Chapter 14

The next morning, as she stood in Mrs. Rai's house, Khushi wished the earth would swallow her.

She had put off talking to Arnav in the morning hoping to explain everything to him later. She'd told herself that it was best to spend some time alone with him in the next few days and break it to him at the appropriate moment.

Now it was too late.

Rishabh stood in the living room staring at her and Arnav with a cold piercing gaze.

"It was so hard to find you Khushi," Rishabh said, "but luckily someone from your college had called my office for reference. When I went there this morning, they told me I could find you here."

He looked at Arnav. "I can't believe you are living here with Arnav Singh Raizada – the man responsible for your sister Payal's death. Didn’t you hear anything I told you?"

Khushi saw Arnav's face going stone hard.

Khushi's face went pale. "Arnav please listen to me – " she pleaded, "I meant to tell you –"

Rishabh walked up to Khushi. "Khushi, I am very sorry for rushing the proposal," he said, "If I hadn't told you about Raizada -- we might be married today. Khushi please come back to me. I can't forget the times we worked together and how you helped me get over my ex."

A muscle ticked in Arnav's jaw indicating his anger was rising.

"Stop it Rishabh!" Khushi exclaimed in frustration, "can you leave? I need to talk to Arnav –"

"No!" Arnav raised his hand silencing her, "I will leave and you both to talk or whatever it is you want to do." His eyes were dark with anger.

"Arnav please!" Khushi cried.

Arnav walked out of the house got on to his bike and sped away.

Khushi turned toward Rishabh, her eyes glittering with rage. "Leave this house now!"

"Rakesh was right," he told her, "you have fallen for his lies – just like Payal."

She looked at him straight in the eyes. "That's where you are wrong Rishabh," she said, "he hasn’t told me anything. You are the ones who have fallen for lies. It is as though that is what you wanted to believe in – for whatever reasons. You said you saw Payal arguing with Arnav. What about the argument you all had with her?"

"Khushi!" Rishabh exclaimed in shock, "who told you?"

"It doesn’t matter! Was it true or not?"

"You don’t understand!" he said, "we– we were -- trying to help her. Moreover, he was the one who was dating her!"

"Really?" she said her tone sarcastic, "Did you see them together?"

"No – but Rakesh -- !"

"I don’t give a damn about what Rakesh and you think anymore. Just leave the house or else I will call the police."

A little later Khushi lay down on her bed and slept, exhausted in mind and body. As she woke up, the room was shrouded in darkness. She heard noises coming from Arnav's bedroom and she hurried toward the room.

"Arnav?" she called out to him softly as she stepped in to the room. She saw him packing his things into a suitcase. "Are you leaving?"

"Yes," his didn’t look up at her.

"Please Arnav, won't you give me a chance to explain?"

"Okay. Why didn’t you tell me when you met me?" he asked her, "you knew who I was."

Khushi knew she had dug herself into a hole. "I came up that day to tell you –

"But you didn’t," he said roughly, "Why? What was stopping you?"

Khushi remained silent not knowing what to say.

"I am waiting!" He exclaimed angrily, "tell me!"

"I don't know!" she shot back, "maybe because you didn’t recognize me."

Arnav's lips pursed. "So, it is my fault," he said.

"I am not saying that –" tears choked her voice, "I don't know why I thought that there was no need to at the time –"

"I know why you didn’t tell me," he cut her off, "you were hoping to seduce me into a confession."

"No!" Khushi was horrified, "how can you say something like that?"

"I have never been this sloppy in my entire life," he said, "I didn’t even have your background check done. I should have known there was something wrong when you turned up here at my aunt's out of the blue."

"It was a coincidence that I came here," she explained desperately, "I swear I didn’t know. I even tried to leave but aunty requested me to stay and I thought I'd stay back until she heals."

"You have an answer for everything, don’t you?" he asked her, "When I asked about your previous job you told me you were an instructional designer. You conveniently left out the one where you worked as a journalist."

"It wasn't deliberate," she defended herself, "it was irrelevant to our conversation."

"Yes, it was irrelevant," he nodded his head, "except when you go behind my back and investigate me."

