˗ˏˋbig deals and watery chuckles 'ˎ˗

➷

Amoli has not been through a crisis of this magnitude since she was nineteen years old, and she saw Mahika for the very first time.

It's not that she didn't already know she was attracted to women back then, really.

She had a busy couple of months back when she was eighteen — full of introspection as she grappled with her sexuality before she had the identity part down. And then it was a little bit like losing a sock during laundry; thinking about it for the rest of the week before the thought was pushed to the back of her head.

She had known of Mahika since Akash and Naina started dating, but she didn't have the chance to meet the girl for a very long time. Naina said something about Mahika's schedule being weird, so the only thing Amoli knew about Mahika back then was:

1.) she grew up with Naina and was probably her favorite person in the world,

2.) she was two years older than Amoli,

3.) and she kept herself very, very busy.

So... needless to say, Amoli did not know a lot.

To say that she was completely unprepared for the day she met Mahika would be the understatement of the century.

She had assumed that it would obviously be fine; this was just another person Naina was friends with. Amoli had already met the rest of them anyway. And she liked Naina's friends. They were warm and welcoming without being pushy.

"Mahi was with Naina when I last called, so you'll probably meet her today," Akash told her, and 'oh, okay' had been her dismissive, distracted response, because she didn't think much of it.

It won't be that big of a deal, she thought.

(It was a very big deal.)

Amoli's first clue that she was about to be thrown into a crisis was when she saw the girl sitting with Naina at the café practically swallowed up in her big shirt, one long, bare leg crossed over the other.

Rationally, Amoli knew it was summer and almost everyone inside the café was wearing shorts, but the rest of them didn't look the way she did. Not to the very, very gay part of her brain, at least.

Amoli's second clue came when the girl in question looked up at their arrival and smiled brightly, pushing her glasses over the bridge of her nose with the tip of her index finger, and oh, no, Amoli thought, almost missing it that her brother was making introductions between them.

"Hi!" said the girl who was about to make the next couple of months very, very hard for Amoli, pink lips still parted in a smile, and eyes twinkling behind her round glasses. "I'm Mahika."

Her voice was cute. There was a freckle on her cheek. And her chin. And the corner of her eye.

Wide-eyed and stone-still, Amoli swallowed back the squeak that was making its way up her throat at the speed of light because Mahika was so beautiful, the reminder that Amoli wasn't straight came like less of an awakening and more like someone crept into her bed of dormant attraction and slapped her across the face as hard as they could.

So... big crisis. At nineteen. Even though she had already come to terms with her sexuality. Mahika seems to have the power to turn Amoli's brain off when she needs it the most, so... it's fine. Well, not fine, maybe, because she's having yet another crisis.

And it's because of Mahika. Again.

If she thought she was screwed back then when she had first met Mahika, she is absolutely gone now after that dream she had earlier this morning.

She couldn't focus on any of her lectures. She didn't hear a single word that came out of her friends' mouths the whole time they were making their way out of the campus. She still feels the phantom touch of Mahika's fingertips across the planes of her stomach and hears Mahika's laugh ringing in her ears.

Snap out of it, she tells herself, gripping her phone in both her hands and trying not to respond to Mahika's texts in front of her friends because the smile on her face would give her away in three seconds flat. It wasn't even real.

Amoli is tugged out of her gentle dance of thoughts by a, 'You're more distracted than usual today,' from her left.

She blinks up at Rahil to find him leaning forward with his chin tucked into his palm, warm amber eyes looking down at Amoli, twinkling with amusement.

"You good?"

Amoli sets her phone face-down on the table, a little embarrassed at being caught daydreaming in the middle of a hangout with her classmates.

She has never been overly close to any of them, but she thinks that she's around Kimaya, Rahil, and Isha enough to call them her friends. Even though she never really meets them outside college.

The only reason why they're sitting in this quaint little cafè near the campus is because more than half of their lectures got canceled for the day but they still need to be around for the last two.

"Yeah," she tells him, and definitely does not think about how it felt to have Mahika's lips curve against hers in a smile. "Fine. Yeah," she repeats for no reason at all, and she doesn't know what Rahil sees in her expression, but it makes him chuckle.

"Are you sure? You looked very spooked for a second there."

"I'm fine," she murmurs, cheeks burning, because the images that her brain conjures up immediately after make her feel anything but fine. "Really. I was just thinking about something so I didn't notice I was spacing out —"

"Maya and I are going to order something to drink," Isha announces all of a sudden, and Amoli watches her knobby fingers take hold of Kimaya's wrist before she pulls the other girl to stand with her. "You guys want anything?"

