Lying by Omission

"You're right. I would have been tying Priya's marriage necklace around her neck." He paused. "And a noose around my own."

"What happened, Ilan?" she finally asked. "I mean, 'we grew apart' doesn't cut it when you've been together for six years and almost made it to the altar." All he could do was give a weak shrug, not knowing the answer, himself.

"She turned into a bridezilla, I guess?" he offered as he smeared the avocado flesh on a crusty piece of bread and shook some salt and pepper over it. "I feel like an idiot, to be honest. Like, how could I have so poorly deciphered her character that I missed any and all clues before I proposed?"

"Big life changes do things to people," Nyssa said, her stomach feeling a little more settled as she took a bite out of a second slice of toast. "And I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about you." Ilan threw her a quizzical look.

"When you were about to make her your family, you started looking deeper at how she would treat your other family members, right? You started noticing how much of a partner she was to you; whether you felt like she was on your team. And I'd wager you were doing that every time you saw or talked with her without even realising it."

Ilan thought back and it hit him like a truck. He only started to see Priya for who she really was when shit got real.

"Before that, you were together and you probably thought about marrying her, but you hadn't put down a deposit yet," Nyssa continued, feeling more like herself. What's in this avocado? she wondered as she glanced at the toast in her hand that was somehow making her feel more awake than coffee ever did. Maybe I need to switch from booze to more fruit.

"But you thought ahead," Ilan said when she had another bite in her mouth. "You didn't want to start anything with me even when we were just friends because you were thinking all the way ahead to if and when I'd meet your family."

"Well, yee-ahh," Nyssa replied with a slight roll in her eye. "Most women are in the habit of thinking ahead, but my forethought was on crack for most of my life. You saw one percent of what my family was like when you encountered my uncle. I didn't put it past my parents to have a Black or brown boyfriend killed."

"That's a bit extreme, don't you think?" Ilan countered. Nyssa stared at him in silence, then took another bite without breaking eye contact until he cleared his throat. "Okay. Well, uh, anyway, do you still keep in touch with your parents?"

"My dad died a few months ago, I don't know when," she answered with a dispassion that almost chilled Ilan, "and my brothers keep up with my mom's rants on social media. They also went no-contact when they were able to."

"Nyss, I can't believe how you must have struggled all that time," Ilan said, incredulous. He was only now beginning to see the layers of stone she'd built around herself just to emotionally survive. It wasn't just me. She had to think through maintaining a relationship with every friend she ever had if it meant they'd come into contact with those monsters.

"Therapy helped," she responded as though it were nothing. "But by that time, it was too late for a lot of things. You were already with Priya and I couldn't shake that regret of not cutting my parents off earlier." A stillness fell over the kitchen and Nyssa briefly wondered if she overshared. "Think it's a good idea for me to have a coffee?" she tried to pivot.

"I have something better," Ilan smiled. "Ever had coconut water? Every time we went back to Sri Lanka, I ended up sick the first week. It wasn't the food; it was my stomach not being able to handle the time zone shift. So I drank this." He took out a small carton from the fridge and gently shook it. "I mean, I was lucky enough to drink it straight from the coconut, but two of these will rehydrate you for the day."

The mildly sweet, cloudy water was unlike anything Nyssa had ever tasted. She looked at Ilan and tried to put the flavour into words.

"Nature's original flat ginger ale," he smiled.

"That's sort of what it's like, but way less sweet!" she took another long slurp and reveled in the fact it was only Friday morning. They had another two-and-a-half days ahead of them to just do nothing together.

A movie marathon, a walk in the park, and almost two meals later, it struck Nyssa that they'd spent most of the day in silence. But it was a warm, comfortable silence that didn't require anything of them than to just exist. She smiled to herself while they were prepping dinner at how she'd been desperate to get Ilan in bed just 24 hours ago.

"What's the grin about?" he asked from the stove.

"Nothing," she grinned wider. "Just thinking about how wrong it would have been for us to have sex yesterday."

"Ouch."

"No, I mean," Nyssa full-on started laughing, "I mean, today was so peaceful and wonderful. We wouldn't have had this day if you hadn't--" she abruptly stopped. "Wait a second. You skipped out on your wedding today and we didn't hear a peep out of your phone since you got here?"

