Project Heart - Chapter 31: Chapter 31

Dikhou knew fear. Intimately. His whole life was built around it, after all. Fear defined him, made him who he was.
Fear – of getting bullied by his peers, of disappointing his parents, of losing what was left of his family, of people finding out his secret, of people's judgements, of them humiliating his family. People, people, people.
He was terrified of people.
So as he stood in front of a whole crowd of angry people who were confronting Junak – the only person who ever truly gave him the courage to be himself – he could not say a single word to defend him. He tried, but it was not nearly enough.
And then, one random remark by Madhab, that scum on the face of this earth, had all the people's attention poised at Dikhou and all his fear solidified as if it were a real entity.
"You wouldn't know because you haven't been around here, Jiri-ba," Madhab said. "But we've seen how cosy Dikhou is with Junak. God knows what those two get up to behind closed doors."
The world crumbled around Dikhou like a house of cards. And he fell with them, into some deep, dark void. He felt weightless. Numb. After all his painstaking efforts to hide, it was almost cruel to be exposed like this. In front of a crowd of unknown, disgusting people.
He suddenly thought of Junak, at a party, standing like this in front of a crowd of strangers as his girlfriend outed him. God! How did he survive that?
Dikhou was not sure if he was going to survive this. Or how. But amidst all the suffocating dread, he found a pinprick of relief. Amidst the numbness, he felt light at the prospect of not having to carry this burden anymore.
But then, the unexpected happened. "Don't be ridiculous!" Junak shouted. Junak, with his soft heart and kind eyes, Junak with his fear of ghosts and spiders, was standing tall and bold in front of all those people and saying how Madhab was wrong, how Dikhou was straight and ugly and Junak was only using him for his own gains.
It was suicide, his declaration. The people were already there to harass him, and yet here he was, taking away the arrow pointed at Dikhou and pushing it into his own chest.
"Junak," his grandmother warned.
"Sorry, aita. I'm my father's son, after all."
Dikhou was teleported back to a day, seemingly from a different lifetime, when Junak, with his shoulders dropped and head downcast, had said: I'm not my father. I don't care if you hate me, but I want you to know that I'm not like my father.
Dikhou's mother was the first to react. She gritted her teeth, held up her chin and walked away. Jiri glared at Junak and said, "Dikhou, Kopili, we're leaving."
It all felt like a dream – hazy, uncertain, time transitioning in jumps. One moment he was there in front of all the people and the next moment he was in his house, Jiri pacing and shouting how Dikhou should have seen this coming.
Dikhou honestly should have seen this coming. He's lying, Niribili had said. He doesn't want them to find out that you're... you know, so he's lying to push you away. He did not believe her then, but he did now. How could he not?
"Why was Junak-da lying?" Lohor said, interrupting Jiri's ramblings of how the whole Baruah family could go to hell. All eyes turned to the ten-year-old.
"What did you say?" Dikhou found himself asking.
Lohor gave a casual shrug. "He was lying. I just don't understand why."
"Don't butt into things you don't understand, Lohor," Jiri hissed, while Kopili frowned and asked, "Why do you think he's lying?"
Lohor shrugged again and Dikhou knew that gesture: Lohor did it whenever he was being honest but did not want people to make a big deal out of it. "Junak-da was being mean. On purpose. He's never mean. Even that one time when that idiot, Atul, was boring him with his imaginary stories, he was being polite."
The adults stared at him.
He absently kicked the floor. "And he wasn't stuttering. He usually stutters when he's nervous. Right?" He asked Dikhou who swallowed his words.
"You have no idea what you're talking about," Jiri said impatiently. "These are things beyond your understanding, Lohor."
The young boy turned to Dikhou and held his gaze. People always scoffed at the idea of Dikhou being friends with a kid, but they did not see what he saw. Lohor was too smart, too strong and too brave for someone his age. And here he was, looking at Dikhou with eyes that said come on, man, snap out of it. I'm the kid here, not you.
"Lohor... kind of makes sense," Kopili began hesitantly from where she sat on the couch. "Why will he purposely say all that when the people are already riled up against him?"
"Oh, not you too!" Jiri threw up her hands. "It's bad enough Dikhou is blind to it, I don't need you taking his side too."
"But–"
"But what? Have you no self-respect? He humiliated our brother, humiliated us, in front of everyone because he knows no one can do anything to him! Don't you see? It's a dare, his confession. Like he's saying yeah I'm an asshole but there's nothing you can do about it."
