GENRE: Lesbian Interracial Romance
LENGTH: 19,206 words
RATING:

Krystal has always felt like an outsider. As the only adopted child in her family, she longs for some kind of connection to another person. When Gita moves next door, Krystal is immediately smitten. The self-declared "Desi girl extraordinaire" provides Krystal with an insight into another culture and the possibility for love.

Over ten years later, when Krystal finds out that Gita is about to be married in an arranged ceremony with a man, Krystal knows she has to stop the wedding. Gita never wanted to be married like this and Krystal never got to apologize for the fight that tore them apart. Krystal drags her best friend Brianna on her quest to save Gita, but soon starts to wonder if breaking up a wedding is what she really wants to do.

EXCERPT:

But that's that. The roof has changed me. Because when I fell off, I also fell in love.

Krystal read the final lines in the first blog post again and again. It was three in the morning, well after Brianna had fallen asleep on the couch during Bride and Prejudice, but Krystal still couldn't get the bright colours of the film and the thought of Gita's wedding out of her mind. How could someone that she used to know and love become someone so different? After Krystal had read all the details she could about Gita's new wedding and spouse (which was surprisingly not a lot at all, except that his name was Khan and he was probably an IT specialist), Krystal had scrolled back in LJ to relive her past.

When Krystal was five, she was officially adopted by the Millers and moved to the centre of Toronto. Their next door neighbours had been as bland and boring as anyone else, but when Krystal was fifteen, a new family moved in. Gita had walked out of the family car with the longest and darkest hair Krystal had ever seen. She'd been instantly smitten, but it wasn't until later that night when Krystal realized that Gita's room was right across from hers that she realized she was possibly in love, too.

Gita often left her bedroom window open and played music at top volume. In between the pop punk hits at the time, which Gita deliberately enjoyed because her parents hated it, she also put on Indian music. One night, in the middle of summer, Krystal had gotten a bit too close to her own bedroom window so she could hear the unfamiliar notes, and saw Gita dancing.

Gita caught Krystal staring. Gita's cheeks had flushed with pink for only three seconds before she smiled. When she started to climb out and onto the roof, Krystal was surprised.

"What?" Gita crawled across her roof to Krystal's parents' roof. The thud was loud, but it was late, and no one woke up. "You never seen a Desi girl climb? I tell you, my hair is long enough to be Rapunzel, so climbing is in my blood. It's my only way out of here."

Krystal soon got over her fear of heights and climbed onto the roof with Gita.

"There you go," Gita said. She gripped her hand as the two of them looked at the stars. "You're safe here now. So when's your birthday?"

"September 21," she said. "At least, I think."

"You're a cusp baby! Both Libra and Virgo. Neat. I'm in July. Cancer, through and through. See?" Gita pointed to a mass of stars she insisted was a crab. "That's me. You're not in the sky yet."

"What were you dancing to?" Krystal asked.

"'Nimbooda Nimbooda.' Do you want it?"

Krystal nodded. Gita gave her a mix CD full of Indian music from Bollywood films the next day and Krystal wore it out by the end of summer. When Virgo was in the sky, Gita had fallen off the roof and broke her wrist. She had been showing Krystal other constellations in the sky at ten at night, but slipped because of the rain they'd had earlier in the day. It all happened so fast, right in front of her eyes, and she hadn't done a thing to stop it.

After getting fixed up, Gita was forbidden to hang out on the roof. Her father put new locks on and they monitored her at night. So Krystal started coming over instead, and the two of them would study in the basement. With her arm still in a sling, Gita kissed Krystal.

"I fell off the roof looking for your stars," Gita said when they'd finally untangled themselves from the couch. "So that means I've fallen for you."