Wolfgang is afraid to breathe, to close the space between them.
It has been forever.
And yet, he remembers the taste of her as if they'd never stopped being lovers. As if five years hadn't come between them to challenge impossibly heady memories of taste and touch and smell.
"Kala."
He hardly knows whether he says her name aloud or if he merely thinks it. He hardly cares that his soul is bared for her in that single utterance. His forehead touches hers, his hand strokes the nape of her neck. He is finally holding her, and he is overwhelmed.
...
Wolfgang leaves work early. He tells his uncle he's sick and Sergei fixes him with a glare but otherwise merely waves him off. Since returning to Berlin, Wolfgang volunteers to work in the gray area of his family business. He's proven himself a better boxman than his father, and Sergei is more than pleased. So if Wolfgang occasionally fails to show up at the office for legitimate work, or chooses to leave after putting in an hour or two, Sergei isn't complaining.
Wolfgang walks out of the office and pauses, directionless. He feels a need to get blisteringly drunk.
Goddamn Will Gorski.
After four months of silence, Will sent a message last week: Kala is marrying Rajan next Friday.
Today is Kala's wedding day.
...
Wolfgang's heart beats so loudly the roar of blood is in his ears. His mouth tilts a whisper from her lips, but he hesitates, so uncertain of her that he's left with nothing but "I wish " inadvertently sighed into the silence. It hovers over them, as it did in the parking lot of the coffee shop, raw and strangely honest.
The one thing in his life worth fighting for, and he'd been beaten by shadows: all this time wasted because of him.
But Kala relaxes against him. "I know," she says gently. And it is Kala who closes the gap between them, lifts her hand to lightly press against the back of his neck, and brings her lips to touch his, chaste and undemanding.
...
Wolfgang walks to his car, anger and frustration mounting with each step.
He had felt wild panic: There was still time. But time for what? What was he supposed to do? Fly the fuck out there and confess everything? Beg her to stop the wedding? He is in Berlin. He is back to a life not suited for marriage and a happily-ever-after.
Meanwhile, that devoted limp-dick probably shadows Kala like a puppy, showers her with everything she can want without fear of murderous enemies. Wolfgang gives a bitter smirk, throws an angry punch at the hood of his car, leaving a faint dent, scraping his knuckles.
He thought Kala married months ago. He'd spent a destructive few weeks getting her out of his blood, accept that she's married to someone else.
His gut twists painfully. To have to go through it again...Fuck Will Gorski.
Wolfgang ignores the batshit crazy idea that he's been given a second chance to fix things when he thought she was lost to him already. He can't.
He heads to a bar, watches a Dortmund friendly on tv while he steadily drinks. Felix meets him after work, sobers him up a little by ordering some food. They hang out until well past 9, drunk again after multiple shots. Felix for once is tired and wants to go home.
Wolfgang doesn't want to go home. He is shit-faced, but he drags Felix to a notorious club where it doesn't matter that it's only 10 pm: The crowd is already half-high and the other half is fucking in unlit corners. It suits his mood.
It's 3pm in Chicago, and Kala is getting married.
He loses Felix early on, disappears into one of those corners with a tourist who likes it rough, if the blatant groping on the dance floor is an indication. If Wolfgang feels a sudden hopelessness as he imagines what Rajan is doing at that very moment, he buries it in the tourist who doesn't care if he walks away with some bruises, souvenirs from his hot German hookup.
And if the sex doesn't completely erase the images in his head, or fill the void that threatens to swallow him whole, Wolfgang tells himself it's all he deserves.
...
Kala's lips touch Wolfgang's firmly; in that moment, he is shocked by how quickly desire shoots through him. He doesn't return Kala's kiss, mesmerized by the surrealness of the moment. Her lips lift slightly from his.
And then his hand buries itself firmly into her curls, catches her before she pulls any further away. His eyes sweep her face, and she looks back with a dazed expression that seems to understand his unspoken question. He leans in as he brings his mouth to meet hers. He tastes the salt of tears as he drags his tongue over her lips, slipping between them on her soft moan.
He tries not to be greedy, painfully aware of the fragility of the moment, but he is starved for her: He kisses hungrily, tasting everything she offers, restraining the urge to drag them both down to the floor.
Kala's tongue pushes against his, exploring his mouth as needily as he explores hers. He moans when he pauses long enough for her tongue to glide over his, slip to stroke the soft underside. Their hands touch boldly, skim over bodies that arch under the constraint of clothes. Wolfgang's mouth moves to her cheek, her chin, follows the curve of her tilted neck with his tongue and sucks on the sensitive dip at her collarbone.
He breathes her in and his senses are assaulted by the memory of her. He is drunk on the knowledge that he is finally home, with Kala. Where he's always belonged.
...
Kala's eyes dart around the crowded hall as she is carried down the aisle in an elaborate crimson and gold bridal doli.
There is a part of her that looks on in disbelief.
Four months ago, she moved back in with Daya, shutting the door both literally and figuratively on a life with Wolfgang. If anyone had told her then that she would be marrying someone else this soon, she would have called them crazy.