It snapped something in Dikhou, hearing his sister curse at Junak. Junak, who had sacrificed himself to save him from a lifetime of humiliation.
He wasn't the asshole. Dikhou was, for abandoning him. Jiri was, for judging him for things his father did. All the people were, for not even trying to get to know him before ganging up on him.
I thought no one else would want me – Junak had said. The sad, lonely man who was always smiling, helping, giving so much he perhaps had nothing left for himself.
The fear in Dikhou transformed into something else, something bright and solid. Something certain and fearless. "Junak was lying."
"Dikhou, come on–"
Their mother, who hadn't said a word so far, raised a hand, interrupting Jiri. "Why?" she asked.
Dikhou eyed his family – Kopili, who, despite living in the same house, stayed so far away from him, they almost felt like strangers. Jiri, who had pretended to be strong her whole life yet never understood how strength could look different for different people. And his mother, whom he loved more than anyone else in the whole world, but who was never there for him, not when he needed her to be a friend and sit and listen and not judge him. He looked at his family – people he could give his life for, but people who barely knew him. They never even tried.
"Because it's true," he said. He kept his eyes on the wall, staring past his mother's shoulder, at a thin crack on the paint. "I like men."
In his head, the words uttered aloud had the power to summon thunder and incinerate him. In reality, they hung suspended in a bitter silence that stretched out all around him, pulling at his skin.
He reminded himself to breathe. Breathe and this would pass. Breathe and he would still be alive. "Junak was trying to protect me." His voice was impossibly steady, he did not know how. "Madhab and his guys bullied him. Nearly killed him. He's scared they'll do the same to me."
Silence. A wide chasm of silence that Dikhou could fall into and never climb out of.
"I'm sorry," he told the wall. "I tried... fighting it. Jiri-ba knows. But it's... it's who I am. And I'm sorry." The last two words tore past his throat and came out weak and broken.
His eyes prickled with unshed tears.
He took a step back, turned without letting his gaze fall on anyone and left the room.
He was shaking uncontrollably as he walked into his room and collapsed on the bed. Warm tears leaked down his cheeks.
The world spun all around him and he wished – oh how he wished – Junak was there, holding his hand and telling him you were so brave. I'm so proud of you. And I'm glad. I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad.
Dikhou hunched over his knees and stared at his hands. He felt nauseated and... like... like he was dying.
Dying...
Was he dying? Should he be dying? Would it be better if he died?
Someone walked into the room, their steps slow but steady.
Dikhou closed his eyes and held his breath.
His mother sat on the bed next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
It broke every ounce of strength he had left in him. He broke down into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm sorry," he said, over and over and over again, until a pair of warm hands caught his head and held it to her chest.
"Stop. Stop," she coaxed, running her hand through his hair.
He caught her sador in his fists and cried. Like he was nine years old and had just heard the news of his father's death.
"Sshh, sshh, it's okay." His mother's voice was strained like she too was crying. He did not have the courage to look. "It's okay. It's okay."
It took a long, long time for him to calm down. Even as he stopped crying, he did not let go of his mother. Her lap felt like the last safe space he had left. She held onto him too, one hand tapping a soothing rhythm on the back of his head, the rhythm of a lullaby lost years ago.
When she spoke, her voice was low and almost sounded like a lullaby. "Can I... ask you some things?"
He nodded into her chest.
"Are you... sure about it?"
"Yes."
"Since when?"
Dikhou's voice was cracked beyond recognition. "I don't know, forever? Jiri-ba... Jiri-ba knows about it. She asked me to not tell anyone."
"Did your father know?"
"I don't – no. No, it was... after him."
She continued to tap the rhythm on his head. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I didn't..." He choked on a sob. "I don't... I don't want you to hate me." She stiffened then, and horror gripped Dikhou's heart. "Please don't hate me," he begged. "I don't... I won't be able to live if you do."
"Oh, Dikhou. I don't hate you."
Fresh tears fell down his cheeks. His throat was burning and it was getting so damn difficult to speak! "I swear I didn't – I don't want to humiliate you. Or – or disappoint you."
His mother took a shaky breath. "Do you want to hear a story?"
Dikhou did not understand where she was going with this, but he closed his eyes and nodded.
"I met your father when we were in college."
Dikhou's heart skipped a beat. His mother hardly ever spoke of his father, and whenever she did, it was about how much he had hurt her.
