Maybe Mahika’s wish to be happy has been fulfilled faster than she had believed it would be, because with Naina’s head on her lap and her laptop resting on her tummy with Dhruv laughing on its screen pumps her with serotonin.

The rest of them are loudly playing Scrabble beside them, and Mahika looks away from the laptop to tune into their conversation for a minute. They had all settled on the floor a while ago, ditching the couch to get more comfortable with the mess they already knew they were going to create.

“That’s not a real word,” Akash remarks, shaking his head. “There’s no way that’s a real word.”

Sakshi is just laughing, because she’s used to this, her back resting against Samay’s arm while he scrolls through his phone. He hates board games so Mahika isn’t surprised that he’s tuning them out.

“It is a real word!” Keerti whines, voice rising an octave and catching Dhruv’s attention from the screen. “You know those rings at the corners of banners? The ones you use to hang them? They’re called grommets.”

Naina turns the laptop screen in everyone’s direction just in time for them to hear Dhruv say, “Here comes the Harvard graduate.” Keerti presses her lips together and narrows her eyes at the screen, sitting back and crossing her arms across her chest.

“It’s not my fault you’re all uneducated.”

“The word grommet makes me think of insects,” Amoli says, immediately shuddering after. 

“Or goblins,” Arnav pipes up.

“Same thing.”

Keerti stares at them, appalled. “How the fuck are they the s— you know what? Never mind. Doesn’t matter.” She looks back at the screen and shoots Dhruv the bird. “What does matter is that grommet is a real word. Google it if you want.”

“I don’t like this game anymore,” Sakhi says, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Me neither,” Akash chips in with a nod. “Can I flip the board?”

“Do it,” Amoli says, pointing at the board with her chin and then narrowing her eyes at her brother. “See what happens.”

“Oh, my God,” Naina groans, sitting up to give them an exasperated look. “Can you two stop arguing like five-year-olds every chance you get?” She looks at Dhruv with wide eyes. “It’s like living with children. You know they fight over cereal every morning at home?”

Dhruv laughs, and the sound soothes Mahika’s soul. “Be a little honest here, Naina. If you liked cereal, you would be part of the fight.”

“She’d start it,” Mahika puts in her two cents worth, only to get a betrayed look from Naina.

Leaving her two best friends to bicker back and forth as they always do, she ends up noticing Amoli struggling with her tiles to form a word, and ends up tapping the nail of her index finger on the floor to get her attention.

“Adamant,” she suggests when Amoli looks at her and blinks in surprise.

“Cheating!” Keerti exclaims. “You’re cheaters. Mahika you aren’t playing. Don’t speak.”

Mahika rolls her eyes but smiles to herself when Amoli gives Keerti a mischievous look and goes with the word Mahika suggested anyway, looking so proud of herself after that she earns a scoff of disbelief from Keerti.

“I’m about to flip this stupid board,” Keerti mutters as she goes ahead to draw tiles for her turn.

When Amoli turns to give Mahika a quick, mirthful look, eyes sparkling before looking away, Mahika’s heart stutters in her chest. 

The more time they spend together, the more comfortable Amoli seems to get around Mahika. The latter, on the other hand, is quite possibly stepping closer to the edge of insanity with every little interaction that they have. The more time they spend together, the more it makes Mahika wonder if she had dreamed the whole evening of Naina’s wedding.

It’s what keeps her wide-awake later that night, or at least enough that she has to leave the room — quiet as ever because Keerti is softly snoring in the dark —  and find her way to the garden in the back, sitting on the cold swing all by herself under the star-stacked sky with probably just as many thoughts inside her head. 

She has never thought about her romantic interests in depth before. Coming to terms with the fact that she wasn’t interested in men had come easy. Or… well, so had Mahika believed. Maybe this is the panic that she should have felt back then instead of just coming to terms with her sexuality as soon as the thought had crossed her mind.

Actually feeling something for someone makes it… realer. Of course, there have been fleeting thoughts inside her head. But that’s all they were. Fleeting. Never permanent. No big revelation. No dramatic moment. The thoughts came and left, but now that she has to constantly warn her heart to stay still at the sight of a certain girl, she feels like she has reached the dead end of the path she didn’t know she was strolling on all these years.

The casual So I Like Women, Huh that she had accepted years ago now seems to pulse alongside her heart with an erratic beat of its own, and Mahika has no idea what to do to make it go back to the way it was.

