Chapter 23

I see her in the night only because I know I'll be seeing you in the morning. That keeps me going.

Vee

2nd May 2019, Thursday
16:00

I drew a fifth slanting line over the four others. It simply didn't stop. I saw Ashiamma again, this time in that same white dress.

"Stop," I had said.

She hadn't. She never did.

"This isn't you. This...None of this is you."

Her lips had lifted and dark water, black and dusty, fell down her chin; her laugh, loud and cynical. Full of hatred.

I shut the notebook and stared at the ceiling. My fingers worked on the wood of the table, its edges now rough and dry. It was an illusion, another bad dream, repeat after me. It was an illusion, another bad dream. Just a dream, nothing else. I chanted the words until my heart followed the same rhythm like that of my tongue. Fast, uneasy, twisted but beating. I shut my eyes. The heaviness in my chest increased by a thousand grams. It wasn't blood flowing through me, at least not my blood.

"Are you sure?" Papa's voice said.

I didn't dare to open my eyes.

Ash stood there, smiling and then someone rose behind her. A hand on her mouth, another on her waist. CRACK! She fell down, her head a feet away from her head. This time, a bloodless mess.

"Are you sure?" Papa said again.

My breaths were heavy and short, in search for a comforting rub on my back. I simply got asked again. And again. And again. Through the nights, his eyes haunted me and asked if I was sure. I had no answer except one, I didn't know. Maybe, maybe not.

My eyes opened and I got up, a piece of wood pierced in my finger. I hissed in pain and pulled it out. It came out clean, bloodless. The scene repeated in my head, Ashiamma and those hands, so familiar. I shook my head and left my room.

Just a dream, both of these.

"Where are you going?"

My hand tightened around the door knob. He was real, right here with me.

"Nowhere," I replied, my forehead touching the cold surface of the door.

"Then, why are you standing at the door?" he asked.

I turned my head and smiled. "Mummy is out, isn't she?" Facing him completely, with my back still in contact with the door, I continued, "Otherwise, what's up with father-son bonding?"

"Vi-"

I snapped my fingers. "Let me guess, it is about my grades. They're good."

"Vick-"

My smile softened. "It's about me. I'm perfect, as perfect as a drink." I could not believe that the glass on the table next to his laptop was empty. Its base wasn't even stained with anything. Nothing left, not even a sip. My throat went dry but I shook my head. I would not give in.

13th April 2019, Saturday
19:00

I lay on my bed, half-alive, half-dead. All I saw were those two, one dead and other on her way to die. I couldn't make up my mind if I was happy or sad. I had said before that I wanted Shay to rot, but I wanted her to rot, not die. There was plenty of space here on Earth to rot. I could find her a good rotting spot as well if she decided to stay alive. She would stay alive. I knew her. Just like Ashiamma, she would give a good fight. She had to.

The door opened and my cousin stared back at me. "Can I come in?"

I raised my head and saw he was already standing in. I nodded. Something clanked and a paper clip fell from my table. Did he just place two bottles of whiskey on my papers?

"Organise the table. It's a mess," he ordered. "Are you going to spend your day sprawled like a cockroach?"

'A dying cockroach,' I wanted to correct.

"It's already evening, what day?" I asked instead.

He grabbed my hand, pulled me up and pushed forward a bottle. I stared at it, then back at him.

"You drink at parties," he said.

Yes, the parties where I was forced to smile at people I did not know and would never care about. "That's champagne." He didn't budge. I took it. "Is this your way of telling me to drink my sorrows and man up?"

"It's my way of telling you to focus on yourself. Nothing about manning up, just taking care."

By forcing my liver cells to coagulate. Brilliant way to start self-care. I shook my head at Ashiamma's words that she once drilled into my mind.

"Don't drink," she had said. "Ever."

We were both liars by now. Or promise breakers.

"Want to let it out?" he asked.

What did this kid knew about letting it out? I smirked at him and shook the bottle. "It's not even in yet."