"We were in different departments. He was... really shy, soft-spoken and... well, in no scenario would he have spoken to a girl. Especially me, I was very... unapproachable."
Dikhou smiled. He could picture it crystal clear in his head – a younger version of his mother with her hard expression and his father with the nervous way he walked with his hands in his pockets.
"His best friend Niyor Baruah was in my class. He was a delinquent through and through and like everyone else, I stayed away from him. All our teachers had given up on him too, except our English teacher who somehow still saw hope in him. She asked Niyor to borrow my notes and I couldn't say no to a teacher so I gave him my notebook. Two days later, just as I was sure I was never getting my notes back, your father walked up to me to return my book."
Dikhou was barely breathing, lost in a daze. He had never heard this before, about his mother's life before she became... well, his mother. It felt surreal, like she was talking about other people, fictional people, not about herself when she was his age.
"Luit was nothing like his notorious best friend. He was... passionate about his studies and he was into debates and quizzes. He was also really sweet and really kind. He cracked terrible jokes and was incredibly bad at saying no to people, but by the time college came to an end, we were in love."
Dikhou pushed himself upright to stare at his mother. She was smiling but it was such a fragile thing, Dikhou felt his heart break.
"My parents did not want us to get married."
This was another thing he did not know. His maternal family hadn't visited them in a long, long time but he had never quite put much thought into it.
"Your father was from a lower caste," she explained. "My family was... well, they weren't easy. Deuta was furious, Ma tried to make me see all the flaws Luit had and my siblings tried to get me engaged to another man from our caste. It was... a whole deal."
Dikhou could imagine, though he did not know her family.
"After begging and bargaining and threatening to run away, they consented to our marriage. But my parents... they never came to see me afterwards."
Dikhou swallowed the lump in his throat. "What?"
His mother sighed as she nodded. "Luit's family was slightly more supportive but then, when your father quit his job, they found a way to blame it on me."
No. No, no, no, no.
His mother had her head downcast. "And after the whole deal with... Niyor and us losing the land, they cut us off completely."
Suddenly, everything made sense – why his relatives never visited, why the villagers were implicitly hostile towards his mother, why she always held her head high like she was ready for a fight, why she repeatedly kept telling him your sisters are all you've got.
She looked up at her son and her gaze softened. "I know it's not the same, but... my family never tried to understand me. Not once. And they put their silly reputation and outsiders' opinions before me." She shook her head. "I will never do that."
The relief flooding through him was raw and overwhelming.
"Though I do admit that I... I don't understand. But I want to." She added hastily. "I want to understand, Dikhou. Will you help me?"
And... he was crying again. And clutching onto her again. "Yes, Ma. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you."
She held him gently. After a few moments, she said, "Jiri only wanted to protect you, you know? However she could."
"I know." And he honestly did. He was even a little glad for her advice. The world was a cruel place and hiding was sometimes better. And all one could do.
"Did anyone ever... hurt you? Because of this?"
"No."
"Isn't it..." She sounded tensed. "Isn't it illegal?"
"Not anymore."
The relief in her deep inhale was loud and contagious. "And where does Junak come into all this?"
Dikhou's heart tripped at the name, at the question. At the absurdity of having this conversation with his mother and how liberating it felt.
He pulled away from the embrace to face her. Except, he couldn't, and ended up staring down at his hands on his lap. "Junak helped me... understand. Before talking to him, I... I thought... something was wrong with me. That I was... the only one who felt this way."
"Is that all?"
He took in a deep breath. "I like him," he whispered, then wondered at the enormity of it. It was nerve-wracking, to say it out loud, to have it floating in the world around him. It made it so much more real.
And so much easier.
He liked Junak. So much and so easily, it was almost involuntary and effortless.
"And he?" his mother asked.
Dikhou's breath hitched. "No. Yes. Maybe. I don't know."
His mother sighed and leaned back on her arms. "It now makes a lot more sense why I found you crying on the porch at four in the morning."
Dikhou looked up to find her... smiling. All the fear that had been rusting inside his body dissipated immediately, giving him so much room to breathe, he did not know what to do with all that air. "You're not... repulsed by me?"
His mother pretended to consider that for a moment. "No, I think... I rather like the idea of you seducing Niyor's son and stealing all their property."
It took Dikhou a moment to realise his mother made a joke. A joke. A joke! About him seducing a guy.
He was drowning again, but instead of fear, it was an onslaught of relief and happiness, warm and bright and reeking of love. He marvelled at it.
And he laughed. And he cried.