"Um." Amoli blinks and then holds up her half-finished blueberry milkshake. Looks at the drinks they finished only minutes ago and resists the urge to frown. "I think I'm good."

"I'm good too, thanks," follows Rahil's response, and the flatness in his tone makes Amoli look up at his face, but he isn't looking at her. He's staring at their two other friends with his lips pressed in a thin line.

"Okay!" Isha chirps. "Be right back."

Amoli continues staring at their backs dumbly even after they walk over to the counter.

"What... was that about?" she asks no one in particular, absentmindedly cradling the cup of her milkshake between her hands, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

Rahil sighs and ducks his head in something akin to defeat. "Subtlety is not their strongest suit."

Amoli rolls her lower lip between her teeth and wonders if she's being left out of some kind of private joke between the three of them. Her eyes stick to the two girls' backs one more time before she looks at Rahil again and contemplates whether or not she should just ask.

She thinks, Okay, screw it, and opens her mouth, but Rahil beats her to it.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're very oblivious?"

Amoli closes her mouth and fails to hold off the wry smile from taking over. Thinks about the words,'I'm not the only one who was oblivious, you fool' being murmured in her ear, and says, "Yeah. Maybe once or twice."

"Okay." He wrings his hands together under the table for a few seconds, and then roughly brushes his fingers through his hair. "Okay. I... told them that there was no point to this multiple times, but. Okay. Okay. So, uh..."

He looks distressed and embarrassed; eyes shifty and knee bouncing under his other hand, and suddenly, it dawns on Amoli what exactly it is that's happening here.

Or is about to happen.

"Wait... Rahil, listen —"

"I've had a crush on you all semester."

Amoli presses her lips together in a thin line and thinks, Oh, fuck my life.

Maybe it shows on her face because Rahil takes one look at her expression and lets out a laugh that doesn't sound very amused. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Amoli."

It's Amoli's turn to wring her hands together on her lap, knuckles turning white. She was not expecting this. Hell, she didn't even think she was all that important to this little group of friends.

"I just..." Her voice, unlike the noise amid her thoughts, sounds quiet. "I wasn't expecting that."

"I figured." He chuckles again, and the self-deprecation is so clear in it this time that Amoli almost flinches at the sound. "At first I thought I was kind of obvious about it, but after a few days I realized that you weren't really going to see it." When Amoli looks up at him again, he's looking at anything but her. "Or that you already had, and were trying to let me down easy."

She doesn't know why she feels so guilty being part of this conversation. Doesn't understand why her chest feels tight with discomfort even when all Rahil has done is respectfully confess his feelings.

"I wouldn't — I didn't know." The idea of anyone thinking she would disregard someone's emotions like that on purpose makes her feel like garbage. "I wouldn't do that. I swear." She knows that her tone is beginning to take a panicked edge, but she can't stop herself. "I didn't know, Rahil, I'm so —"

"I know that now," He takes a pause to let out a long breath and adds, "Please don't say you're sorry."

Amoli slumps in her seat and hangs her head in dismay. "Okay."

"Isha and Kimaya caught on a while ago," he tells her, and Amoli doesn't have the heart to look him in the eye anymore. "But I could somewhat tell that you weren't... I don't know. It just felt like you weren't really looking to date anyone and I told them. But they wouldn't back off and I just..." he trails off with a shake of his head.

Amoli feels the guilt burn in her throat like acid.

"I didn't want to put you in this position because I knew what your answer was going to be." He chuckles breathlessly. "I guess some part of me was still hoping I'd be wrong." Amoli's shoulders draw inward at the words.

She knows what it's like to like someone from afar.

And it's not exactly the greatest ground to stand on.

"Hey."

Amoli looks up at him, fingers digging into her thighs.

"Don't feel bad," he murmurs, and the smile he gives her this time is a little more genuine. "I didn't tell you this to make you miserable but..." He wrinkles his nose. "God, that's exactly how you look right now. Are you that upset?"

She shakes her head, a watery chuckle making its way past her lips. "No, no, of course, I'm not upset. I just..."

"Don't feel bad," he repeats softly when she quietly trails off. "At this point, I told you more for my peace of mind than anything else, really. You don't have to take accountability for how I feel." When Amoli doesn't say anything and continues staring down at her lap with guilt eating her away from the inside, Rahil lets out a groan and dramatically pitches forward to put his head on the table. "Wow, look a little more bummed out about this, why don't you? Really good for a man's pride."