Rajan had not brought up the topic of marriage since her miscarriage. He offered her support and friendship in the days that followed, never pressing the idea of even dating again. So when Rajan formally proposed, Kala was caught by surprise. She rejected him out of hand, but he'd looked so hurt she agreed to think about it.
She didn't tell anyone for a week. When she finally told Daya, Daya had only sighed. "He truly loves you," she said. "He will never treat you like Wolfgang did." Kala thinks about the pictures of Wolfgang, thinks about his betrayal. It was the most effective argument for accepting.
Kala sees her mother, already under the mandap with her father, bubbling over with joy. Her mother's astrologers insisted that the optimum time for the wedding, to assure much happiness and many children, is three months from the engagement. Kala suspects her mother agreed with a quick date because she worried that any later, and someone would call off the wedding.
Her father, however, watches gravely as the doli nears. He worries at her decision to marry Rajan so soon. He waited for her to tell him why, to assure him of her decision. But for the first time in her life, Kala said nothing to her father. She didn't want to talk about any of it. She doesn't ever want to talk about any of it. When Kala walks around the fire, her hand in Rajan's, and recites her vows, she does so with a determination meant to assure her father as much as herself.
She greets Riley and Will at the western style reception. They look at her with concern, but they kiss her and wish her happiness. If they heard from Wolfgang at all, neither tell her. She feels the sting of tears and smiles. If they notice that the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes, they say nothing.
...
Wolfgang murmurs something ridiculous, something achingly sweet, in her ear, when Kala suddenly breaks away. She brings her hands up from his bare abdomen, rests them against his chest while her own rises and falls raggedly. " Wolfgang ."
His breath is labored but he draws his head back too. His eyes are dazed, dark, but he focuses on her, even as his hands slide from under her blouse to rest on her hips.
Kala catches her bottom lip, smooths his shirt down before meeting his gaze.
"Wolfgang," she says again, her voice breathy, eyes troubled. "What are we doing? What do you want from me?"
He would smirk, make a flippant reply, if he isn't so aware of the importance of his answer. He wonders if she's startled by the immediacy of their physical reaction when a few weeks ago she'd rightly told him to go to hell. He's not put off: not in the least. It was always like this with her, for him. Always.
...
Her wedding night is the first time that Kala sleeps with Rajan since she ended their relationship nearly a year and a half before. She is nervous: She tells herself it's because it's her first time to have sex since the miscarriage. But if she is being honest, she is also nervous because it feels - awkward? different? - to sleep with someone other than Wolfgang. But it no longer matters: She is Kala Rasal, now.
There is something comforting and solid about being with Rajan. He was her first; they were each other's first, and she smiles softly as he takes the bangles from her wrists, the chains from her neck. His fingers are deft as he removes the pins and the delicate scarlet dupatta from Kala's hair and unhooks the embroidered choli to bare his new bride. Rajan exhales in appreciation, eyes alight. He murmurs her name gently as his hands cup her breasts and glide to the waist of her bridal lehenga. He unhooks the skirt to let it pool in a crimson and gold swirl at her feet. His hands splay across her body, his mouth trails kisses along her neck, her shoulders.
Kala doesn't close her eyes. If she closes her eyes, she thinks of different hands, a different mouth, and she's afraid it will be Wolfgang's name she will murmur in her marital bed, on her wedding night. So Kala forces herself to keep her eyes open so she remembers to whom it is she owes her loyalty: She deliberately watches her hands - intricately covered in mehndi - cup Rajan's head, run fingers through his thick, dark hair. She watches as his head moves lower, as his hands trail past her waist and touch her intimately.
And if there is a sudden, yearning sadness that she feels, she wills it away.
...
Wolfgang meets Kala's troubled gaze with gentle certainty. "I want you, " he tells her, never more serious in his entire life, never so vulnerable as at this very moment. His gaze doesn't waver from hers. "I've been living my life pretending we were a lie. But pretending isn't a life, Suesse. I've never stopped loving you."
Kala watches him breathlessly, eyes bright, but she shakes her head, brows furrowed. "No," she tells him, dropping her hands from his chest. "No. You think you do, but it's just the emotions from today. From the past several days." Kala withdraws slightly, sitting back on the ottoman, putting distance between them again. "You've romanticized everything. You don't really want me - us - again. You want closure. This is part of closure. You just want this." Her hands flutter, gesturing between them; her cheeks flush.
"Is that what you think?" Wolfgang is startled by his own vehemence. He moves his hands to rest on her shoulders, dips his head so he can see her face clearly, to see for himself whether she truly believes what she says. Kala doesn't flinch from his gaze, her expression between defiance and longing; a war between logic and desire. He gives a huff and leans forward so she can't avoid his eyes, blazing a brilliant blue.
"I don't want just this, Kala," he tells her. "I don't want to just fuck you and go away. I've known from the first moment I saw you that I wanted you. I knew it then, and I know it even more now." He takes a breath, tries not to sound desperate or plaintive although he feels both. He lowers his voice. "Kala, it's always been you. I'm asking for another chance. Please."
