Song of the chapter is Issues by Julia Michaels

-38-
-Kartik Malhotra-
-Present-

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Malhotra Mansion
8 December, 2019
1:19 pm

"I remember bits and pieces from that night, but I don't know whether it happened clearly or I made it up." Siya began.

Zoya had shown me the video. To say that I wasn't shocked would be lying. I felt hurt ; hurt that she didn't think of telling me or anyone for that matter what had happened. That she had kept such an important thing to herself.

Siya composed herself as she sniffed another tear. Her eyes were red now and her face strained wet with tears. She sat by the stool near the stairs, curling up her legs and clutching them close to her chest.

I wanted to go to her, to wipe her tears and comfort her ; but that would mean lying to myself. And I couldn't do that.

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" Zoya asked, with genuine curiousity. Her face was a mix of sympathy and curiousity.

"I was afraid." Siya choked and looked at me, then at Himanshu, who was standing cross armed near the piano. "I wasn't sure if I remembered the things correctly.....and then she went missing....and I got more scared that.... you guys would think I had hurt her."

"Siya, you could have come to me." Himanshu said , his voice small and a mix of hurt and accusation. "You know that I, out of all the people, would have never judged you for something like this."

Siya closed her eyes as more fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. "I'm sorry... I didn't think straight. I made a mistake. I'm sorry."

My heart ached. With every tear drop that released themselves from her eyelids , my heart ached more and more.

"Tell us what you remember, Siya." Veronica said, slowly as if afraid she would break her.

Siya inhaled a shaky breath. Her eyes wandered into nothingness as she spoke, " That night....when she drugged all of us... I didn't fall asleep like the rest of you. I was awake because I had been taking...pills...the similar kind...so my body was probably resistent to the drug she gave us."

My heart clenched painfully making my body shiver from the sight. My eyes stung with her tears, the ones she had shed already and the ones that were now trapped in her.

"I saw her go out the back exit at around midnight. And I followed her. I wanted to talk to her, I wanted to ask her why she was so bent on ruining my life." She said and looked at me. I furrowed my brows.

"Ruin you? How?"

She gulped and brought her knees closer to her chest. "Earlier that night, when we had just got to the school...she asked me about my sister."

" Your sister? What does Alishka have against Sanchi?" Ahaan asked.

She nodded negatively, " I don't know. She asked me...if my sister was still dating Nikhil Sharma."

"Wait- Nikhil Sharma? You mean that scumbag son of a bitch who graduated two years back?" Zoya asked , voice raised a little.

Siya nodded slightly. "My sister and Nikhil used to date in high school. And then, during this summer, before both of them headed out to their respective colleges,  they had broken up. And so I told Alishka that they had broken up. And then she asked me...."

" What did she ask you, Siya?" I asked, my voice gentler than Zoya's.

She looked up at me and then took a deep breath. "She asked me......she asked me whether....the break-up had happened because..... because... Sanchi had seen....Nikhil kissing me."

The words left her mouth and shattered my heart in the same instant. I exhaled slowly, looking down and blinking several times. I wasn't sure what to do with this information.

" You kissed your sister's boyfriend?" Zoya enquired in a grave tone.

Siya closed her eyes. " It was a mistake. A big one. A mistake I regret to this day."

I breathed, again.

"What do you mean?" Veronica asked.

"I was studying one afternoon last summer in the public library when Nikhil came there. There were not many people in the library that day. I thought nothing of it when he came up to the isle where I was searching for a reference book , saying that he wanted a book from there too. We started chatting normally about greek mythology and started joking about stuff and laughing....when it happened. The next thing I know.....he was pushing his tongue down my throat. When I realised what was happening, I pushed him away."

I wanted to gag, scream and punch that guy all at once. But I resisted the urge. I knew better than anybody what happened when my anger issues came out before people.

"I never told my sister, knowing that she would never see any fault of his. She would blame me instead, for wanting to ruin her relationship, claiming that I was jealous of her." Siya said, sniffling a tear.

"So what did Alishka had to do with all this?" Ahaan asked , curiously.

"I don't know." She looked up at him, with reddened eyes. "She never told me. All she said was that if I didn't tell my sister about the kiss, she would."

Zoya muttered a few curses under her breath as Himanshu sighed heavily. I rolled my eyes.

If my sister knew one thing, it was ruining people's lives. It didn't matter if she was dead or alive.

"I followed after her that night because I wanted to know why she was so insistent in ruining my sister's relationship with me. When I got outside, I found her waiting with her arms crossed. And at that moment, it was like all my bottled up feelings came flowing out. I lashed at her. I screamed at her. The fight got ugly...and then she turned on her heels and started to walk away from me. And that's when..."

"That's when you picked up the rock." I finished for her. She looked at me, with puffy eyes and a solemn expression.

"I didn't mean to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt her. I was... just so overwhelmed by...anger...I didn't think straight."

Her tears welled up inside me, burning in my throat and the tip of my nose, flooding me with desperation and hurt.

"But then I tripped and fell. And the medication bottle fell out of my pocket. She picked it up, put two and two together, and understood why I wasn't asleep like the rest. She asked me whether I was speeding. I succumbed to tears in an instant. I knew she had the power to make things worse for me, if she ever told anyone about this. I begged and pleaded her not to tell anyone. "

"What'd she say?" Zoya asked.

"She agreed, to my utter shock, she agreed to keep it a secret. Then she told me not to take those pills anymore, and told me to go back to the detention room and sleep the rest of the night off. I agreed, knowing that if I resisted, she would use the pills as a means to blackmail me. So I came back to the detention room and went to sleep, like nothing happened."

