Guess I’m not getting that sleep tonight after all.
When I merely nod, the others quickly recover and pair up. The tents are small, just enough to fit two people, with a Solapur blanket laid out at the bottom and lending warmth to the space. I’m a bundle of nerves when Priti and I crawl into the tent, because she looks deadly calm.
The moment we’re inside, though, she doesn’t waste a breath.
“Okay,” she says, folding her arms over her chest. Her features are hard, set in stone. “What the actual fuck?”
I avoid her gaze, taking off my fanny pack and placing it at the edge of the tent because I needsomething to do. “What?” I try my best to keep my expression blank, but I know it’s probably in vain.
“Look,” Priti says, her voice low but lacking any anger, which is surprising. Instead, she just sounds exhausted. “I don’t know what’s going on between Rudra and you, but I’m not stupid.”
“I know that.”
“Which means you also know that all your whispering and secret conversations haven’t gone unnoticed.”
I know that too. But a wishful part of me hoped Priti either wouldn’t care or would ignore it. Now that part of me just feels silly, having wished for the impossible.
“Did you hear us?” The question is out before I can stop it, and I regret letting it slip like that. Even if Priti’s right about her suspicions of whatever’s been brewing between Rudra and me, shecan’tknow of our plans. She’ll lose her shit if she finds out we’re trying to help her. She doesn’t appreciate unsolicited help, ever. I would know better than anyone.
Four years ago, during one of my summer vacations in India, I finished her eighth-grade holiday homework for her when she fell asleep at the table the night before her submission. I’d been an idiot to hope she’d wake up all teary and happy to find her work complete, like the shoemaker from the story about the elves that magically finished his work overnight, and that she’d finally stop being mean to me.
Instead, she started panicking, even though I’d tried my best to emulate Priti’s handwriting and had used the same color pens she had. When she found out I’d done it, she started yelling at me so loud there were tears pouring down my cheeks by the time she finished.
That was the day I learned my lesson—don’t help Priti. Not unless she asks you for help personally. Which she never will. That’s why what Rudra and I are doing isn’t just risky because it involves a very messy plan to secretly help her sabotage a wedding involving two individuals we don’t even know—it’s also because we’re doing it for Priti, who hates to be at anyone’s mercy or owe anyone anything. Including her best friend.
“No, I didn’t hear you,” Priti says, scoffing. “I don’t pry, althoughI did wonder for the longest moment what on earth you two might have in common to talk about. And when you both started getting all lovey-dovey with each other, it genuinely made me want to throw up inside my mouth.”
The pent-up anger and frustration from all the years of being snubbed and taunted and talked down to by Priti well up inside me like a volcano minutes from erupting.
“Why, Priti?” I seethe. “Why is the idea of us together so bad?”
“Together?” Priti’s face tightens.“Together?”Her voice is high-pitched, cracking. “How long has this been going on?”
“Just since the road trip started, for god’s sake! Not long.”
Priti looks almost... heartbroken. “Then how thefuckare you two together already?”
“We aren’t! I didn’t meantogethertogether. We’ve just been, I don’t know, flirting! I don’t even feel that way about Rudra.” The last part comes out in a stream, but it’s a total lie. I just don’t have the mental bandwidth to think about that right now.
Priti leans toward me, her voice dropping to a whisper and a scowl spreading over her face. “Oh, so you’re just messing around with him, then? Like the way you messed with Amrit before getting bored of him?”
I erupt.
All the rage inside me just bursts out like the lid popping right off a pressure cooker. “How dare you!”
“How dareI? How dareyou! You’ve been crushing on that Acharya dude all summer, and now suddenly I find out that you’re using Rudra? This is out of nowhere!” Her voice breaks unnaturally. “You stay the fuck away from him, Krishna. Or else I’ll—”
“Or else you’ll what?” I get to my knees and jab her in the shoulder. “Or else you’ll what? Try to get with him yourself, the wayyou’ve been wanting to all these years?”
How can she be so possessive, so jealous, sojudgmental, when she’s doing something so much worse than I am? She’s ready to ruin someone’s wedding because she is still in love with her ex, but it’s never been clearer that some part of her loves Rudra.
Priti blinks. “What?”
“Admit you’re in love with each other, already!” I say, chest heaving. “And keep meout of it!”
I can’t help the dreadful thought I had yesterday in the restaurant creeping back in. About Rudra doing all this just to get a reaction out of Priti. Because if this was all part of his master plan, it’sworking. A hundred thoughts sprint through my mind, sending me into a tizzy.
It seems too unreal for him to have caught the same kind of feelings for me that I’ve caught for him in this short span of time, especially when he’s been pining after Priti foryears.
