Flirting with Disaster

by Naina Kumar

To Houston, and the brave, kind, resilient people who live here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather call home.

I’ve never had anyone see all the broken, scared, awful parts of me and choose me anyway.

Nikhil saw me at my lowest when I was studying. Crying and stressed

somehow, he made it better. Just by being with me. Listening to me. Making me take breaks.

Being around him makes everything better.

I’m in this. I’m in this with you.

You’re it. You’re it for me. I’m here. And I’m yours. For as long as you want me.”

I promise to be there for you.” “And I promise to be there for you.”

we may have entered this whole thing accidentally, but I’m choosing to stay in it. I’m choosing him.

“What’s mine is yours,” he continues. “What’s mine is yours.”

this doesn’t feel reckless. This just feels right.

Literally. Figuratively. Emotionally. I’m in hell in all ways.

No one will know I was ever here, in my hometown, the one place I promised I would never return to. I’ll

leave the past where it belongs and just…move forward.

We share the same goals, the same dreams, the same drive.

We just get each other on a fundamental level.

the only one who understood both my ambition and my slow, cautious nature.

He understood that when your heart’s been broken, it doesn’t heal back quite the same.

the way our relationship was. Calm and quiet. Soft...

we didn’t have to feel capital L Love f...

loving each other wa...

This is a chapter I have to close before I can start a new one.

I didn’t prepare for the full force of him.

I didn’t let myself imagine what it would be like to see him face-to-face.

Time has changed me, though it shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t care what he thinks.

things change. People change. It’s not like you and I know each other anymore.”

‘Home is where the heart is,’

‘Live, Laugh, Love.’ It’s timeless. A classic for a reason.”

Things had been so easy in those early days.

As if after all these years, he still understands the way my mind works.

Every smile I’d wrangled out of him had felt like a gift.

Just couldn’t remember the word.”

“We all space out from time to time.”

There was a time when we only brought out the best in each other. Nikhil

exactly how to shake me out of my dark spells and make me laugh.

“You ground me,”

“Sometimes I feel…I feel untethered.

you make me feel like I can…like it would be safe to put down some roots.

Something I’d never expected. Something I’d never believed could actually be mine.

In those moments, he quieted my mind.

when I’m too tired to hold the memories at bay, I can feel him.

We’re not the same people anymore. I’m not that person anymore.

Every time I felt like I couldn’t do it, he encouraged me. Held my hand. Believed in me.

We were supposed to share everything. We had promised each other that we would share everything.

I’d learned that day that there was a whole world inside his mind I couldn’t access.

The way I shared things with him, the way I leaned on him, was something h...

I want to tell him that I’m kind of…proud? That I’m happy for him.

wonder if he knows how pained he looks. How that smile conveys just how miserable he actually is.

He’s checking out. Retreating.

Me trying to broach a sensitive topic, and him brushing it away instead of engaging.