"Oh, right," Ilan said casually. "I turned it off after I broke up with Priya last night and I didn't switch it back on. It's in my bag somewhere."

"Oh yeah, no big deal," Nyssa said sarcastically. "Ilan! Check your phone! How can you go all this time without even worrying a little about what's gone on in the last day?" Ilan lowered the heat on the stove and stepped over to the sink where she was washing dishes.

"Because I don't need to be concerned with anything outside this kitchen right now," he said with a kiss to her forehead. When it hit him how flippant he was coming off, he tried to backtrack.

"I mean, I am mourning the relationship and how it took overwhelming changes for me to recognise Priya and I were never right for each other. But kinda like what you said, I've been slowly withdrawing for the last six months." He winced.

"I know I sound like an asshole, but it wasn't a surprise for me. I'm here because I feel like I wanted to compensate for losing out on being with you, when this is where I should have been all along." Ilan was thinking out loud at this point, faced with the reminder that there was a world outside Nyssa's house that he'd left to its own fallout.

"But you're right," he conceded. "Just because the relationship was dying for me doesn't mean it was for Priya, no matter how unfair I thought she's been since we got engaged. And it doesn't mean my parents aren't dealing with blowback even though I told them to turn off their phones too."

"I'll finish dinner, you sit there and entertain me with the worst texts people sent you," Nyssa said as Ilan went to fetch his phone.

"Here's one," he said a few minutes later after rejecting an incoming call. "You are surely going to hell for what you have done today," he read. "It's from my uncle."

"Check your voicemail," Nyssa prompted him as she started to rinse the dishes, trying to fight off her laughter. "What if your mom needs something?" The knowledge of Nyssa's fraught relationship with her own mother made it more clear to Ilan why she'd taken so well to his mom.

"She told me before I left Scarborough she wants to share another pumpkin spice latte with you," he murmured while punching in his password.

"You know she's allowed to buy them on her own without me there," Nyssa turned around in surprise.

"I told her that, but she wants to share one with you." Nyssa turned back to the sink and dropped her head a bit. When she touched her t-shirt sleeve to her face, Ilan pretended not to notice.

It was expected that his phone wouldn't hold more than three voice messages. What was perplexing was that two were from his cousins congratulating him on cancelling the wedding, and the third was from his father confirming that the damage from them taking out a second mortgage wouldn't be that bad, even after losing the deposit from the wedding hall.

"This is weird," Ilan said. "There's nothing here from anyone on Priya's side. I thought I'd have no shortage of hexes put on me by now."

"No one knows where I live, right?" Nyssa asked while drying her hands. She came over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair.

"Not even my parents," Ilan said, phoning his father back. "But they know I'm here." He put the phone on speaker when his dad picked up, immediately asking whether everything was alright. Nyssa tried to follow the conversation from Ilan's English side of it, as well as the expressions that danced across his face at the elder man's Tamil responses.

"You said that?" Ilan finally exclaimed. "Those exact words? Does Amma even know how to use social media?" Then he nodded knowingly. "Okay. Maybe I'll stay here for a couple more days." He paused as Jeganathan said something short but sounding like it was a term of endearment. "I love you too, Appa," Ilan said. "Thank you. And call me right away if anyone even so much as texts you."

"The biggest question I have is what the purpose was of putting the phone on speaker," Nyssa pursed her lips in a wry smile. Ilan looked over as if he hadn't realised what he'd done.

"Oh," he shook his head. "Sorry, that was silly," he walked back to the stove and gave their dinner a final stir. "That's just what I always do if we're talking to family. I mean--"

"It's okay, I was just ribbing you," Nyssa said, wrapping her arms around his waist. Deep down, she was touched at the words he'd just uttered. "But it sounds like there's no crisis, huh?"

"Yeah, no!" Ilan remembered. "Priya told her parents about our split right after she and I spoke, and then she and her whole family--like 20 people, aunts, cousins, uncles--all came over to my parents' place." Nyssa's eyes bugged out in alarm.

"But my sister was there and she just handed all of them their asses! After they threatened to drag our name in the community, she asked them whether anyone knew how Priya strongarmed my mom and dad into re-mortgaging their house because she'd let wedding expenses get out of hand."

