My Last Love Story by Falguni Kothari

would swallow me. I should’ve died with my parents. If I was dead, I’d stop feeling, stop grieving. I didn’t remember leaning over the edge, but I must have because, if only for a second, I was staring at a pile of shiny black rocks before I was yanked back hard.
    Someone shouted, but I didn’t know who or why or what. A pair of arms locked tight around me. A hand pressed my face into a wet, warm chest.
    He’d smelled of the sea and tasted of it, the night Zayaan had saved me. He let me go, only to push me into Nirvaan’s arms. Hopping from boulder to boulder, Zayaan had disappeared behind a large outcropping, only to reappear within seconds in swimming shorts.
    With gentle but firm words, they’d calmed me. They sat me down on the sand and made me drink overly sweet Frooti from a Coke bottle. They petted me like I was a newborn kitten. And I, desperate to confess my sins, had spilled my guts.
    Only after they’d handed me over to Smriti and I was on my way home with the taste of cake in my mouth, did I wonder how they had known it was my birthday or why I’d sipped Frooti from a Coke bottle. Only then did I recall what my peripheral vision had first registered but hysteria had censored.
    Zayaan had been naked, totally completely naagu , when he saved me. And there had been a girl half hidden between the jut of rocks where he’d come from—a partially naagu horrified-looking girl.

    I grinned in the dark, smearing the tears that had pearled in my eyes with a thumb before they leaked down my cheek. Reliving the Naked Savior incident always lifted my spirits, reminding me that life wasn’t all despair and darkness but could be sweet as a Frooti and funny, too. I thought of how much I’d laughed that night.
    That first volcanic introduction had defined my relationship with the guys. That chance encounter had changed my world again, ripping me out of my shell, out of my grief, making me bold and greedy in a way I’d never been before.
    I turned on my side, hugging my pillow. Exhaustion made my eyelids heavy, but I wasn’t anywhere near ready to fall asleep. Stars had popped up in patches in the blue-black sky. The rain clouds had finally been lured away, letting rain fall somewhere else for a change. I breathed in the gentle breeze blowing in through the open windows, fluttering the wind chimes on the deck.
    Smells could trigger memories. Carmel’s salty, fishy odor would often take me home to Surat in spirit, reminding me of the beaches in Gujarat, family holidays taken at various beach resorts, and of the hundreds of happy days and nights I’d spent in Dumas and Dandi with the guys. All three of us were beach babies or beach horses or whatever people obsessed with the sun, sand, and water were called. We didn’t mind other vacation destinations. We’d taken plenty of holidays where not a single beach had been on the itinerary. But if you asked us where our favorite place to chill was, without a doubt, we’d say the beach.

    I wasn’t done with the past though.
    The guys had sought me out the morning after the beach party. To check on my health and state of mind, they’d claimed. After confirming I was indeed sound in both, the true reason for their visit was revealed. They’d put me through a subtle interrogation about how much I’d seen and what I’d inferred from it.
    “Don’t gossip about us.” Zayaan’s low, hoarse baritone was as potent in daylight as it had been at midnight. “If you do, we won’t keep our mouths shut either.”
    “Is it gossip if it’s the truth?” I tested with false bravado. Not that I wanted people to think I was some kind of nutcase and/or suicidal. I wasn’t. Or I was over it by then.
    They took me to lunch—a blatant bribe. If I blabbed to anyone about the naked bits, the girl’s reputation would be ruined, and the guys’ wouldn’t fare any better.
    What I hadn’t known then was that Zayaan couldn’t afford a tarnished reputation. His father was the