
We kissed under the frangipani tree. We wrote stories into the night sky. I held her hand until my palms memorized her shape. I loved her, out loud, in a place where people were watching, and for once I didn't care who saw.
My mother didn't speak again for a while.
But her hands, resting on her lap, folded and unfolded slowly.
Later that afternoon, I found her standing on the small balcony, watering the potted basil and lime leaves. The scent of soil after morning sun drifted up, calm and grounding.
I stood beside her, not saying anything.
She didn't look at me, but said, "She's the girl from your drawings, isn't she?"
I didn't pretend to misunderstand.
"Yes."
Still watering, she asked, "How long?"
I thought about it. How long since I noticed her? Since I saw her? Since she became more than a voice in a corridor?
"A while," I said. "Long enough to know it's not a phase."
She nodded once. Then turned off the hose and sat on the bench.
"Sit with me."
I did.
She took a deep breath, as though she'd been carrying something heavy and wasn't sure how to lower it gently.
"When I was your age," she said, "there was a girl in my class. Nalin. She played the violin. I used to wait outside the music room just to hear her practice."
I looked at her, surprised. My mother rarely spoke about her school days, and almost never about anyone from them.
"She had this way of closing her eyes when she played," she continued, smiling faintly. "Like the world disappeared, and she was alone with the sound."
I said nothing.
I just listened.
"I never told her. Not with words. But once, she caught me watching her, and she smiled. That kind of smile that says, 'I know.' And for a while… that was enough."
My heart was in my throat.
She looked at me then.
And in that gaze, I saw a softness I hadn't expected. Not approval. Not permission. Just… recognition.
"You don't have to explain it," she said. "I see it."
And then, so quietly I almost missed it, she added, "I just don't want you to be hurt by people who don't."
That evening, I called Oriana.
She answered on the second ring.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"You okay?"
I nodded, even though she couldn't see.
"I think my mother… knew. Or maybe knows. I'm not sure."
"What did she say?"
"She told me a story about a violin player named Nalin."
There was a pause.
Then Oriana whispered, "Oh."
"Yeah."
We sat in the hush of our connection, the hum of the line threading us together like a single breath stretched across distance.
Then Oriana said, "Come to the clearing. Just for an hour."
The sky was lavender when I reached her. She was already there, barefoot in the tall grass, a blanket spread out beneath her with a lantern between us. A real one — not paper. Something solid. Something with weight.
"Hi," she said, standing.
She held out her hands.
I went into them.
We swayed there for a while, holding each other gently.
"I wanted to be near you tonight," she said into my hair.
"I wanted to come before you even asked."
She pulled back and smiled. "Then the sky must've whispered."
We sat side by side on the blanket, watching the moths gather near the lantern light, their wings casting brief shadows.
"I think she loved her," I said after a while. "The way she spoke about her… it wasn't just admiration."
Oriana nodded.
"Do you think they all had to bury it back then?" I asked. "All the women who loved women. All the people who loved differently than they were told to?"
"Some buried it," she said softly. "Some carried it like a quiet flame. And some… some planted it like a seed and waited."
"Waited for what?"
"For girls like us."
I rested my head on her shoulder.
We didn't say anything after that.
Just listened to the wind, to the crickets, to the way our hearts slowed when they beat in rhythm.
Before we left, Oriana reached into her bag and pulled out two hair ribbons — one green, one white.
She handed me the green.
"I want you to wear this," she said.
"Tomorrow?"
"Every day."
I tied it into my ponytail then and there.
She tied the white one into hers.
And when we walked home, side by side, we did so without looking over our shoulders.
The world might still be watching.
But we had decided — it didn't get to write our ending.