"Priya did what now??" Nyssa said in a low whisper.

"I'm not entirely absolved of fault having broken up with her the way I did," Ilan said. "But I was an asshole to refuse to see the signs and break up with her earlier. That mortgage thing was a huge betrayal but there were other things she did that showed she either thought she was better than my parents, or didn't really care about them either way.

"I was committed to being a good son-in-law, and I tried to be friends with her parents as soon as we were exclusive. They're also really decent people. Which is why they were humiliated that their daughter conveniently left out this piece of information that came out in front of their extended family."

"I'll bet," Nyssa said. "So is this a regular thing, to do confrontations with an entourage in tow?"

"It is with Tamil people in Scarborough," Ilan laughed, holding her tight. "Right after Anandi brought out the mortgage papers as proof, she said if anyone in their family even accidentally harassed anyone in ours, my mom was going to put the receipts on social media. And that we would keep it quiet if they did."

"So nobody talks, everybody walks?" Nyssa laughed. "I guess no one sent your uncle the memo if he thinks you're going straight to hell."

"You know, the food's still way too hot," Ilan said softly as he put his hands to her face. "And I'm pretty sure you're sober now." Hearing his voice drop spurred a familiar ache between Nyssa's legs--that is, until he dropped his arms to his sides. "But then again, it usually takes a full day for a hango--"

She cut him off with a crushing kiss that backed him up toward the kitchen counter and then pinned him against it. But after the initial three seconds of blood rushing to her head, she pulled back.

"No," she reconsidered out loud. Ilan took a step to the side, wanting to give her space. "This is how we did things the last time we were together, and this is how we always did things," Nyssa said pensively. "That's not how I want it to be with you from now on."

Ilan waited for her to say something more, confused as to whether she wanted him to touch her or not. But then she took his hand and tugged on his fingers while turning toward the staircase. Nyssa closed her bedroom door once they were both in her room and then stood before Ilan, wordlessly tracing her thumbs along his jaw.

She then brushed her lips against his as though she was testing out whether he was really there. When Nyssa's lips gently pinched Ilan's, he felt confident enough to slip his tongue into her mouth just for a second.

Her soft moan against his mouth made him harden partway but he willed himself to let her keep leading him. Nyssa then turned her face downward and yanked his t-shirt out of his jeans after looking into his eyes with a small smile. She kept drinking in his kisses, pausing only for a second when she felt him lifting her shirt over her head.

She couldn't help but speed up a bit, having been forced to merely look but not touch for the better part of a decade. Ilan's mouth became hungrier as well, especially when he unhooked her bra and pulled her bare chest up against his.

Without breaking his stranglehold on her mouth, he gently pushed her yoga pants and panties down past her hips, and then allowed her to take off his jeans.

"Good, you are sober now," he murmured just before she pushed down his boxer-briefs and his cock sprang up against her stomach. Nyssa giggled, then just reveled in the moment and let her eyes wander over her lover's umber skin from top to bottom. She laid her palms flat across his shoulders just before hugging him--a surprisingly chaste, innocent gesture considering they were both completely naked.

"I'm so sorry all of this happened between us," she said, trying to fit every curve of her body against every crevice of his.

"It's okay, sweetie," Ilan told her, kissing the freckles on her cheekbone. "It was just bad timing." He kissed her mouth once, then again before touching his nose to hers. "I guess it was always supposed to be you, though."

Nyssa gave him one last hug, then to his surprise stepped away and gently shoved him backward onto her bed. Ilan laughed, expecting her to curl herself into his arms. Instead, his breath caught in his throat when he felt her cheek against his inner thigh.

He exhaled with the faintest yelp as she wrapped her lips around his tip and then gently sucked before flicking him with her tongue. Then another inch, and the same flick but a touch rougher. Another couple of inches and Nyssa's tongue spinning circles around his cock made Ilan think he was going to pass out.

"Nyss," he breathed when she grasped his shaft with one hand and gently pressed on his perineum with two fingers from the other hand. He didn't know why her touch was so overwhelming when he'd felt all this with her before. It was just surreal how her mouth on his body was somehow new all over again.

