Beneath Your Beautiful: A Neighbors to Lovers Romance [COMPLETED]

25 - The girl in boys' clothing

When Jaya came out of the bathroom, Noah was on her mattress, reading her first book Bacha Posh: The Girl in Boys' Clothing. He smiled up at her. Crazy to think that while women were lining up to have his baby, she was the one who had to birth them. Jaya shuddered at the thought.

"Cold?" Noah asked, putting the book aside.

"Nope. Just imagining pushing your child out of my vagina."

He ran his hands over his beautiful face. "Thanks for that image."

"Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid."

"Come again?" He drew her down onto the mattress.

"Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid," she repeated. "A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved."

"Ah." He picked up the book. "It's your story."

She sat cross-legged. "What do you mean?"

"This is your story." He waved the book. "You're Malalai. You just changed the names and the country. I'm guessing because raising girls as boys is an actual practice in some parts of Afghanistan."

It was, and with good reason. Because it gave the girls the freedom to attend school and work.

But how did he know it was her story? It wasn't public knowledge that the book was inspired by her own childhood. Lowering her head, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "Did Gus tell you the story is based on what happened to me?"

Noah tilted her chin, so their eyes were level. "He only told me to read your book. I made the connection myself because it would explain why you have that edge to you, that self-assuredness that many women lack. And I understand now why you're fighting me on everything when I'm just trying to help—you're strong and stubborn because you had to be to survive."

She shrugged him off. "I don't need your help, and I sure as hell don't want your pity."

"I don't pity you. But it's not a crime to feel compassion when you hear a story like that. I can't even imagine what it must've been like for you to be stripped of your identity like that. Or how your parents could do what they did to you."

The day she was born, her parents had thrown her out with the trash. Low-income families couldn't afford girls. They needed help in the fields, and girls were considered inferior workforce. She'd been lucky Sanjay was rooting through the pile of garbage that day or she would've been long gone. But Sanjay had no use for a daughter either, so he raised her as a boy. Named her Jai—the victorious one.

Noah stroked her arm. It was the oddest feeling. She wanted to slap his hand away but at the same time crawl into his lap and never let go.

"How did you end up in your family?"

She let out a long breath. "My adoptive parents are humanitarians at heart. They love to travel. So almost two decades ago, when they were in India, they visited an orphanage in Kolkata to see how things worked there. I was the one who showed them around."

She smiled at the memory. "At the end of the tour, I propped my hands on my hips, held my head high, and demanded they take me home with them. 'I want to see the world,' I told them—which Emma and Fernando understood. They were basically nomads before they immigrated to the US and opened Casa de Esperanza."

Being confident and studious had worked to Jaya's advantage when her age didn't. Everyone wanted to adopt newborns, not 'damaged' kids. Which was why she never took Emma and Fernando's decision to give her a better life for granted, and she had tried her damnedest to make the best of it ever since.

Noah smiled at her, his eyes filled with emotion.

Jaya raised her hands when he reached for them. "I'm not special. I don't want to be treated differently." Because that was exactly what people did when they found out, and why she'd hidden her story her entire life, including on her college applications. She didn't want preferential treatment—her work should speak for itself.