a heart with the lights left on

Sinopse

ahana was once her father's princess, until her mother's slaps and cruel words, and her father's slow retreat into silence, taught her that love has to be earned by being quiet and good. she finds safety only in her uncle's house, and in inara, a home tutor who becomes her best friend and the keeper of her secrets. at sixteen, she learns inara has been telling those secrets to everyone. hungry for love, ahana falls for kabir, a boy from her tuition class. the warmth soon turns into silence, cursing, and switched-off phones, and she ends up begging at his feet. when her uncle, the one gentle parent she has, is paralysed and loses his voice to a brain tumor, kabir barely notices. he moves abroad, and after three years she finds photos of another girl and finally ends it herself. vihaan, a kind friend, helps her heal and shows her she is worth loving. but she confesses feelings for his best friend kairav, lets vihaan hope, and loses him. on november 9 she begins talking to kairav, and they get together. eleven months in, she finds porn in his browser history, and when she cries he walks away, ignoring her 150 calls. he later admits to smoking weed daily and says he'd leave her before he'd leave it. he apologizes, and she stays. the book ends with a letter ahana writes to herself, telling her she was never too much and that the light she kept leaving on for others was meant for her. the ending is left open, because her story is still going.