When Dimple Met Rishi (Dimple and Rishi, #1)

by Sandhya Menon

And then she smiled a smile so dazzling, Rishi tripped over his own feet.

His eyes reminded her of old apothecary bottles, deep brown, when the sunlight hit them and turned them almost amber.

Your spirits are already friends. That was it, he thought. Even though this was the first day he’d spent any kind of extended time with Dimple, he felt like he already knew her. Like they were continuing a conversation they’d left off.

There was something about people who were that secure; they made you feel better about yourself, like they accepted you for everything you were, imperfections and all.

I feel like I need to speak out, because if no one speaks out, if no one says, This is me, this is what I believe in, and this is why I’m different, and this is why that’s okay, then what’s the point? What’s the point of living in this beautiful, great melting pot where everyone can dare to be anything they want to be?”

You kept your distance, because that was the only way to save yourself. You kept your distance, because you knew if you didn’t, you’d be helplessly and hopelessly caught up in everything you loved about her.

Rishi kissed her with purpose, with meaning, like he believed this was exactly where they were supposed to be in this moment. He kissed her till she believed it too.

Immediately, before she could stop it, that famous Emily Brontë quote popped into her head: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

There wasn’t a single place, Dimple realized, that she didn’t want to go right now. Not because she wasn’t picky, but because she could go pretty much anywhere with Rishi and enjoy herself. The realization was alarming. Concerning. And not altogether unwelcome.

Whether she liked it or not, she did think of her parents when she wanted to make big decisions. They mattered to her, however much she wished it weren’t true.

She held out her hand, but Ashish ignored it and pulled her into a hug instead. “You would’ve made a great bhabhi someday,” he said, and that, more than anything, drove it all home with an ironclad finality. She and Rishi were over.

Khush kismet. Lucky. Which, of course, implied that Mamma was unlucky. She’d gotten a dud of a daughter who ripped her way out in the world and had done nothing but disappoint her ever since.

“Your… your disappointment is like a cold, heavy blanket around my shoulders, Mamma. You can’t even look at me without showing it.”

She wept for the moments that she and Rishi would never have. She wept for the love that had just blossomed and would never ripen. She wept for how mean she’d been, the names she’d called him. She wept for her hardheadedness, and for a world that couldn’t just let her be both, a woman in love and a woman with a career, without flares of guilt and self-doubt seeping in and wreaking havoc. No one she knew had balanced both. There was either work or love. Wanting both felt like a huge ask; it felt like wishing for hot ice cream or a bitter sugar cube. And so she’d pushed Rishi away. She’d broken his heart and decimated her own.

sari. “But there’s no way to make it work without one of us sacrificing something big. And you know how it is. It’s usually the woman who ends up sacrificing. And I can’t do that. I won’t.”