That makes her laugh, even though her eyes sting. "Oh, my God, I'm not bummed out! You're a nice guy, Rahil, really —"

"Oh, shit, I'm really about to be hit with an 'it's not you, it's me'."

"Stop it." Amoli's lips part in a real grin at the playfulness in his tone before her expression takes on more of a sheepish undertone. "Although, you kind of are, yeah."

"That's brutal, Amoli, come on."

Amoli contemplates one last time whether or not she's really doing this right now, pulling the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her palms to just give her fingers something to hold on to. She knows she'd get jittery and leave crescent-shaped marks on her thighs otherwise.

"Not like that! I'm just..." She turns to face him so he can hear her when she lowers her voice, and looks up at him from beneath her lashes. "I'm... already dating someone."

"Oh."

She looks back down at her lap. "And I was... hung up on h-her for like two years, so..."

"Oh."

Amoli tries to give him a smile but she's sure it looks more like a grimace instead. "Yeah."

He opens his mouth to say something but Kimaya and Isha round the table to join them again, so he closes it and leans back in his chair like nothing happened. Amoli does the same, her heart still going a hundred miles per minute inside her chest when she twists her body back to face the front.

"I know you said you didn't want anything but," Isha places a brown paper bag in front of Amoli, looking between her and Rahil with a little furrow between her eyebrows but thankfully choosing to stay quiet about it, "they baked those oatmeal raisin cookies today. You like them, right?"

When Amoli just blankly stares at the bag for a few seconds, Kimaya sits down with a sigh and says to Isha, "I told you she liked the chocolate chip ones more."

Isha shakes her head. "No, I could swear —"

"Both are good," Amoli interrupts, because the two of them tend to get into petty arguments over the most insignificant stuff if not stopped on time. "Thank you." She smiles at them, but she knows it looks a little shaky. She's trying, though, and that's got to count for something.

And she's genuinely surprised that they noticed something as trivial as her favorite kind of cookies.

"And nothing for me?" Rahil asks, and Amoli lets out a silent exhale of relief at the sound of his voice.

"'I'm good too, thanks'," Kimaya throws his earlier words back at him, sticking her tongue out. "We literally asked if you wanted anything."

"But Amoli said no, too!"

Isha rolls her eyes and reaches for the cup of matcha latte she got for herself. "Amoli isn't the one who eats more than half of every dessert I order."

Rahil launches into a playful rant about 'blatant favoritism' and the 'general unjustness' regarding him when it comes to their friend group, and maybe Amoli is wrong, but it almost feels like he's eliminating any possible chances of Isha and Kimaya asking them about their conversation prior to their return.

If that's what he's doing, then he succeeds because soon enough, they're discussing something class-related while Amoli half-zones out once again.

She can't help but wonder if things are going to be awkward between her and Rahil (and then eventually with Isha and Kimaya as well once they find out), and the thought makes her feel inexplicably unsettled.

But then she feels someone nudge her foot, and she looks at Rahil in surprise.

He taps at the screen of the phone he has on his lap under the table out of Isha and Kimaya's sight, and subtly gestures at Amoli's phone on the table with his chin.

She blinks again and reaches for it, glad she had silenced it earlier because there are a lot of texts from Mahika sitting unread on the lock screen, and the chimes would have drawn a lot of attention.

And there's one from Rahil, so she confusedly taps on it.

sorry for putting you in an awkward spot earlier, it says, and Amoli shakes her head without looking at him, typing out a response after making sure her other friends are still busy with the paper they have due later today.

Please don't worry about it. I just hope this doesn't make things weird between us

it won't. I swear.

He sounds far surer than she feels, but she decides to take his words at face value. For now.

She's about to lock her phone and put it aside again when another text pops up.

and I'm really happy for you, it says. she's very lucky.

Amoli swallows back the lump in her throat, and raises her head to find Rahil already looking at her with a small smile on his face.

Thank you, she mouths at him, and then takes a full breath for the first time since the day began.

➷

a/n

hello hello hello ! a crazy amount of new people here this month. whew. so ... yes. hello! i'm auro ! you can also call me sol. my pronouns are he/they, i absolutely love interacting with my readers, and i don't update a lot because i tend to get very busy amid the mess of my work and some really complicated health issues.

this is the first time i'm updating since the readers on the book went haywire, so big, big shoutout to all the official wattpad profiles that added Trinkets to the reading lists where most of you discovered me! i'm extremely proud and unbelievably giddy that Trinkets is now an 11x featured book, including the editors' choice list. thank you so, so much for everything. i never expected any of this, but i will cherish this support with my entire heart.

i hope you have all been well and healthy! thank you again. i will see you soon <3