The Rebound

"Yash," she whispered. "Can you kiss me?"

"You will regret it," Yash told her, removing his arm from around her and looking directly in her eyes.

"I won't."

"You will."

This had to be the rebound phase. If it made Ishita happy, Yash would willingly be her rebound, the person she used to get over Dilip, but he knew that in the end, she would only hate herself for it. And he couldn't bear to see her hate herself.

"Yash, I was thinking about it for a while. I want to move on."

Exactly. This was the rebound phase.

"Listen Ishita, I'm not going to be your rebound," he told her, forcing himself to raise his voice at her.

He wanted to be nice to her, he wanted to explain to her patiently why it wouldn't work, but Yash knew that she would only attach herself with him more. So he made a split second decision to go back to being the old Yash - the Yash who she would fight with, the one who she would react to, the one who would cause her to feel again, even if what she felt was hatred, and maybe... just maybe the same Yash she wanted once too before Dilip came into their lives, the same Yash who had once been too late. 

Ishita lowered her gaze as tears fell from her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"You know what Ishita," he said coldly, feeling his own heart hurt with the pain he could see this was causing her. "I've been nice to you for too long. If you're so stupid that you can't even move on from someone who clearly used you until he didn't need you anymore, then I have nothing to say to you either."

He stopped the movie, feeling terrible as more tears fell from her eyes.

After a few moments of silence, she spoke up, "Yash... did you... did you move on from me?" she asked hoarsely.

"Yes," he said simply, "But you're my responsibility now, so don't try and leave this place. From tomorrow, you're making us food and doing the laundry."

He just wanted her to fight back, but she was crying instead. Dilip changed her for the worse. He took away the fighter from within Ishita, he took away her strongest quality. Yash could feel himself detesting Dilip for this very reason. He could feel himself detesting himself. He had been too late. Yash knew that he would never have let the fighter in Ishita die.

"The couch is all yours, or you could share the bed with me. It's up to you," he told her, trying to sound smug, before he walked towards his room. "Oh," he said, turning back for a moment. "Just wanted to say once again, you owe me, so you can't leave. If you do, I will call your brother."

He saw her eyes widen with fear before he turned back around and made his way to his room, lying down on the bed, feeling extremely guilty for what he just did, but he knew that he didn't have bad intentions at all, and that made all of this tolerable.

I'm going to bring the fighter back, he thought to himself as he lay awake in bed. I will bring back the strong Ishita.