35
Raina
MY WHOLE BODY ACHED as Oliver unlocked the front door. Dev walked in first before we both followed him inside.
Without saying a single word, he climbed up the stairs, presumably to Vedant’s room. I tried offering mine, but that was a sharp no.
“Is he okay?” Oliver asked in a low voice behind me, and I shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
My plan had always been to travel back up later tonight. I knew I wouldn’t be able to read all of Ma’s journals, but I only ever wanted to read one. I needed to know if she had known about… everything, and from what I’d gathered from my father, she had. But after Dev interrupted us, he’d simply said he needed to get away from the house, and I couldn’t exactly blame him. After everything that went down, I wouldn’t have wanted to stay in the same vicinity as our father either. So, we drove back with Oliver; who even though had plans to come later in the week, drove us because he didn’t want either of us to drive back alone like this.
It had been a silent ride, though Oliver had spent most of it sending glances in my direction, almost as if he wanted to remind me that he was there. But I couldn’t help go over everything again, and at how detached I felt. As I stared at the cloudy skies, I wondered if I’d been broken by him so many times that not a single part of it felt like a surprise anymore. Just numb.
“Raina,” Oliver ran his hand down my arm, his voice still low as a whisper. “Are you okay?”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “I am. I know it sounds… wrong.”
He shook his head. “Everyone takes things differently. You don’t have to react to everything like he did.”
I nodded. A part of me felt like I was getting dizzier by the second, but there was a tiny part of me that felt like it could finally breathe.
Stepping into my room, I spotted Dev sitting on the foot of my bed; his arms were hunched over his knees as he stared at the ground.
Feeling my stare, he looked up at me with an expression that made me frown. “How much did you know?”
I sucked in a breath as a sharp shiver went down my spine at his cold tone. “I didn’t know anything. I was eleven. I just remembered that one thing she’d said to me that I told Ma, but I was never sure.”
“But you said—”
I shook my head. “It was after that. After I had gone to therapy, I couldn’t find a good enough reason to justify why he would leave me there, even though I loved being there with Ma, but after everything,” I exhaled a breath. “I wanted to know why and it took me a while to piece my memories back together. I just said that to him to tell us the truth. I wanted to know if that was it… and it was.”
“That was a stupid gamble.”
“I had absolutely nothing to lose.”
It was true. I had years to accept the fact that my father didn’t want me. I had years to decide if I wanted it to be the reason I was held back or move on, and sure when he said those words to my face, I felt the hurt spread over me.
Just because a wound heals doesn’t mean that if you try to prick the dead skin or stab in the same place, it won’t hurt all over again. But him sharing the rest of it didn’t feel like it had the power to hurt me. I felt numb about it, but in many ways, it also felt like I was finally getting closure.
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “How did you know about Ishaan?”
That made me pause. “Ishaan?”
“That’s his name… you didn’t know?”
I shook my head, my heart racing as I dropped beside him. I opened my mouth before closing it shut. What do you say to that?
Instead, I asked the thing that had been bugging me since I gave myself a moment to think. “You said you didn’t want a repeat of our parents’ marriage… what did you mean by that?”
“It was in one of her journals just after they’d moved here. She’d written about how their marriage was set by Nanu.”
I nodded. It wasn’t uncommon, Arranged marriages were a tradition as old as time, but I couldn’t imagine Nanu forcing her to marry someone else. But then again, today told me he was a different man to me than what he was to others. “Do you think she regretted it?”
He paused like he was trying to rake his brain. “She never expressed it in her writing… but I don’t think she was very honest in her journals. Even if a part of her wrote them only for herself.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Pa—” Dev faltered at his own words and cleared his throat. “Dad implied that she knew he was having his affair, but she never mentioned it once in her journals.”
I frowned. “Why did she move us both back home then?”
“She wrote about how she was unhappy in her marriage and that being sick made her want to be with her parents, but she couldn’t imagine leaving you behind with just him.” He sighed, looking at me. “But after what Dad told us, I imagine she must’ve known he wouldn’t have been able to care for you the way she wanted to, especially considering you would’ve been home alone quite a bit with him. Rihaan and I were already in boarding school by then, so we were only ever home for summer, and Axel’s parents were already taking Vedant with them when they were travelling for their championships because of her health, and even when he wasn’t travelling, he was still spending the majority of his time at Axel’s place. Taking you with her just meant that she could still keep you but also protect you.”
I stared at the ground, my brain racing to keep up with his words, but I replied with the only think I could think of. “I don’t think I want her journals anymore. At least not right now.”
He nodded, and I released a breath.
Noticing that he was still looking at me; I raised my brows. “What?”
“I need you to keep all of this to yourself.”
“Please be kidding.”
He shook his head, “I don’t want Rihaan or Vedant to know about this. At least, not yet.”
I stood up, my voice laced with exasperation as I said. “Dev, do you know how relieved I felt after knowing that you knew? Or how, once everything was out, I was finally able to breathe without his baggage over my head? And now, you want me to keep it from the two people I’m currently sharing a house with.”