Nyssa tightened her grip at his shaft and sucked harder, but Ilan couldn't have this be over before it even began for her. He gently pushed against her shoulders and waited until she lifted her head, moving her unruly curls off her face. Then he gripped the sides of her arms and yanked her up and beside him on the bed.

She squealed in delight at his swiftness, then squealed a little lower when she saw him scrambling to wrench her legs apart. Unlike her, Ilan wasn't interested in starting slow.

As he cupped her butt in each of his palms and deftly licked her wetness, Nyssa knew she wouldn't need him there for long. When his tongue darted against the underside of her clit, Nyssa's mouth hung open in silent cries and her hands grasped her pillowcase as if she were about to float off the bed.

Finally, Ilan had mercy on her and gently locked his lips around her bud with light licks that gradually grew more and more intense.

"Ilaaaaan," Nyssa tossed her head to the side, unable to stop her ankles from snaking themselves around the back of his neck. The warmth was building up in her abdomen, and soon transformed into a ticklish buzz that she knew was going to make her fall apart beneath Ilan's tongue in a matter of seconds.

"Please don't stop..." she gasped as he slowly dragged his tongue across her clit, then flicked it. Nyssa's hips writhed and lifted themselves off the bed as she whimpered through the most sublime climax she'd ever felt. The way he teased her with his mouth was even better than she remembered.

Ilan grinned as he scooched up toward her heaving chest and lovingly sucked her stiff, pink nipple. Nyssa groaned again and buried her fingers in his thick black hair, her limbs still shaking. All she knew as she watched him roll on a condom was that she desperately needed him to fill her and she wasn't above begging.

Before she could get a word out, Ilan was back on the bed, softly kissing her collarbone and then her neck. When he turned her to her side and spooned her, his cock poked against the back of her thigh.

"I loved it when we did it like this," Nyssa whispered. The sun had fully set since they first entered her room, and Ilan relished the outline of her body in the dim light of dusk.

"I know," he replied while gently tugging on her earlobe with his lips. "I loved it too." His mouth traveled up the curve of her neck while his hand cupped her breast and his thumb rolled across her nipple. Nyssa writhed, which only served to push Ilan's cock between her thighs. He gripped her knee and pulled it back over his, then lined himself up.

Nyssa shoved her curls up and out of his face, holding on tight to his hand on her breast and anticipating that first magical push. She never felt safer than when she was tucked into him like this.

"Ready, sweetie?" Ilan asked, dropping a kiss on her cheek as she turned her face back toward him. Her sky-blue eyes glowed in the dark when she widened them at him and nodded. He slid his free hand down to clutch her hip and pressed his way inside her, loving her every whimper until he was in all the way.

The strawberry scent of Nyssa's hair took Ilan back in time, not to mention how she involuntary tightened around his shaft.

"Nyss, you're making me crazy," he muttered into her curls. Then he remembered she hadn't been in a man's arms since she'd been in his over a half-decade ago. Okay, honey, I'm going to devastate you now.

It only took a few slow thrusts before he could feel the ridges form against her front wall, and heard her nails scratching in desperation on the sheets.

"More, Ilan," she pleaded. To her surprise, his hips slowed to a halt and his fingers resumed twisting her nipples between them. "What... what are you doing?" she gasped, trying to turn around.

"Not yet," he murmured, catching her lips between his. A few more kisses with his hands on her chest had her legs squirming. When he felt her kissing him back without moving around so much, he resumed his leisurely thrusts.

Nyssa moaned against his mouth and turned forward again, anticipating the moment he would eventually speed up. But he didn't, instead nestling himself deep inside her while devouring the back of her neck.

"Ilan, you're killing me here!" she exclaimed, aggravated he was denying her this after she'd waited so long for him. All she got in response was a small chuckle, through which she could feel his smile against her skin. Then, Ilan reached behind, grabbed the extra pillow near the headboard, and then shoved it between Nyssa's knees in one fluid motion.

The hand on her hip slid down to her clit and deliberately, rhythmically stroked it until Ilan heard the timbre of the moan he was waiting for. He waited until Nyssa gripped her sheets again and let out little squeals, then drove himself inside her and matched the movements of his dancing fingers.