Chapter 38

We're all the same, all dead and alive, crying on a shoulder we decided to abandon.

Kiara

13th May 2019, Monday
7:40

"You should've given it to me earlier." She went through the pages, to print which I took so much trouble, exactly the kind I avoided. A dead girl's note, for example.

"Earlier when? Sunday?" I snapped.

She gave me a cold glare before turning back to the papers. "What did you do with the pen drive?"

Fed it to your dog. "I gave to Sameer. Now if you think I can leave, may I go?" I said through gritted teeth.

She smirked. "Where's your sass, Kiara?"

In the same drawer where Nolan placed Shay's note and left it on me to decide whether police should see it or not.

Clearly now that she was done, I pulled the door to leave. My mind was numb. I barely felt anything in the past two days. I ate, slept, took a bath, did everything a human did except feel. Roy offered me again to read the note. I told him not to call me again. She explicitly mentioned you, he had said, saying she needed me. I told him I didn't care. I lied. It hurt so much to even think, to open my eyes and see the mess. Half of me was curious. Did the note mention an apology or was it a blame note? Did she know we cared or did she think otherwise? I told myself it did not matter. She was gone.

I was tensed about the note, about Nolan's silent but sad eyes. He called yesterday. I didn't pick up. I kept my distance from my phone since Saturday, trying not to call Vee and hear his broken voice. Nolan did not have to say it. I knew I was to be blamed for Shay's condition when it was her twisted mind that propelled her to jump.

The school suffocated me with its paint and vibrant staff, with the huge television screen in the centre of the reception that somehow just managed to show you the campus in thirty seconds and repeated the slide like some tape. It suffocated me because it reminded me of how Shay must have felt. I did not feel good about her accident, much to my own surprise. The air the news knocked out of my lungs when returned back was poisoned. And the poison still remained in my system.

I paused outside the reception and blinked at Vee. When he turned around, his surprised gaze met mine. I looked around for a hiding spot and found none.

"Hey," he said and walked up to me.

I nodded slightly. "Good Morning." It was really a good morning, not even close. So I said what I thought would put a little weight off my shoulders. "I'm sorry."

His lips moved into a frown.

"I..." A sigh left my lips and I stood there dumbfounded.

"Stop, please. Don't blame yourself."

"What if she does?" I asked. I knew she did. It was her gift to me.

"Did Roy call you too?" he asked.

I laughed. "I was right there when they saw. The print got mixed up with my sheets. But I didn't read it, not past the first line. Did you?"

His sober, straight nod gave me relief. I knew reading it would provide me relief.

"It didn't look like a suicide note. If you see the previous one and this one, you'll see she wrote them after some point. The first one, I believe, is written before even August. We're right in that one but in the second one, it shows." He paused.

I nodded to let him know that I understood. It showed her meds.

"She justifies her-"

"I don't want to know," I whispered.

"I know, Junior. None of us do. Do you know Shay's mother kind of saw this coming? I'm thinking maybe the fault is in us. We failed to see it in Ashiamma and we failed to see it in Shay. Promise me, Junior, if you ever need help, you'll talk. It can be anyone but just do it, please."

Despite being of the same height, I felt as if he was looking down at me. I took wobbly steps and wrapped my arms around him, letting my tears fall. They didn't. And somehow that made me happy. I was happy that they stopped without any numbers and deep breaths.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled again.

He caressed my hair and I felt him nod. "We all are."

And I knew, we both were apologizing to each other, not to Shay or to Ash or to anyone else, just the two of us.

"I think her notes have been here for more than just a month. We're just discovering them now."

"Did Roy tell you about the other person?" I asked. "There may be someone else who came to the café with her. I thought about that. If it had been a known face, I would have noticed." I passed the road everyday at least three times.

"Of course," he mumbled.

When he stepped back, I then understood his tone. Of course she'd make a new friend when the old ones didn't respond.

"I'm surprised that she never talked to even Mehak," I said. Yeah, she won't go to Hardik but why not her?

"I need to thank him," Vee muttered, looking over my shoulder.

Nolan. I froze in my spot, wondering if he would tell Vee about the letter. He must have sensed my tension because his gaze first stopped at me, then at Vee.

"How are you feeling today?" he asked, walking over to me.

Vee raised an eyebrow. "Were you sick?"

"Badly," Nolan answered, eyes still on me.

My own stayed on him, wondering what he would say.

"I read the note," he said to Vee.

My mouth fell.

"I sent it to him," Vee explained, "to see if he found something similar to what Shay said. They both sound the same to me. Ash wanted to apologize, so did Shay."

"Just to different people," Nolan said. "But I found nothing. There's something else." He glanced at me. "Rishab is missing."

Vee and I groaned collectively.

"Is he sorry too now about something?" I muttered. Or maybe, he decided to hide behind a screen, pen notes, mumble a sorry to someone and die.

As kids, we used to play a game where we all hid from the unseen monster. Everytime, the monster caught someone, he'd lure the person to join him in hunting the rest of us. By the end, it was one last person against a horde. That was how I felt. They were all going up in the form of monsters but instead of catching me, they planned to push me further into the world I had constructed around myself, the one originally meant for them. Shay should have known it didn't matter if she died or lived, I was doomed either ways. I had always been.

The bell rang and Vee said, "We have an early class today. I'll have to run. Thanks for your help, Nolan."

Vee turned to me and I looked down at my shoes, avoiding his gaze. He mumbled a 'take care' and began to walk away.

"What do you think?" Nolan asked. "Is Rishab guilty about Shay?"

My head snapped up. I never considered that possibility.

"You know if Vee finds out that Rishab can help him understand why Shay was sorry, he'd really find him."

"How did you find out about Rishab?" I asked.

"I was called early in the morning by the police. They asked me if Shay mentioned him. I said no. His parents were there. It didn't take much to figure out."

I noticed how his eyebrows were furrowed today, one side of his mouth lifted and his eyes narrowed slightly. He brushed his nose tip with his finger and I found myself staring at the face he made when he was thinking hard.

"Give it to Vee at least," Nolan said, "the note, I mean."

"No," I answered spontaneously.

His face deflated. "Wouldn't you want to know why Ashiamma was sorry?"

"I never found." A teacher passed and I lowered my voice. "He'll learn to just accept and move on. Plus, she's not dead. When she wakes up, she can tell him."

"We all know she might never wake up."

Who was he kidding? I did not have to think about her condition when Papa told me the truth without sugar coating lies, also scaring Mum who glanced at me with a wary watch. I told her I would not kill myself, she could chill. It further spooked her.

"I have a pen drive, Sameer's pen drive," I said. It just suddenly came in my mind and was something I could use to divert my mind from Shay's stunt. "Shay put that file about Rishab in the school computers. I told Rishab. He said we deserve whatever she do-"

"He's not wrong."

"What if he knew she'd do this?" I asked.

He looked at me like I had shaved my head.

"He's suddenly missing," I tried to defend.

He sighed. "I honestly don't know. Have you ever wondered who told Roy about Ashiamma's apology?"

I shook my head.

"I think it might be Shay." He glanced at me. "It makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe, she knew and you were desperate to know-"

"-so she played the final move and took the apology with her." I shook my head and laughed. "Not possible. Ash loathed her. She'd never tell her."

"I never said Ashiamma told her. People don't come and tell us things all the time, we find out somehow."

Shay came after me. How did she not go after Ash, the only stone in her path that broke the bridge?

Nolan bit his lip and looked behind me. "I don't understand anything anymore."

I looked over my shoulder where he was looking, the huge television screen displayed one of Ashiamma's paintings.

"I don't want to know why she was sorry. I am truly done," I said. Truly.