Flirting With Disaster: A Novel

by Naina Kumar

“But I’m in this. I’m in this with you. Whether there’s a signed piece of paper or not. We can get rid of it. We can rip it up and file the proper stuff and go back to the way we were. Or we can keep it. I don’t care. None of that changes anything for me. You’re it. You’re it for me. I’m here. And I’m yours. For as long as you want me.”

“I needed you,” he says softly. So softly I’m not sure whether I heard him. So softly I’m not sure whether he wanted me to hear him. “I needed you,” he says again, even quieter. “And then you left.”

That day we woke up in Vegas, I knew you were scared. I’d been scared too, but not because we’d gotten married. I’d felt like…like I’d just walked by a winning slot machine that was spitting quarters. I’d done nothing to deserve it, but I knew I needed to hold on to them for as long as I could. I didn’t know when the machine would stop, how long it would keep giving them, and I could already feel the cold metal slipping through my fingers, but I still held on, and…it wasn’t fair to do that. It wasn’t fair to you.

“I figured nothing’s ever too far gone,” he says softly. “That some things are worth rebuilding. Even if it means rebuilding them from the ground up.”

“You’re my home, Meena. Out of all the places I’ve lived, I’ve only ever felt at home with you.”