25. Conundrum
25
Conundrum
Vihaan
I t was surreal that she was here, sitting amongst some of the most important people in his life. Seeing Vera steadily lose her usual inhibitions despite her unconventional introduction to his friends, created a confusing cocktail of emotions in him. He didn’t know if he could pinpoint what it was that had him feeling so vulnerable. Was it because she fit in so seamlessly? Or because he knew this wasn’t permanent?
It felt ironic that they were playing charades, because this entire situation with Vera was like one big game of ‘faking it’ and he had no clue if they would ever get to ‘making it’.
“OK, here’s your movie,” Vera told Rian when he bent lower so she could whisper it in his ear.
Vera trotted back to her seat beside Aditi, Arjun on the other side. The three of them had been winning for the past three or four rounds, especially since Arjun kept flirting with Kaya and flustering her when she tried to play.
“Think you guys will get this one?” Arjun called out, grinning like an evil gremlin when Kaya scowled at him.
Rian, to his credit, tried hard. He pointed his thumb upwards to indicate that it was a Hollywood movie, and immediately went on his tip toes, strutting around, waving his hand in the air like a dainty queen.
“Princess Diaries!” Kaya shouted, groaning when Rian shook his head.
He pretended to be waiting, looking left and right as if crossing the street before sticking a knee out. With a wink and an exaggerated bite of his lower lip, he bent low and began to stroke his jean clad leg.
Vihaan snorted, offering no help while Kaya tried to guess again, failing multiple times.
Each time Rian came up with a more outrageous and effeminate thing to do, the funnier it got, until Vera was holding her stomach, gasping, her face brilliantly red. Aditi had tears running down her cheeks and was shaking so hard, she slipped off the couch and onto the floor, grasping at Vera’s leg for help. Arjun had started taking a video of the chaos for posterity, no doubt planning to use it as some form of twisted blackmail material in the future.
And Vihaan? He was occupied doing what he always seemed compelled to do. Watching Vera.
He hadn’t been able to look away all evening. The fact that she was so engrossed in the game had allowed him to observe her to his heart’s content, appreciating how unguarded she finally was. They’d had sex, but neither in the storage room nor during their night together after the club, had Vihaan seen this side of her. Where she was exhibiting her competitiveness, but not her anger. Where she laughed a bit more freely.
He didn’t trust her. He shouldn’t trust her, he reminded himself. Still, that didn’t stop her smile from stealing the breath right from his lungs. And all he wanted to do then was forget everything else and make that moment last just a little longer .
Fuck, she’s glorious . He watched Vera clutch Aditi’s hand as she continued to giggle, the sound a balm to an ache he’d become accustomed to living with. She was always a stunner, even when angry. But like this? Throwing her head back in true joy, her throaty laughter ringing in the air, her eyes bright and face flushed—she was blindingly beautiful.
Not that she had smiled much even as a child, but the adult Vera smiled differently. A curated expression that was used for the benefit of others. This was the first true sign of levity he’d seen. Her chuckles had that odd, interrupted quality. Like she was unused to making a happy sound. The mere thought made his heart clench uncomfortably.
He’d forgotten how her face softened when she lost herself to happiness, how proud he used to feel at being the only one capable of making her gurgle happily in the past. With her lips stretched out in a smile, she went from someone who looked like a perfectly drawn doll to an earthy seductress who could bring a country full of men to their knees.
As if she’d heard him, her gaze swung to meet his. He still couldn’t look away and her smile grew confused.
He didn’t know so much of who she was today. What had made her her ? What had her experiences been in the last fourteen years since they broke up? Did she still hum out of tune when she was cleaning? Did she still hate eating gourd because it was too healthy? Did she still use that old sandalwood bar soap that was sold at every corner shop because she liked the smell of earth? Did she still tear up while watching rom-coms but pretend that she hated the cliche scenes and dialogues? Had she fallen in love with someone else while he’d been trying to recover from the wreckage she’d caused? Had she—
He swallowed hard, the volley of questions tossing around in his mind refusing to abate .
Where had she lived? Who had been a part of her life? How had she ended up at Ethos?
Unlike his expectations, she wasn’t off living a lavish life of decadence with a rich husband. After she’d left his house without telling him, he’d found her address in the company directory and had driven over to check on her. The dilapidated apartment building had been concerning to see, which was also when he’d discovered that she’d moved elsewhere. Each time he was faced with proof that he was no longer privy to the details of her life as he once was, bitterness lashed through him. Every time he realised that so many of his assumptions about her were invalid, he felt frozen with fear for what else he might have misunderstood.