“Look, I’m not asking you to lie; I’m just saying you need to keep it to yourself. Neither of them will come up to you and ask about any of this. I’m just saying, don’t go up to them and offer it! I just want them to focus on what actually matters,” He replied evenly. “It’s not like you’re on talking terms with either of them anyway, so it shouldn’t be hard.”
He blinked at his own words like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he never even tried to take them back.
“Yeah, it’s not like the entire reason my brothers hate me is because while they had been away for their work and school, our mother chose to only take me with her behind their backs and abandon the rest of her kids, right? And maybe, if they knew the truth, they would finally stop blaming me for something that was never my fault to begin with,” I was surprised at how calm my voice sounded when it felt like my heart was racing at a million miles per hour.
“Rai, they don’t hate you. But they both have worked hard for their dreams. They are both at an important point in their careers. Vedant needs his full focus on his championship, and you already know how hard it hits Rihaan when it comes to this. I want them to actually get their chance to get what they want and not worry about this.” He said in a tone that my questioning his decision baffled him. “How do you think either of them will take to the fact that their Dad had been cheating on Ma practically their whole life and the fact his secret child was the reason she left him and them?”
“W-What?”
“Fuck,” Dev closed his eyes like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Okay. Look, this is why I—”
I interrupted him. “You just said that she left him because she was sick and wanted to be with her parents.”
He took a step forward in my direction but stopped when I took one back. He stared at me for another second before he spoke. “She had been sick long before you two moved. Do you remember the summers you went back home?”
I nodded, my heart hanging on to his every word. “She didn’t use to travel before you were born. Dad doesn’t know this, but in her journals, she wrote that she got sick a couple of years after you were born, and her trips were for her yearly checkups. She took you with her because that way, you two could spend some time alone, considering that most of your life it was always something with one of us, and this way, those three months were just about you. But when she found out about Ishaan, that’s when she couldn’t imagine being with him. His cheating on her she could look over, but him having a whole new family wasn’t something she could take.”
His words struck me like a punch to the chest, and my body reacted before my brain could process all of it. My legs gave out beneath me, but before I could touch the ground, two strong arms wrapped me from behind, holding me up.
“Easy. Easy,” Oliver whispered in my ear as he steadied me. “Give her some space.”
His voice hardened as he spoke to Dev, who was near us. His arms were hung in the air, like he wanted to be the one who caught me but Oliver had been quicker.
Dev took a step back, uncertainty flashing through his face.
But Oliver must’ve seen something more because he turned me in his arms, my front now connected with his front, and he ran his hand down my back in a soothing gesture.
“You know, Dev, in the years that I’ve known you… I always thought about how much you looked like your Dad,” Oliver’s voice was laced with bitterness. “But I never realised how similar you both were.”
The air in my room dropped a temperature at his words.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you’re asking her to do this, you’re just as controlling and manipulative as he is. I’ve seen him pull this same shit with Rihaan over the years, but at least he had you and Vedant to be on his side. But I would’ve never imagined you would be the one who pulled this shit with your own sister.” Oliver’s grip tightened on me as he spoke, and I turned to look at my brother.
“You have no clue what you’re talking about,” Dev said harshly.
“So, I didn’t just hear you tell your sister that her relationship with her brothers wasn’t as important as their careers?”
“That’s not what I meant…”
“No? What did you mean then?”
“She knows how important it is for them. I just meant if we wait a little while, they would be able to digest it in a better head space.”
“What about her head space? You do realise that Vedant will have years to fight for championships, and Rihaan is already set to get selected to make his test debut, but you only have one sister. Asking her to hide something as this important, without even knowing—because I sure as hell didn’t hear you ask her—how she was taking it in? If it doesn’t sound like something your dad would do, well, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I was just trying to protect them. All of them.” Dev replied evenly, but it was almost like he was trying to convenience himself. “You may not want to believe me, but even Raina. I know Rihaan won’t take it well, and I’m just trying to protect her.”
“But it’s not your job to protect us,” I frowned as I got out of Oliver’s hold. “And neither is your job to cover up for his mistakes. Do you remember the championship night? When Vedant said that, we were all bruised by the same damn thing. It included you, too. You are not our father. You are twenty-six, you have your life you have to figure out but if you get caught up trying to sort out things for the rest of us, it will never happen. And if we want a single chance of mending whatever is left from the pieces they broke, we have to be better than them. Your heart may be in the right place, but if you ask me to hide this, you will be making the same mistake. Worse, if you consider the fact that he never actually asked me to hide it.”
Dev’s mouth turned in a line as he narrowed his eyes on the floor, going over my words.
“What’s going on?” We turned to find Rihaan standing in the doorway with a frown.
His gaze flickered between the three of us, waiting for one of us to reply. And before I could, Dev tugged on my hand and shook his head.
“I only want us to do this once.” My shoulders dropped as I nodded.
Pulling out his phone, Dev left the room, Rihaan hot on his heels as I met Oliver’s eyes.
And just like that, a calm, gentle tide wiped over me as he closed the distance between us. Wrapping his arms around me, he placed a kiss on my temple. “I’ve got you.”
“How much of that did you hear?”
“Pretty much all of it.”
I released a breath before placing my head in the crook of his neck. “Still want to be part of my chaos?”