The feeling of something soft being placed around her shoulders makes her jump, but when she turns around and sees Naina looking down at her, she relaxes.

“You scared me,” she whispers, turning back around and taking hold of the cardigan her best friend had just put around her and pulling it tighter around herself. 

Naina makes her way around the swing, eyeing the book sitting face-down beside Mahika, her brows furrowing just as she takes a seat beside her.

“Is everything okay?”

Mahika almost nods her head just as a barely-there smile tugs at the corners of her lips so she can reassure Naina, but that very same moment, she almost notices the genuine concern in her familiar, warm eyes and ends up looking away.

She’s well-aware of the fact that somehow convincing herself that she has been lying to her friends about herself for years is absolutely ridiculous. In fact, labels don’t even matter much to her. They never have. Queer or not, she’s still herself. She’s still the Mahika who grew up with Naina. The same Mahika that Naina has shared most of her life with.

But making herself believe that she would still be the same Mahika to Naina that she has always been once she comes out to her is harder than she had expected it to be.

Maybe the coming out part is easier.

Telling her about the part that pushed her in this spot, though? Now that’s a whole other story.

So Mahika doesn’t just nod and say she’s okay. Even though the thought of being honest about this makes her hands tremble in her lap, she shakes her head with her eyes downcast, the shards of grass on the ground going blurry in her vision.

“Hey.” Naina’s voice is softer than it has ever been, her touch when she reaches out to put a hand on Mahika’s shoulder calmer than the silence of the night. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, if you want to talk to me, you can.”

When Mahika’s lower lip trembles and she draws in a shaky breath, Naina shifts closer and puts her head on her shoulder, whispering the words that she always has to put Mahika to ease. 

“It’s just me.”

And just like always, they wrap like a warm blanket around Mahika’s quivering heart.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she says finally, not sure if she says it out loud or just inside her head. It wouldn’t be the first time if it’s the latter, of course. There have been times when the words were on the tip of her tongue. But back then, she swallowed them back because she didn’t think they were important enough. 

Right now, they clog her throat because she’s not sure how Naina is going to react to the weight of them.

“I’m listening,” she replies, letting Mahika that she had, in fact, finally, said the words out loud. 

And that means they’re out there. Lying in the open. And now that they are, she needs to speak further before they lose all of their meaning.

“I…” she tries, but the word trails off, lost in the dark with the dissipating fog of their breaths. So she inhales and speaks again, and it’s so unbelievably hard that it takes up all the space in her throat until it hurts and brings tears into her eyes. “I… like someone.”

When Naina hums in encouragement, not sounding the least bit surprised, Mahika blinks a few times to keep the tears at bay but ends up getting them caught in her lashes instead.

“And… And it’s…”

Her chest aches while she struggles to get the words past but Naina — God Mahika loves her so much — sets her palm on Mahika’s back and pats it once before beginning to rub it in slow, comforting circles, whispering a soft, “Keep going. I’m here. I’m listening.”

Mahika squeezes her eyes shut as if ashamed, but it’s right that second that Naina pulls back, and Mahika can feel her eyes on the side of her face.

“It’s not a guy.” The words are rushed and garbled and while on one hand Mahika isn’t even sure whether they make sense or not, on the other she’s already panicking. No. No, please. What have I done?

“Okay,” is all Naina says, calming the roaring sea inside Mahika’s head with the blink of an eye.

Her heart is still beating faster than ever inside her chest, and she can’t bring herself to look at Naina in the eye, instead looking forward and focusing on nothing but the white noise she can physically feel inside her chest.

“Okay?” she whispers, voice empty. Okay?

“Mhm,” Naina hums, putting her head back on Mahika’s shoulder and vining her arm around hers like she always has. “Thank you for telling me.”

The silence rings in Mahika’s ears for the next few seconds.

“Mahi?” Naina says then, delicately reaching out to hold Mahika’s hand that’s resting in her lap, squeezing it in reassurance like she used to when they were kids and Mahika’s parents would have a fight.

“Yeah?” she replies, feeling her freezing fingers slowly warming up in Naina’s hold.

“I’m proud of you.” 

Mahika’s vision blurs again, this time with the relief of the realization that slams into her, and just like that, the words that replace the noise inside her head are a breeze of, I’m accepted. I’m loved. I’m still me.