She is silent for a long time. A single tear escapes and trails along her cheek; she swipes at it quickly, impatiently. "I can't," she says, quietly. "I can't."
...
Kala and Rajan spend a month on their honeymoon: a week in Goa, another in Udaipur, before they head to Italy and Malta.
Rajan is attentive and eager to please. He takes his bride shopping and buys her beautiful jewelry, even though Kala would rather explore the places they visit. When they return to Chicago, he tells her she doesn't need to work; she has as much time as she wants to settle into their new home in the North Shore. The house is a difficult commute to the lab but near corporate offices, where Rajan works. Kala bites her tongue to keep from giving him a sharp retort. She ignores the voice that argues if he knew her at all, he would know she loves what she does.
She returns to work that week, despite the jet lag, despite the hour-long commute.
Rajan's parents and her mother ask regularly when there will be children. At first, the questions are teasing, but when a year, then two go by, the questions grow concerned.
Kala and Rajan deliberately wait before they try, but pregnancy eludes them. Kala is afraid that the miscarriage is responsible, and even though he doesn't say it, Kala knows Rajan thinks so too. They see a specialist who assures them that Kala is healthy and very capable of bearing children. The specialist makes intimate recommendations for her and Rajan that they follow diligently for a few months before Kala realizes she has had enough.
She stares blankly at her cell phone, reminding her that it's time to meet Rajan. She watches the alarm buzz until it finally stops on its own.
She wonders why she agreed to this. She doesn't want to meet Rajan for sex. She doesn't want to have children. She doesn't want to be bound irrevocably to a man she doesn't really love.
Kala is startled to find a tear land inelegantly on her phone, then another and another.
She leaves her office and drives home. She tells Rajan that evening that she wants a divorce.
...
Wolfgang can't think clearly; his eyes burn. It feels as if a vise closes around his chest.
Kala crosses her arms and drops her gaze; it's too difficult to look at him. "I forgive you, Wolfgang," she says softly. "I'm not angry any more. You've given me that. But that's not the same as wanting to be with you." She frowns slightly, draws a steadying breath. "I don't know how I feel about you, but I know I'm not ready. I'm not ready to be with anyone, let alone with you. Especially you."
The vise in his chest tightens; his throat constricts.
"Kala." He opens his mouth to speak but no words come. Nothing in English. Nothing in German. "Kala." Nothing but her name and everything he feels.
"You cannot come back after all this time and ask to pick up where you left off," she says, voice raised, "as if the years apart never happened. It's not fair. So much has happened." She stands up quickly, knocking her empty glass on the floor. She takes a few steps away from Wolfgang. "I know what is going on. All this talk - explaining what really happened and why you really left - it makes you sentimental. Reminds you of happy times." She paces in the little space she has, and Wolfgang finds himself remembering this: Kala pacing and talking herself through problems and ideas and situations while he lay in bed or on the sofa, watching her, enthralled, amused. There is nothing amusing about it now.
"And because it was over so suddenly, and I, for one, am at a crossroads in my life, there is nothing more attractive than trying to recapture those times we had." She faces him with a triumphant expression, belied by a sudden sadness as she comes to her conclusion: "But it's illusory. We can't go back, Wolfgang. You think you want me because you know everything, now, and your emotions are raw. I've had time to think about this, and I know, when you have too, that you'll realize I'm right: that you were right the first time. What we were wasn't real. That kind of, of passion , that level of intensity, can't survive. It isn't meant to survive. And trying to recapture that is foolish." She takes a deep breath, satisfied by her logic. "There's only closure left for us, Wolfgang. Just that."
He shakes his head, stays silent for a long time. He tries to gather his thoughts, but the words spill on their own. "You're wrong." He gets up slowly, walks to face her. She takes an involuntary step back, stopped by a stack of boxes. The intensity in his eyes makes her catch her breath.
"I should have told you everything long ago," he says quietly. "I should have stayed and never left your side. I should have flown back and begged you to stop the wedding. I didn't do any of it. And so you married Rajan, and I stayed in Berlin." His jaw ticks, face flush. "I came back here. With Felix. I told myself it had nothing to do with you. I miss it here. And I hadn't thought of you in years." He watches something flicker in her eyes, and he's afraid that he's not doing this right, saying the right thing, but all he can think is that if there is any hope, he must tell her everything.
"But the truth is I never stopped thinking of you. Everything I've done - good and bad -was because of you: to forget you, to spite you, to make you proud, to bring you shame. Even if you never knew." His eyes lose some of their fierceness; they dim, soften. "You're in my blood, Suesse . You've never left me. And the only closure I want is an end to five years of being without you."
She is silent, breath held.
He has never in his life exposed so much of himself as he does to this woman, who looks at him with large dark eyes, wary, bright with unshed tears. He does so freely, trusting in her, that she will know what to do.
Even if, in the end, she breaks his heart completely.
A/N: Many thanks to KinoGlowWorm for helping me sort this chapter out. Thank you for reading! And as always, reviews are much appreciated:-)