Had she truly moved on or was she still stuck in limbo like he was? He couldn’t figure her out. And all the while, simply being in her vicinity had him unraveling without control.
Desperate to show that he still knew something about her, he interrupted Kaya’s frenzied guesses.
“Pretty Woman,” he announced. It used to be one of Vera’s favourite movies. “Am I right?” he asked, still looking at her. Her lower lip curled in, pearly white teeth trapping one edge of it before she slowly nodded. At her confirmation, Rian slumped into the couch next to Vihaan, complaining loudly, “You couldn’t have guessed that earlier?”
“And miss seeing you act like a deranged giraffe?” he quipped, tearing his gaze away from the woman he was obsessing over, just as Kaya stood up, prepared to take her turn. No one needed to know that he’d wanted to see Vera laugh a little longer. He may never see her like that around him again, and the thought stung like an annoying thorn he couldn’t pluck out.
“Whatever,” Rian grumbled, taking a swig of water from the bottle he kept with him. “Maybe if you’d stared less at your friend and more at me, you’d have guessed faster.“ Vihaan felt the weight of Vera’s eyes on him, and despite being ready to barter his soul with the devil to remain unaffected, his face went aflame at Rian’s announcement. Yep, this was definitely karma coming to bite him in the ass, he decided, making a mental note to never again laugh at Rian when he was suffering.
Vera
Fun and Vera didn’t often occupy the same plane of existence. So she was quite surprised when playing games with mostly strangers all evening had been the most enjoyable time she could remember in recent years. Their lack of artifice meant that she was more relaxed than she’d been in a long while. It never crossed her mind to keep her defenses up like she usually did.
She couldn’t hold back a small chuckle when Kaya bounced on her heels like a little boxer, excited for her chance. She began her attempts at acting out the movie she’d been given, and just like before, Arjun stood on the sidelines distracting her with cute cheers, calling her beautiful and adorable and all manner of silly, flirtatious things until she spun towards him in a huff, her cheeks pink with embarrassment.
“Arjun!”
“Yes, my love!”
“Stop it! Play fair.”
“No, my love!”
“Seriously,” Rian added from the couch, “why did you marry him? He’s as annoying as a hangnail.”
“I was high on antihistamines. Now you know why I ran,” Kaya grumbled, causing everyone to snort out a laugh. Vera, unsure what that comment meant, was the only one who saw Arjun’s face lose colour, and the immediate effect that had on Kaya.
Arjun stepped back from where he was standing, about to take his seat when Kaya held him by his arm.
“Arjun?”
He shook his head, visibly holding some kind of emotion back. Vera was uncertain what the issue was but it was clear from how quickly everyone sobered up, that they were privy to why Arjun seemed hurt.
“Hey, tell me. We promised to keep no secrets,” Kaya softly pleaded. The rest of the room was silent, save for the light music trickling through the speakers. Vera wondered if she should excuse herself. This seemed private, and she was a stranger.
“We lost five years together after that day, Kaya. It will never be a joking matter for me,” Arjun admitted with a sigh before bringing his wife’s hand up for a kiss, as if he needed some sort of physical reassurance of her presence. “I will never not wish that I had those years with you as well.”
It was then that Vera’s eyes sought Vihaan’s, finding him staring right back. Arjun’s sentiment rang in her ears, affecting her in a way she hadn’t been prepared for. Here was a man who was mourning half a decade of separation. Vera had been trying for fourteen years to forget and move on, with no relief in sight. If she admitted to understanding how Arjun felt, did that mean she still harboured feelings for Vihaan? Wouldn’t that make her weak? Someone who refused to learn from her mistakes?
That wasn’t the person she wanted to be, was it?
Vihaan looked almost as tortured as she felt and her throat grew tight at all they had lost.
“I’m sorry,” Vera heard Kaya say. She wrenched her gaze away from Vihaan, finding that Kaya and Arjun were enveloped in a hug that looked like it would fuse them into one being. When they broke apart, Kaya’s eyes looked suspiciously shiny .
“I spoke thoughtlessly,” she apologised to Arjun. “Words matter. I shouldn’t have said that.” The acceptance on Arjun’s face was enough to know he’d forgiven his wife already.