By the end of the night, it went inside. Jumbled words I couldn't remember came out. I shut my eyes, worried if my liver had begun to decay or not.

When my eyes opened again, my cousin was gone. In his place sat Papa.

"Vicky? Are you alright? What was wrong with you, drinking and listening to that retard?"

I spluttered out a laugh. "He's your nephew."

"You're my son."

And there were the pitiful eyes.

I pushed his hand away. "I'm fine, father."

"Are you sure?" he asked.

I replied by sinking back in the bed.

Are you sure?

Am I?

Throughout the night, I heard him ask again if I was sure.

2nd May 2019, Thursday
16:15

He mumbled something. I was too lost in the crystal clear glass to hear. Calloused fingers touched my face and I met his gaze. They weren't my eyes, mine were Mummy's. I had more common things with him than just eyes.

"Are you even listening?" He asked.

I freed my face from his grasp and shook my head. "Was it important?"

"Aren't you important?"

My half swallowed response cracked me up. He should ask my liver. I sobered up and rubbed my nose.

"I'm going out. I'll be back in an hour," I said and got up. Feet rustled behind me. "Don't bother." The door clicked and opened. "Start doing that after you stop sending people behind me, start asking about me rather than my drinking habits and maybe, start giving a thought to the fact that they're somebody's kids just as much as I'm your child."

I shut the door before his gaze could haunt me, tease the truth out of me and make me admit we were both the same, even when I disagreed with him.

Ashiamma once made a pact with me. Both our houses were far, so she had chosen a middle point for meet and greet - her father's factory site, a small portion of which was now old, abandoned but still owned by them. She had brought me there and proudly claimed it would be on her name when she turned eighteen. She didn't know that to own a land, one needed to be alive as well as eighteen. The former was more important, obviously. It took me fifteen minutes to walk my way to it. The warehouse had been dirty until her father saw our graffiti and remodelled it according to his daughter's wish. She was demanding, he had said. He had no idea.

I stood in front of the opened warehouse whose keys were with only the two of us. A very unrealistic, horrific thought rose in my mind. Taken by curiosity, I walked in. Yellow lights lit up the entire place. My gaze first landed on the couch, another worn out piece covered with equally old curtains. Our initials were painted on it.

V. A. S. K. J.

I remembered getting annoyed because this was our place, not everyone's. Ashiamma had refused to cut off S. I had added K out of spite, then cut it and wrote J. It hadn't bothered her, said she was going to add that anyway. I knew she was lying. Shay was more precious. That was back in November 2017 when she had just met Shay.

I had come back later, after they both had pulled out their own roots and not to my surprise, Shay's initials had stayed there. Ashiamma had said it was for my surname. She didn't have to lie. She was her friend. Sometimes, it felt that she used forgot Shay had been mine too, not as good but a friend anyway.

"What are you doing here?"

I removed my hand from the couch and faced Shay. My eyebrows furrowed. "What are you doing here?"

We stared at each other, our mouths stating the same reason that never reached the other one's ears.

"She gave you the key," I said.

"She brought me here to show the place, told me to shut my mouth. After..." She cleared her throat but her voice still came out strained.

I was a sick bastard for smiling at that. I was just my father. People deserve it. People deserve it –our standard line.

"...After what happened-"

My eyebrows rose. "Choosing your words carefully?"

She shrugged. "Every story has sides. You never asked me mine."

I laughed. "You want to talk about sides now? A year later? When she's dead?"

Shay flinched at my statement but shook her head. "After what I did, she came to me one day and gave me the keys. I never came here until now," she said. I looked everywhere but at her. "Did you two only come here or some-"

I shook my head. "Just the two of us." I hoped she got the message, only Ashiamma and me, everybody else was unwanted.

"Did you do anything here?" I asked and inspected the place. Everything was arranged as it had been when I came here last month.

"No." She hesitated. "I saw a bottle of cold drink outside."