“There’s nothing in the world that could make me not want to be part of your chaos,” He whispered, tightening his grip on me.
THE MOMENT DEV FINISHED explaining all of it to Vedant and Rihaan; there was a different kind of air that surrounded us. Rihaan was sitting with his arms hunched over his knees as Vedant stared at the ceiling. Dev was pacing, and I was sitting on the end of the couch with my knees pulled by my chest. Oliver was sitting a couple of spaces next to me, but every so often, I caught his hands twitching like he wanted to reach over and hold my hand every time I tugged on my sleeve.
“You should’ve told us, Raina.” It was Vedant who broke the silence, and I was a little surprised. I expected this from Rihaan, not him. “You’ve had so much time to say something.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t like you guys hadn’t done the exact same thing?” I asked, my voice shaking. “After she died, all of you left me there just like him. But I understood. Because after he had left me there without so much as a goodbye, It started making sense why you all hung up the minute Ma gave me the phone or why Dev visited me to check I was breathing every couple of months before he threw himself in the business, or why Rihaan blamed me for making him lose Ma or why you ignored me until you noticed me getting close to Axel.”
“That’s not fair, Raina. We all were grieving.”
“You think I don’t know that? But at least you had each other. Do you know what it feels like to be left behind with two old parents who lost their only child? To see them grieving so much that it ultimately took them? Do you think I wasn’t haunted every second of a minute when I was in the house where she grew up, trying to figure out how to grieve when everything reminded me of her? But do you see me blaming you for not being there for me?”
Vedant rubbed the back of his, guilt creeping up his face. “I thought I was giving you space, Raina. I didn’t know what to say to you.”
“When I asked him why you weren’t coming home,” Rihaan spoke for the first time, his hard gaze still on the ground. “He told me that it was because you wanted to stay there. And I couldn’t understand after all of that why you still didn’t want to be with us.”
“And instead of asking me,” I whispered, trying to steady myself. “You told me you never wanted to see my face again.”
A silence crept up in the room. Besides me Oliver had stilled as he took my words in, and Vedant and Dev were glaring at Rihaan.
“I was angry,” Rihaan frowned.
“Well, I granted your wish, so I guess it worked out for you.” I shot back, the words coming louder than I intended. “But you made them pick between the two of us, Rihaan. All because you were upset that I wasn’t coming home.”
“I had my own issues, and I didn’t know how to handle it all.”
“Then why are you upset with me for the same damn thing? I didn’t know how to either!”
“I’m upset because you never cared about me!”
I froze. “What?”
“Even when we were younger, you always went to Vedant’s races or stayed back with Dev when you couldn’t go with Ma. You never once cared about cricket or came to my matches. Not once.”
His words knocked the air out of me as I stared at him, speechless.
I had spent years nursing my own wounds, and I hadn’t realised that I’d been the first one to hurt him.
“I just wanted you to care about what mattered to me.” His voice cracked slightly. “And then, years later, when you do finally get a chance to be a part of something, you chose Formula One, and I see pictures of you three on track, and it just constantly feels like history repeating itself.”
Tears stung my eyes as I felt my heart break. “It wasn’t you, Rihaan. It was him. The first time I ever went to the nets with you and him, that was where I had my first heartbreak, and after that, even knowing anything about it felt too painful.”
He nodded as he understood, but his voice was still laced with hurt when he asked. “And after? When you got moved to cricket, you chose my best friend to work with instead of your brother?”
I sucked in a breath. Every nerve in my body screamed at me not to turn and look at Oliver or wanting to ask how he knew. But I replied honestly, “Too much had been said by then. You couldn’t stand to be around me for longer than a second, and you wanted me to ask for help?”
His shoulders dropped as he took my words in, rubbing his face before he replied. “I don’t know how to fix this with you.”
“I don’t either,” I admitted. “With any of you.”
“We’ve all said too much and hid too much from each other to resolve it one day,” Dev sighed. “Maybe instead of having the same fights over and over again, we just give each other a break and start fresh.”
I gave my oldest brother a sad smile. “I think the only that would be possible is we break open the vase and spill everything before starting fresh.”
“If that’s what it takes,” He nodded, his eyes going to Vedant. “Start with telling her why you were being a dick.”
He was silent for a long time before he released a breath, and said. “I found out you were going to leave F1.”
“How did you find that out?” My eyes flicking between Rihaan and Vedant.
“I overheard someone mention it at the Christmas shoot,” Rihaan spoke, and I pursed my lips. Almost glad that that was the way he found out.
WE SPENT THE NEXT hour talking and sharing things that felt like would help us somewhat move forward. Even though it wasn’t much, it was a start . And after all we had gone through, something was better than nothing.
“Great, anything else?” I asked, a yawn escaping me as I laid my head on Oliver’s shoulder, who had been sitting next to me, like he wanted to make sure if I needed him, all I had to do was look in his direction.
The three of them turned to us, wearing similar frowns. “Yeah… what’s the deal between you two?”
Closing my eyes, I sighed.
We may have agreed to call it a truce and start fresh, but it turns out all they needed was permission before they started acting in their truly overprotective way.