Khushi's eyes went wide with surprise and then it hit her.

"I got a call from SP Rathod this afternoon," he said, "not everyone distrusts me you know."

Tears streamed down Khushi's cheeks. "It's not fair!" she pleaded, "If you'd just let me explain I can tell you how it –"

"Are you going to explain how you turned up being a girlfriend of your sister's "boyfriend"

"Neither of which is true!"

"That's what Rishabh said --" he pointed out, "and since you obviously believed him, why shouldn’t I? You worked with him at his office, right? You helped him "get over" his ex, right?

"I know he visited you before this," Arnav said, "The owner of the Sagar restaurant where you met is Somesh's relative. Somesh was there at the time and told me about it. The description he gave me matches Rishabh. I didn’t ask you anything because I didn’t want to pry and I thought you would tell me if it was something important."

She couldn’t even deny some things. A tightness formed in Khushi's chest when she realized that everything was twisted out of proportion with the way Rishabh had portrayed things.

"I told him I didn’t want to marry him," she told him simply, "that we should be just friends."

"It doesn't matter!"

"It matters to me!" she said emphatically. "I love you!"

Arnav looked at her and for a moment she thought she saw a flash of emotion and then it was gone. "Really?" he asked her, "Where's your luggage? Your room is empty." 

She remembered that her luggage was still at the beach house.

"You were planning to leave without an explanation, isn't it?"

"No – I" She had no idea what she was thinking at the time.

"Don’t ever use words like "love" in vain!"

"No I am not," she said, "why else would I – I mean – last night –"

Arnav's face was expressionless. "Are you trying to tell me that after Mr. Hegde told you I was innocent, you immediately fell in love with me and decided to sleep with me?"

He was misinterpreting everything. "No –it wasn’t like that!" Khushi was beginning to feel dizzy.

He looked at her, his face stoic. "You said I didn’t recognize you. How am I supposed to remember a girl – a child -- I met briefly, for an hour, ten years ago? Is this a movie? It's real life for God's sake! Do you have any idea what was going on in my life at the time?

"I probably didn’t recognize you because I must have a had a sixth sense about defending myself against unpleasant things. Unfortunately, I also probably didn’t listen to it well because I allowed myself to get tangled with you. But that can be corrected very easily."

He picked up his knapsack and hung it over his shoulder, and dragged his suitcase to the door.

Khushi realized Arnav was walking away from her. "Please Arnav – don’t do this." Her eyes were blurring.

He turned around. "How do you know Mr. Hegde was telling you the truth?" he asked her.

Khushi looked straight into his eyes with one last attempt to convince him. "I know."

"While we are talking about the truth let me tell you one more," he said, "I regret the day your sister walked into my life – the same goes for you."

As Arnav walked out of the room, Khushi fell on the bed, crying her heart out.

Two months later, Khushi sat in her mother's apartment in Chennai while her mother went about doing her household chores. Her mother's surgery had taken place without incident and after resting her hand in a sling for six weeks, she had undergone physiotherapy for two weeks to mobilize her stiff joints.

"It feels so good to be able to use my hand again," she said, "This is such a setback in your old age you know. It is already tough as it is."

Khushi had heard this over and over, in the past two months. She wondered why her mother couldn’t be like Mrs. Rai who had taken everything in her stride and faced her trouble with positivity. But then it wouldn’t be fair to compare them as her mother had endured a troubled married life.

"What is your plan Khushi?" her mother asked her, "don’t you have to go back to Bangalore to continue your job? Did they really give you two months' leave?" She came and sat down next to her on the sofa.

"I quit that job in Bangalore a few months ago," Khushi said tentatively, "I was in Udupi."

"Why did you go there Khushi?" Her mother was visibly shocked, "I can’t believe you didn’t tell me." 

"I didn’t tell you because I knew you would react like this."

Khushi explained to her mother about the paper clip she had found amongst her dad's things and that she thought it would give her a sense of closure if she went there.

"You couldn’t just let it be, could you?" Her mother looked agitated.

"Mom, can you please not get upset?" Khushi begged.