I laughed at the sudden increase in her pitch when she said 'cold drink'.

"Whisky," I corrected her.

She looked at me with a confused face before it dawned upon her. "You trashed the place?"

That was an exaggeration. I glanced at her and her leg. They both looked good to me, might as well serve some purpose now that I had to bear her company.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"How well are you with paints?" I pinched my nose and shook my head. I knew the answer to that. "How good are you with craft?"

"What do I have to do?"

I grinned at our initials scribbled on the couch, face away from her.

We got to work after I explained everything to her. She simply had to work on the interiors while I painted the walls. The entire plan had already been made way back in January. We had never implemented it. I tried not to think of Ashiamma and focused on the wall.

"Wow," Shay said.

I stepped back and stared at the painting I drew. A girl stood in front of a warehouse. Her medium length hair hid her face, whose edges were blurred with back towards the viewer. The roof of the warehouse was on fire, illuminating the darkness but not in the way anyone would have wanted, she would have wanted.

"That's not what the layout says," Shay said, walking towards the wall. "But it's a hundred times better. I didn't know you were this good. Ashiamma seriously underestimated you."

Those flames, I couldn't get those flames out of my head. It set my insides on fire. They didn't need fuel, not oil, maybe some other fuel that had already burnt so much. Her face, for instance.

"Can I click a picture?" Shay asked.

I stared at her burnt face. This could have been way better, something happier. But then, it could have never been true.

"Vicky."

"Go ahead," I said, already exhausted.

She pulled out her phone. I was looking anywhere except the fire when my gaze fell on her phone. Ashiamma smiled at me, her fingers around the same beaded necklace Shay gave her. I placed the brush down and walked out.

"Are you okay?" Shay called.

I simply nodded and raised my hand, making sure she didn't follow me.

This was supposed to make me feel better. It just worsened. I stared at the warehouse, the back of my neck hot with direct exposure to Sun. A bead of sweat trickled down my cheek. I walked back inside. Shay had already left. A small kirigami dragon sat on the arm of the sofa, just above our initials. V. A. S. J.

What had happened to everything? Another drop of sweat trickled down my cheek. I wiped it off, reassuring myself it was sweat. Nothing else.

3rd May 2019, Friday
8:05

I rubbed my hands and stared at my co-members. "Who'll do it?"

They stared at me with doe eyes. I looked back at the file and read it again. We needed to remodel the Art Room as well as get more paintings for the top floor corridor. If done together, we'd be done by next Wednesday.

"Who'll do it?" I repeated. "Come on, I'm not asking you to clean the ground. Other clubs have tough jobs."

Their reluctance reminded me of the day when Ashiamma first met me, in dire need of a helping hand. Here I was, equally desperate but there wasn't any other Vicky to help me.

"Volunteer willingly or I'll simply assign it to you," I warned.

"Can I come in?" Shay leaned against the door, breathing heavy. "Sorry, I'm late."

"Are you fine?" A girl asked her.

Shay nodded and stared at me. I realized she was waiting for my response.

"Come in," I said. As much as I wanted to ask her in what position she came here, I already knew the answer. She was the new Secretory, the Vice-President. Her badge said so.

"We're doomed," I muttered and slumped into my seat.

"No, we're not," Shay replied. "What kind of President are you?"

"The kind that a doomed club has," I replied. "But look at you, ready to lead a team. I have an idea, select students for this." I gave her the file.

She must not have understood my smile because she picked it up and began to talk to those doe-eyed time-passers. I scowled at them and threw my head back. She would not last for more than five minutes. When was the last time she was in this club? A year back.

"Who'll do it?" she asked.

No one said a word.

She cleared her throat. "Who'll do it if I help as well?"

No response. I scoffed. Did she think I was a bossy President who would distribute the work and not help?

"The one who raises his or her hand first gets to...gets to..." She blinked.

I placed my chin on my palm and raised an eyebrow. "Gets to?"

