Page 137 of Scars and Crowns

Yuvaan squeezes my hand. "You don't have to understand why," he says quietly.

I look at him. "Maybe I should."

"No. You were scared," he continues. "You don't owe anyone a perfectly explained decision you made while you were hurting."

I look away before he can see how much that sentence affects me. "The pregnancy was difficult." I rest my head back against his shoulder. "Physically, yes. But that wasn't even the worst part."

My fingers tighten around his. "I was alone." The words come more slowly now. "I was sick at three in the morning with no one to call. There were days I couldn't afford to miss work, so I'd go anyway. I'd come home exhausted and lie down in that tiny room and stare at the ceiling." My voice breaks slightly. "And every day I had this baby growing inside me, and I didn't know what I was supposed to feel about it."

I swallow.

"I was terrified I wouldn't love her." Yuvaan's thumb moves over my knuckles. "I hated myself for even thinking that." I look down. "Because she hadn't done anything." My eyes blur. "She was just a baby." A tear falls onto our joined hands. "She didn't ask for any of it."

Yuvaan lifts our hands and presses his lips against my knuckles.

I close my eyes. "The delivery was worse." I take a breath. "I . . . don’t know how I made through it." He goes very still. "There was a nurse." My mouth trembles. "She held my hand because there was nobody else."

I remember the ceiling above the hospital bed. The fluorescent lights. The pain. The strange feeling of knowing that something enormous was happening and having absolutely no one to turn toward when I was frightened.

"I remember thinking that I had never felt so alone in my life." My voice cracks. "And then they put her in my arms." For the first time tonight, my expression changes without me forcing it. "I looked at her." A small smile touches my mouth through the tears. "And she didn't look like him."

Yuvaan's eyes soften. "She looked like my mother." I laugh weakly. "She had this tiny little face and this ridiculous amount of hair, and I remember staring at her and thinking . . . oh." My voice disappears for a second. "She's mine."

I touch my chest. "Something just . . . happened here." I shake my head. "I didn't stop being scared. I didn't forget what had happened. But I loved her." A tear slips down my cheek. "I loved her so much it frightened me."

Yuvaan pulls me closer. "I remember looking at her and thinking I'd burn the whole world down before I let anyone hurt her." I let out a shaky breath. "And I've felt that way every day since."

We sit quietly for a while. His fingers move through my hair, slow and absent-minded. The city lights pass across the windshield in brief flashes, illuminating his face and then leaving it shadowed again.

For the first time, the silence doesn't feel like something I have to fill. It feels safe. "Yuvaan."

He looks down. I sit up. I need to see his face for this. "Will you always love her?" His expression changes immediately.

"Sara?" He asks.

I nod. "Even now?" I hate how frightened I sound. "Knowing everything?" He doesn't answer immediately, and those two seconds are enough for every old fear I've ever carried to crawl back up my throat. "Knowing where she came from," I whisper. "Knowing whose blood runs through her."

His hands come up to my face. "Anamika." I meet his eyes. "Sara is Sara." His voice is quiet. "So simple."He whispers, certainty audible in his voice, "There is nothing of him in the way I see her."

My eyes burn.

"I've never looked at her and thought of anyone except you. Not once." He brushes his thumb beneath my eye. "I remember the first time she met me. She tapped my leg and told me it was rude to listen to conversations that weren't mine."

A broken laugh escapes me. "That sounds like her."

"It is completely her." He smiles faintly. "She's stubborn. She's nosy. She's dramatic. She cheats at games and then insists she won fairly."

"She does not cheat."

"She absolutely cheats and got that from you too." Despite everything, I laugh. He smiles when he hears it. "She's yours," he says. "All the best parts of you, and a few terrifying ones you've apparently decided to pass down."

My smile disappears slowly. "She isn't his."

"No." His answer is immediate. "She isn't." He takes both my hands. "She is our little girl who deserves to grow up knowing she was loved from the moment she came into this world."

My throat tightens. "Promise me."

"I promise."