She began to cry after and after several minutes she calmed down. "I thought it would be good for her to get out of the house and stay by herself. I thought she could learn to be stronger. But I was wrong. She probably couldn’t handle it. It's all my fault --"

"Mom, please -- you can't blame yourself!" Where was all this coming from? "It was an accident."

"Your sister was pampered too much by your father. She was too delicate. Why do you think I used to send you with her when she wanted to go out with her friends sometimes? She was unable to handle herself –unlike you, who could handle anything that came your way."

Her mother couldn't be more wrong at this moment. She hadn’t handled things very well in the past few months.

"It's alright mom!" Khushi hugged her mother, "please calm down."

"I wanted you girls to be strong – unlike me who was stuck in a marriage because I wasn’t financially independent. Can you understand that, Khushi?"

"Yes, mom I do."

She led her mother into the bedroom and they sat for long talking about Payal, looking through old family photographs. Her mother had avoided talking about Payal out of her own sense of guilt but it was time to leave all that behind and move on.

A few days later, Khushi sat across from Deepana at her apartment, holding her new born baby boy in her arms. After much deliberation, she had eventually visited her.

"Thank you for coming to visit Khushi," Deepana said tentatively, "I am sorry for all that happened the last time you were here."

"Why should you be sorry Dee?" Khushi asked her, "it's not your fault."

"Before I tell you – is there something you would like to know?"

"When I spoke to Ramya she told me that she noticed that Payal was left out after her breakup. Is this true?"

Deepana took a deep breath. "When I fell in love with Rohit, I was so happy and excited about this new phase of life that I might have lost track of what was going on around me. Have you ever felt that way Khushi?"

"Yes." She answered honestly.

"During that phase, you tend to gravitate toward people who are also in a similar situation – so we hung out more with Vishakha and Rahul. Ramya was right about that but she never really got off her high horse and that was the reason we ignored her. But not Payal. I don’t know why we did that – we were the three musketeers from Bangalore." She said in a low voice.

"It was unconscious, but we ignored Payal when she was down and out – when she needed us the most.

"I realise now that we were selfish."

Khushi looked up at Deepana's anguished face. "Dee, you don't have to talk about it," she looked down at the gurgling baby boy, "especially with him around."

"It is because of him that I am doing this," she insisted, "I want to get this off my chest."

"All this happened during the fifth semester when Rakesh spent time with Payal and then when she came back from her semester break she seemed much better. She broke the ice one day when we were all sitting in our hostel room. And soon we were back to normal -- Payal, Vishakha and I.

"After that we all hung out together like old times. I didn’t tell you this before but Rishabh had always been interested in Payal and it looked like they would be a couple. But it was not so."

 "In the next semester, she separated herself from our group again and started becoming very secretive about her outings.

"Rakesh had noticed her on the highway a few times and Rishabh began to speculate that she was probably seeing Arnav Singh Raizada again.

"I tried asking her what was going on but she never revealed it to us. All of us felt a little upset about her behavior. Rishabh was obviously disappointed, Rahul who was very close to Rishabh felt that Payal was being selfish and Vishakha agreed with him. Rohit and I were neutral about it and we decided to stay out of it."

All that Ramya and Rakesh had told her were starting to make more sense now.

"I found out that you all had a heated conversation with Payal on the night of the farewell," Khushi said.

"I was coming to that part," Deepana smiled sadly. " On the night of the farewell party, we all saw her arguing with Raizada. Rishabh had one drink too many and began to rant about how Raizada had ruined Payal's life by coming in and going out of her life. All of us began to express our views about it except for Rakesh who moved away from us.

"When Payal came to us after her conversation with Raizada, Rishabh began to taunt her, Vishakha was browbeating her about how she had ruined our friendship and Payal had begun to cry bitterly. When she turned toward me for help, I kept mum.

"I didn’t mean to hurt her but I didn’t know what to do."

"I understand." Khushi said.

"Do you?" Deepana asked her anxiously.

"Yes, I do. Really." She looked at the baby again. "All this happened a long ago. Don’t worry about it and move on peacefully."

"I heard from Rishabh about what happened in Udupi." Deepana said.