It took me a moment to realise the collateral damage that my sister had caused on people I knew and the ones I didn't. My eyes welled up at the thought of every single person whom she had ruined, pleading god to reverse the day that they met her.

"But why were you taking those pills , Siya?" Veronica asked, in a soft whisper. Siya closed her eyes and breathed a sigh. Himanshu walked across from the piano to the stool near the stairs, where Siya was seated and hunched down on his knees. Siya looked at him with swollen eyes.

"How could you not come to me when you were facing such a problem? How could you not tell me about this?"

Siya cried, "I'm sorry..... I didn't know.... I didn't know what to do. Those pills...they use to help me with coping with the pressure that my parents put upon me. I was drained from meeting up to their expectations. I just wanted a little boost ; just a twinge of euphoric acid to keep my brain still stimulating even past five am in the morning."

I frowned. I had never experienced what it felt like being your parents' pride. My parents hardly deigned a look at me. Alishka was their golden child. I was just a persistent nagging presence in the house. I could only imagine how it would have been for Siya to be pressured into something she didn't want to be ; perfect.

"I was scared of disappointing them. The prospect of doing something that would earn their disappointment petrified me more than anything in this world." She said as she wiped her face with her hands and looked at me. I sighed.

"I was afraid of being a joke. A disappointment."

Himanshu squeezed her hand.
"But you're not , Siya. You're among the most talented people I know. You're not and will never be a joke."

Siya sniffed and glanced at him as he continued, "With or without those pills, you're amazing as you are. You're not born to be perfect. You're born to be you. And that's what matters."

I exchanged glances with Veronica. We rose to our feet and all of us made our way towards where Siya and Himanshu were sitting. Siya looked up at us.

"Moose is right , Siya. You are amazing just the way you are. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise." Veronica said and smiled slightly.

Siya sniffed and smiled slightly,
"Thanks, Veronica."

"Now," Ahaan began, "do you promise not to take those pills ever again?"

Siya nodded slowly and looked at all of us then at Himanshu, "I promise."

I smiled slightly as she rose to her feet and hugged Himanshu. Ahaan and Veronica exchanged glances before joining in the hug. Zoya smilingly joined too. I stood aside, watching them, as I was reminded of Avinash once again. Tears stung my eyes and they glistened in accordance.

"Kartik, come on, group hug!" Zoya chimed as she opened her arm towards me. I smilingly sighed and gave in.

And in that soothing embrace, for just a moment, I felt that nothing could ever go wrong with this world.

I felt invincible.

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"What are you doing here?" I asked as I joined her in the terrace where she sat with her legs dangling from the edge. I carefully took a step on the edge and sat down beside her.

The rest had gone home at around dusk as they had some work. I had requested Siya to stay, with the motive of talking to her alone. I needed to; to get some sort of peace and closure.

It was 7:30 at night.

As we sat there gazing at the city lights in front of us and the gazillion stars in the sky above us, I felt at peace. For once in my life, I wasn't breathing heavily with the fear of something going wrong.

"We need to talk , don't we?" Siya asked, not looking at me.

"We do."

Several minutes of silence surpassed us. I could feel her tense up beside me , but I dared didn't look at her.

" 'm sorry, again. I should've told you." She looked at me. " But I didn't know you enough to do that. And I feared ruining whatever we had or have. "

I looked at her, "I know. It's okay. People make mistakes. No one's a saint."

She only smiled sadly at me and then looked down at her hands again.

"Siya?"

"Yeah?"

" What I'm about to ask you, I want you to answer it honestly."

"Mm."

I drew a deep breath, "Why do you like me?"

" Wha-at?"

"Look I already know you like me, because if that hadn't been the case, you wouldn't have kissed me back that day." I said and asked with determination, again, " Why do you like me?"

She seemed taken aback. Looking at me with a curious repulsion, she smiled slightly and said, " I like you because you're you, Kartik."

I stared at her in amazement.

" You are the boy on whom I laid eyes on when I didn't know what attraction meant. I liked you because you used to colour your skies yellow in art class other than the normal blue that others like me used. I liked you because you used to run around in the freshly mowed grass of Delly's ( a park) with hands filled with mud. I liked you because you used to smile at me when I used to congratulate you on winning best football player in 6th grade."

I gazed into her eyes, the softest of brown infused with caramel, before allowing a slow grin to stretch on my face.

" There's plenty more reasons for why I like you. But if I started counting them, I would have to stay here all night." She said and we both chuckled softly.

" Wow, I could've never imagined." I said with genuine amazement. She looks down, blushing.

" Why didn't you tell me anything all this time?" I asked.

She looked at me as though I had asked her the stupidest question, "How could I? You were....well you. And I...was I. You were the cool jock. I was the unnoticed nerd. People knew you. They never noticed me."

" Clichès , I get it now." I said , nodding slightly. " How stupid do these things sound now that we are practically being chased by a serial killer?"

She chuckled, " Pretty dumb."

I smiled, a genuine smile.

" Can I say something?" I asked her.

" Yeah."

" I'm glad I kissed you that day."

She smiled, with her eyes gleaming with tears. " I'm glad too."

As I looked into her beautiful hazel eyes, I fell in love a little more. Nothing in her expression had changed. She still looked at me in that loving way, as if I was the most special thing in her life - the most important. The truth resided in our eyes as we persuaded one another to change it according to the other's perspective. The truth was subjective, after all.

There were still things left unsaid, doubts we needed to make straight, secrets not yet confronted. But we had our whole lives ahead to unravel the mystery that was the person that sat in front of us.

For now, we stayed in silence and let our eyes do the talking.

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Speed (methamphetamine, C10H15N) is a potent and addictive central nervous system stimulant, chemically related to amphetamine, but with greater central nervous system side effects

Speeding ;
verb : intake of speed

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