“I was supposed to give you some kind of pep talk and tell you that you’ll forget all about him in a few weeks and move on.”
“Well,” she said after a moment’s silence. “Where is it? I’m waiting.”
He glanced at her, smiling humourlessly. “I’m waiting too. For the day I forget all about her and move on.”
Pain clutched her heart at his words. Was this her life then? Endlessly spent weeping over Daksh and his stupid, beautiful face, and his sweet, lying words?
“That was the worst pep talk in the world,” she told Advik now.
He laughed, a bitter bark of a sound.
The door opened again, this time without the courtesy of a knock and Rehaan popped his head around it. He frowned at the sight of them.
“What the fuck?” he muttered. “He was supposed to cheer you up. You weren’t supposed to depress him.”
“He’s been depressed since he came back from the States. It’s not Vedu’s fault.” Kimi’s voice floated towards them from somewhere in the corridor. “Could you get out of the way so I can go in?”
“I’m not sure that-“ He didn’t finish the sentence before he yelped, Kimi’s foot clearly connecting with his shin. He got out of the way really fast, after that.
Vikram sauntered in behind the other two as they made their squabbling way in to the room. His sharp eyes took in Vedika’s tear stained face, his lips pressing together at the sight of her pain. She saw the promise of violence that sprang to his eyes even as he smiled at Kimi pummelling Rehaan with a pillow.
“Cut it out,” Rehaan yelped. “Vedu needs us.”
Kimi gave him one last swat before tossing the pillow aside and joining Advik and Vedika on the bed.
“Do you want us to murder him for you?” Kimi offered.
“Please don’t say yes,” Rehaan moaned. “I liked him!”
“So did I.” Kimi frowned. “I feel personally betrayed by him.”
“We still don’t know what he did,” Rehaan told her, the two of them carrying on a conversation as if the rest of them weren’t in the room. “All we know is that Vedu came home this morning sobbing like her heart had shattered into a million pieces.”
“Reh!” Vikram’s voice was sharp enough to silence his word vomit.
“It’s okay,” Vedika said, smiling shakily. “It’s the truth. Nothing Ashish did hurt this bad,” she whispered. “And I was going tomarryhim.”
“You weren’t in love with Ashish,” Rehaan observed. Vikram smacked him on the back of his head.
“What?” Rehaan said outraged. “All of you agreed on that. We were going to stage an intervention when the parents told us we should respect her choice.” He managed, even in the middle of his tirade, to put the ‘parents’ in air quotes.
“You can’t possibly be in love with Daksh.” Kimi wrinkled her nose like love was a bad word. “You barely know him.”
“You could know someone for years and still not know them,” Advik said quietly.
Rehaan stared at him. “The bush is talking but it’s hard to make out what it’s saying.” Vikram swatted him again.
“Ow!” Rehaan glared at him accusingly. “If you weren’t trained to kill a man with your bare hands, I would show you what I could do.”
“What can you do?” Kimi asked, curiously. “Other than be annoying?”
“The point is,” Vikram interrupted, his voice heavy with patience, “are you in love with Daksh, Vedu?”
She met her brother’s gaze and nodded, her heart throbbing in her chest under the weight of all she felt.
“I don’t know what he did,” Vikram said now, his voice gentling, “but if you love him, then you might want to get out of that bed and do something about it. Figure out if you can forgive him or if you can’t then, do you want him to vanish off the face of the earth?”
A strange fear gripped Vedika as she sat up in the bed, her gaze trained on her brother. “Why? What do you know?”