"Eat my lunch," she hurriedly said and shrugged at me.

I was about to console her soul but three hands went up. She grinned at me.

"During the Stay Backs, I'll give everyone who works a treat. It's all on me," she said.

Five more hands.

I snapped at the two idiots sitting in the corner. "Work or stay out of here. What more do you want? Chicken?"

They grinned at me.

I smiled back. "How about getting out right now?"

Their heads turned to Shay. Good. She can offer them all that she wanted. They better not expect shit from me.

"Do you have any plans in mind?" She asked.

I shook my head. "We just have to finish it."

Over the next half an hour, I wasn't required. She planned and took suggestions, which sucked, but she added them to her list and jotted down every single word spoken. For a tiny little moment, I absolutely forgot this was the girl who threw her Ash in garbage for God knew what. I knew they were fighting. I also knew it was something about their competition but I said nothing. I did nothing. I thought it wasn't my place to intervene. Now, there was no place left for a middle ground.

"You guys continue, I'll be right back," I said and got up.

"Go ahead. We're fine by ourselves," Shay replied, focused on the notepad in front of her.

I went to the washroom and stood there for a while. When I felt collected and calm again, I washed my face. It was fine. This was just work. On my way back, I caught sight of those crutches. I stopped and stared at Shay, removing the old frames from the wall outside the Art Room and placing new ones in them. All by herself.

"Where are the rest?" I asked.

"I gave them a break," she said. "Can you get on a stool and take that down?"

"What had they done that they needed a break?" I removed my shoes and climbed up the stool and pointed at the paintings. "Which one?"

"Ash's," she said. "And the kids have done more than you."

I refused to look at her signature and gave it to Shay, my gaze fixated on the opposite wall. "You never asked me for help. What will we do with the ones we remove?"

"We use them," she whispered, dusting away the particles from the lone wolf. Her fingers curved around Ashiamma's name. I tilted my head and thought if this was how she managed to copy her signature before.

"We can't throw these but how about changing their positions and frames? Remodeling. That'll be quick too."

I nodded. "Whatever works." My head rose and I stared at Kiara's eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked Shay. "Is that Ash's?"

I could make out her lips move in a 'how dare she' monologue. She walked at us and tried to snatch it away from Shay's hands. Shay, in return, refused to move even an inch.

"Give that to me. How dare you touch it?" Her face twisted as she applied more force.

"No," Shay replied, pulling her hands back.

I watched the two fight for a frame and thought it would end soon. Kiara might give up or Shay would increase her prestige and let her take that away. I, however, was wrong. They continued the push and pull.

"Shay, let it go. We have other paintings."

"Excuse me," Kiara shrieked. "She is removing her one talent and you're okay with that?"

Another strong tug and it slipped out of Shay's hands. Unfortunately, it also shook her balance. Kiara stood in a corner, clutching the frame.

"You got that. Now leave," I snapped at her.

She glanced at Shay and left. I did not miss the small bump on her forehead and the difference in her gait. Shay's groan pulled my attention from her.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"It was bound to happen when I was holding it with one hand," she said. "She's such a..."

I met her gaze and asked, "Such a?"

"...Junior," she finished. I didn't know if it was to rile me up or insult Kiara in a lighter tone but it managed to crack me up.

"Maybe you shouldn't have applied for the Vice-President," I said. "The teacher could have chosen somebody else."

"Maybe. But were there other names on the list?" I was about to nod but she added, "who were willing to work?"

I'd be damned the day someone willingly volunteered without the need of bribery.

Shay grinned at me and patted my shoulder. "I'm your saviour, acknowledge that."

I bowed my head. "Yes, my Lord. Would you now get up please?"

•••••

A/N: In V.A.S.K.J., imagine K crossed out with a pen. Wattpad format is not allowing me to show the strike or maybe I'm unable to get it done here.

But the K, as told by Vicky has been cut off and replaced by J.