CHAPTER 18
DAKSH
“May I come in?”he asked when Vedika just stared at him, her eyes shadowed with emotions he didn’t want to decipher.
An endless moment passed and then she stepped aside, allowing him in. His feet hesitated at the door for a bare second before he passed through. Just dinner, he told himself. Dinner and curiosity…
The door shut behind him with a decisive click and he felt his heart stutter in his chest. He dropped the package of food on the single table in the room. Just dinner.
“How did you know what I like to eat?” she asked, following him.
He glanced at her over his shoulder. “I have eyes.”
Something flashed over her face, there and gone in a second. Before he could ask her what she was thinking, she asked, “And what did you get yourself?”
Daksh shrugged, smiling. “I just doubled your order. It felt easier.”
“But you like food,” she protested.
“Are you saying you don’t, Mouse?” he teased, opening up the package and starting to set the food out.
She stayed silent for so long that he turned to look at her. She seemed to have turned to stone.
“I don’t,” she said finally. “Or rather I do, but I can’t afford to.”
Daksh stayed silent, watching her, giving her time to decide if she wanted to say anything further.
“I was plump…” she chewed on her lip before adding, “no, not plump. I was fat when I was young.”
“Hate to break it to you but you’re still young,” he murmured, handing her the portion of fries.
“Younger,” she amended, taking the fries. “And not overweight anymore…”
Daksh picked up his grilled chicken and sat down in the chair in the corner, waiting for her to continue.
“While I was home, it never mattered. Nobody saw me as less.” Vedika cut up a small piece of her chicken as she spoke. “But when I went away to the US for college…”
Daksh’s blood did a slow boil at the old pain he saw on her face.
“The most popular guy on campus asked me out on a date. I couldn’t believe it. I was beyond excited though he wasn’t really my type.”
“Too popular?”
“Too blonde,” she retorted dryly. “Did nothing for me. But, it was still a huge step up the social ladder, or so I thought.”
Daksh had a bad feeling about where this story was going. “What did he do?”
“I was part of his hazing ritual for his pledge to the fraternity. I was…a bet? A joke? A prank? Maybe all off the above. One of the tasks he needed to check off his list was to feed a cow. He chose me.”
The slow boil in his veins was now an inferno.
“They posted a list of pledge’s completed tasks on the fraternity’s notice board. It was right up there for everyone to see.” Vedika sighed, putting the chicken away and reaching for the bottle of water.
“The humiliation…I ended up with an eating disorder. I was severely bulimic by the end of the year.” She chewed on her lip, looking pensive. “By the time I asked for help and got treated for the bulimia, I had other complications.”
He spooned up some mashed potatoes on to her container. She smiled her thanks before continuing, “I have IBS, irritable bowel syndrome.” She grimaced. “If I don’t eat right, if I eat anything too rich or too loaded with masala, I’m in for a world of grief. It’s just a fact of life now, a very unsexy fact of life.”
Daksh’s chest tightened, emotion swamping him. “Did I get the order right?”