How easily this couple accepted their faults and soothed each other’s pain, Vera mused, feeling emotional because of how beautiful their relationship was. A yearning she’d never allowed took root within her, insisting she pay it attention. Maybe part of what she was feeling was jealousy. Arjun and Kaya had in each other a support that was theirs and theirs alone. Unwavering, absolute and all encompassing, full of trust and. . . respect.
Could Vihaan and her have had such a relationship had they… No! She took a deep breath, sniffling silently while she sought to muffle those dangerous thoughts before they got too loud. Fear of the past activated that side of her brain which had been silenced earlier that night, logic reminding her of the futility of considering such hypothetical situations.
“Sorry, everyone,” Kaya turned towards the room, hugging Arjun around his waist while he held her close. “I didn’t mean to derail our happy mood.”
Right on time, Aditi’s belly growled. Rian jumped up, a wide grin on his handsome face. “Perfect. The happiest mood will be now, once I get dinner laid out. I need to feed my woman.” He winked at Aditi before pointing to Arjun and Vihaan, “You guys can have left-overs.”
He clapped Vihaan on his back, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate needing help in the kitchen. Arjun and Kaya quietly slid outside towards the balcony, presumably looking for privacy to make up some more.
“Ladies, we’ll get the table set up and call you in ten,” Rian told the remaining two, grabbing Vihaan by the arm to force him up.
Aditi and Vera watched a reluctant Vihaan grumble about being made to work in his own home before being dragged away. All while he kept glancing back, as if checking to make sure that no one was leaving.
“Soooo,” Aditi began, drawing Vera’s attention towards her. She rubbed her hands together before pressing them in a namaste, resting her chin at the tip of her fingers. “Is this the part where I don’t ask you anything about how the two of you were seconds away from ripping each other’s clothes off because he’s my friend and he’s your boss?” she chirped.
Vera’s mind went blank at the directness of that question, nary a sound escaping her as her thoughts raced to find an answer.
“Orrrrr is this the part where I don’t bring up how your boss and my friend was staring at you,“ Aditi added with an innocent smile. “All evening long.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Rian noticed.”
“Rian was just pulling his leg,” Vera explained, waving her hand once like it was not a matter of any import.
Aditi’s lips twisted, her face contorting as confidence gave way to incredulity. “You have no idea how Vihaan looks at you, do you?”
Vera’s heart began to drum a bruising pattern against her rib cage. She grimaced, wanting to bite her own tongue off as temptation built.
Don’t ask. Don’t ask. Don’t ask.
A moment later— “How does he look at me?”
“Like he can’t believe you’re here,” Aditi answered. “Like he’s never seen anything better. He looks at you like I used to look at Rian, before I knew he loved me too.”
The thundering in her chest grew louder, painful in its intensity.
“Adi, he doesn’t love me,” Vera brokenly admitted, afraid that all these feelings she’d been holding at bay would rise and boil over.
“You like him though, don’t you?” Aditi asked again .
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Both women’s heads whipped up to find Kaya standing at the edge of the room. “Sorry, I just came back. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I also don’t want to pretend that I didn’t hear what you said.”
Vera had no response. Why couldn’t people politely ignore the things that weren’t meant for their ears?
“We don’t know each other well,” Kaya continued, correctly guessing Vera’s discomfort. She seated herself on the centre table, facing Aditi and Vera. “But I do know Vihaan. Do you really not like him?”
“Honestly, it’s not like that. What you saw before—it was supposed to be a one-time thing.”
“Did he hurt you?” Kaya asked, surprising Vera with her directness. Had all the women in this group pledged honesty like it was a requirement for admittance into their cult?
Kaya had been the most introverted of everyone here, seemingly happy to fade into the background most of the time. Not that she’d been unfriendly, but Vera had not pegged her as someone who would speak up as boldly.
“It was a long time ago,” Vera finally answered, choosing to be truthful without delving into details. She was genuinely bewildered by her wavering feelings for Vihaan, exhausted by the constant push and pull of old emotions that besieged her battered heart every time he was in her vicinity.
“Time is a funny thing,” Kaya murmured, her lips drawn in a rueful smile. “I spent years running away from my life, only to realise that time wasn’t the cure. Length of time is not an inverse measure of pain. Sometimes, even the passage of years won’t heal things until you face them.”
Vera felt the weight of life experiences behind Kaya’s advice, making it impossible to ignore.
But what if facing her past only broke her again?