"Dee, I –"

"You don’t owe me any explanation Khushi, in fact in this context, I owe you one," she said somberly, "that day we all told you that Arnav Singh Raizada was responsible because Rishabh wanted us to say it and not because we believed it.

"This has been something very hard for us to talk about. There are some photos from the farewell night where we were celebrating in a hotel room. Vishakha, Rahul, Rohit, me, Rishabh and a girl he was with. Vishakha and Rishabh had got jobs in campus interview. Rohit and I were just so happy. It wasn’t wrong – as we were in relationships.

"When we went into the room to discuss, Rishabh said he would reveal those pictures if we didn’t agree with him. I had nothing to lose but Vishakha and Rahul would have been in trouble. I didn’t realise until that day that Rishabh hadn’t moved on from what had happened. I really don’t know what I was thinking when I thought it was okay for you to be with him.

"I am really sorry Khushi," Deepana said, tears flowing down her eyes, "I was so happy when you first came to meet me. I couldn’t do right by Payal but I really wanted to make it up to her through you. But I just made it worse."

Khushi placed the sleeping baby in the cradle and put her arm around Deepana. "It's alright. By spending time with you I got to know the parts of my sister's life that I would never have known otherwise. You did nothing wrong. We are all victims of circumstances at times. I am sure Payal would have felt the same if she were alive."

What Deepana had told her sounded like some sort a group mentality where members of the group ostracize a person for associating themselves with someone whom they consider inappropriate. At the end of the day, it was all about perceptions that were formed at a phase of life that dictated the course of things. Human emotions were so fragile.

"What will you do now Khushi?" Deepana asked her, "will you be in Bangalore for long?"

"No -- I came here sort some things with the tenant. I haven’t decided what I am going to do."

Arnav sat in his apartment in Delhi, a cup of vodka in his hand. His father had commanded him to move into the mansion so that he could get to know Mr. Kashyap's daughter, Lavanya who was coming from London to stay with them.

"She is an interior designer by profession and is coming here to work on a project."

"Why does she need to stay here?" he had asked, "doesn’t she have her own place?"

"Why not? We have plenty of rooms. Moreover, we hope that you will get to know each other."

"Alright, but why do I need to move in here?" He hated this house.

"I will hear no more excuses from you Arnav!" his father had growled, "you have had your way all these years. Now you will do as I say.

"Since Akash's mom is visiting the US, I have asked Anjali to come and stay with us for some time." His dad had dismissed him unwilling to listen to anything he had to say.

He took a big gulp from his glass. It didn’t matter to him anymore.

Khushi had felt like a breath of fresh air when he had met her at Malpe beach. She was innocently alluring and he had never felt that drawn to anyone in his entire life. Luckily, he had erred on the side of caution and restrained himself from touching her especially after she had innocently hugged him. That she was a minor was etched in his mind firmly. But the intensity of his feelings had shaken him so much that he had contemplated breaking it off with Rashmi. But it was not to be. After that too many things had happened. Rashmi had suddenly wanted to become serious. And so, had Payal.

Payal was sweet, pretty and naïve.

There were many who liked girls like her, but he had never found that alluring even though she was the one of the prettiest girl in the college. He hadn’t the faintest idea that the friendship they had forged would come to mean something more to her, despite her being aware of his relationship with Rashmi. Finally, he had realized that he would have to break it to her that Rashmi and he were serious. That had apparently not gone down well with her, but he hadn’t realized it as he had his own problems to deal with. Apart from his grueling academics and campus interview preparations, his dad had announced that he had no intention of funding his education in the USA as he wanted him to come and work for him after graduation. Rashmi had told him that her father had found out about them and was throwing a fit. If he wanted to go to the USA, he would have to work for a year or two to save money. It was a chaotic time in his life. He had steered free of complications since.

Until now.

Khushi was different now. The innocent girl had blossomed into a mind-blowingly beautiful woman. The alluring girl had turned into a siren. In the last few months he had been drawn to her like a moth to a flame and for the first time in a very long time he had begun to feel something. But it was not just that. She had come across as a kind, caring and a down to earth type of girl. But there was another side to her which he hadn’t figured out and he didn’t want that sort of complication in his life.

If only dreams of her didn’t haunt him at night!