“Are you sure?” Nisha asked, far too gently. “Do you think you can go onstage? Those people have been waiting for hours to hear you speak.”
And there it was again. His heart started to thud in his chest cavity like a stampede of rogue elephants. His mouth felt like he had gulped down his tongue and left behind a vacuum he couldn’t swallow around. It wasn’t exactly emotions, but at least it was something.
“He can’t. We’re going to have to cancel,” Trisha said, staring into his eyes again.
“I’ll go speak to them,” Rico said, giving Yash’s good arm another squeeze. “You’re going to be okay, mate.”
“What will you tell them?” Yash asked.
Nisha’s phone beeped and she looked at it. “I think we have something we can give them. Abdul’s blood pressure is falling. It’s not looking good. We should head to the hospital.”
HAVING YOUR FAMILY talk about you like you weren’t in the room was never fun.
“My son have a panic attack? How is that even possible?” their father asked Trisha.
Why don’t you tell me how it’s possible, Dr. Raje? Yash wanted to say, but evidently His Royal Highness Shree Hari Raje, the patriarch, had completely taken over Dr. Shree Raje, the physician.
“He’s obviously in shock from the shooting, which isn’t surprising. He needs help.” Trisha tried to sound patient. Yash knew what she really wanted to do was tell Dad to stop being pushy. But no one spoke to their father that way.
“He’s leading in the polls. This is the miracle we’ve been waiting for,” HRH said as though it weren’t the single most abhorrent thing to say in this circumstance.
They were all gathered in Trisha’s office because there were too many of them to wait outside intensive care, where Abdul was struggling for his life.
If one more person said anything about the polls right now Yash was going to—ah, forget it, he did scream. For the first time in his life he raised his voice while speaking to his parents. “He might die!”
Yelling in a hospital, even though it was just barely yelling, was bad form. Yash knew that. Which was why he swallowed and lowered his voice. The family, who had turned to him as one, gaped at him.
“A man might die. A father, a husband. That is not a miracle. That’s a travesty,” Yash said in a voice that took all his strength to keep down.
“We know, beta,” his mother said, stroking his arm and giving HRH a placating look, as though it were Yash and not HRH who had just said something completely despicable.
They had all rushed to the hospital. All hands on deck. That was the Rajes. The room closed in around Yash. All he wanted was to be alone. Just for a moment. Yash had never felt suffocated by them before. He needed to breathe. Could everyone let him breathe for just one moment?
“That’s not what your father meant.” It wasn’t surprising that Mom was supporting Dad. Usually Yash appreciated the devotion between his parents despite their vastly different personalities.
“Mina kaki.” Ashna wrapped an arm around Ma and moved her away from Yash. “Trisha is right. Yash needs help.” Ma saw something in Ashna’s face, because she waited for her to finish. Even HRH watched her, his face softening for the first time.
“You know I started having panic attacks after Baba died.” Ashna’s father, Yash’s uncle, had shot himself when Ashna was eighteen, and she was the one who had found him, minutes after he’d done it.
Ashna had spent the past ten years buried in guilt and trying to revive her father’s restaurant. There was something in the way she looked up at Yash that hooked into him and told him what she had to say was important. “I was only able to work through my panic attacks because I knew what they were and how to get through them. You have to get help.”
“Ashna’s right. He needs therapy,” Trisha said with all her directness.
“That would be all well and dandy if it didn’t involve the therapist knowing that he’s having panic attacks. No one is going to vote for someone who’s actively losing control of himself.” No one but HRH could say that without a bit of hesitation a week after his child had been shot.
Yash reminded himself that he loved his father and that his father had done everything in his power to give Yash the best possible life any human being could have.
“Yes, but his health is more important than the election.” Trisha again. She’d been Dad’s pet when they were young and she seemed to have the easiest time going up against him.
“His health is fine. He has a lifetime to take care of his health. The election is in a matter of months. He can’t lose this momentum.” Dad doubled down.
“Yes, but if he has a nervous breakdown, he’s going to lose more than momentum, he’s going to lose the election.” Nisha joined in. “The public sympathy is high enough right now that we have some time. If we don’t use that and take care of this now, and he has an episode in public, we’re throwing the election away.”
HRH stood surrounded by two daughters and a niece who was as much his daughter as the rest, the wall of sisters shooting daggers at him like superheroes facing off a supervillain.
“Okay, warriors, stand down,” Yash said. “This is my election and my life. You can all stop acting like I’m some sort of robot you all get to control.”
The wall of sisters turned their eye daggers on him and he rolled his eyes. “I had one panic attack. One. I’m not going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“And where did you get your medical degree from?” Trisha, naturally.
Nisha held her hand out to him. “Well, then, let’s go. You have another event scheduled for today, at San Jose State. If we leave now we can make it there. Rico’s told them we’re canceling your appearance, but Rico is still speaking, as are other supporters. I’m sure everyone will be happy to see you.”
His heart started to race and, damn it, sweat broke out across his forehead.
“That’s what I thought,” Nisha said, smug as ever. “You need to see someone.” She turned to HRH. “Dad, surely you have psychiatrist friends you can trust. Plus there’s doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“There’s no one I trust enough so close to the election. This cannot slip out. The media is far too hungry and the other side is spending an obscene amount of money digging through every single thing they can get their hands on,” HRH said.
In this Yash agreed with him.
“If I go to a psychiatrist, I’m going to be honest with the public and announce it. I’m not keeping something like that secret.”
HRH looked at him like he had lost his mind. Again, he wasn’t wrong. It definitely felt like he had lost something.
“Actually,” Ashna said, “going to a psychiatrist didn’t help me that much. The person who really helped me was . . . well . . . you all know India Dashwood, right?”
Yash fell back in his chair and pretended it was exactly what he’d intended. In the midst of all his numbness, a jolt of discomfort punched deep inside him. A feeling. His first since the shooting.
“Isn’t she your yoga instructor?” Ma said to Ashna. “China’s sister?”