chapter 36
Chapter 36 - The Thing He Couldn't Reach
He waited until morning to call again.
Not impulsively.
Not immediately.
As if restraint could make the second attempt seem more reasonable than the first.
It did not.
Aarav stood by the window in his office, phone in hand, city glass and steel stretching below him in polished indifference. He let the line ring longer this time.
Once.
Twice.
Five times.
No answer.
His expression didn't change.
He ended the call before voicemail.
Set the phone down.
Picked it up again ten minutes later.
Called once more.
This time it rang only twice before cutting off.
Aarav stared at the screen.
Declined.
A strange, sharp irritation moved through him.
Not at the rejection.
At the ease of it.
She had looked at his name.
Seen it.
And chosen not to answer.
The realization sat badly.
By noon, he had almost convinced himself to let it go.
By three, he sent a message.
We need to talk.
He looked at it for a second before pressing send.
The words were brief.
Controlled.
Neutral enough to pass as practical.
He watched the screen longer than he should have.
Delivered.
Then nothing.
Aarav set the phone down and forced himself back into work.
It lasted twenty-two minutes.
When he checked again, the message had been seen.
No reply.
His jaw tightened.
Seen.
No response.
No acknowledgment.
Not even refusal.
Only silence.
Deliberate.
Chosen.
By the time he left the office, the quiet under his skin had become something harder to ignore.
He told himself not to call again.
Told himself twice.
By 8:17, he was dialing anyway.
This time she answered.
Not immediately.
Not warmly.
But she answered.
"What is it?"
No greeting.
No pretense.
Just the question.
Aarav stepped out of the elevator and into the private silence of the underground parking level, phone held to his ear, voice lower than usual.
"I sent you a message."
"I saw it."
"I noticed."
A pause.
Then, calm and flat-
"That doesn't explain why you sent it."
Aarav unlocked the car but didn't get in.
He stayed where he was, one hand braced against the roof, irritation sharpening at the clean precision of her tone.
"We need to discuss this properly."
A beat.
"We already did."
"No," Aarav said, more sharply than intended. "You decided. That isn't the same thing."
Silence.
Then-
"I informed you. Repeatedly."
The quiet finality of it landed harder than raised anger would have.
Aarav looked away, jaw tightening.
"That's not a discussion."
"No," she said calmly. "It was me giving you time to notice. You didn't."
The words hit with enough force to still him.
Not because they were cruel.
Because they were accurate.
Aarav said nothing.
For a moment, all he could hear was the low mechanical hum of the parking level and the distant echo of footsteps somewhere beyond him.
When he spoke again, his voice had lowered.
"Where are you?"
The silence that followed was immediate.
Then-
"No."
One word.
Nothing more.
Aarav's grip tightened on the phone.
"This is unnecessary."
"So was this marriage."
He went still.
The line remained quiet.
Then she continued, voice steady and unraised.
"But I stayed in it anyway."
Aarav closed his eyes once.
A hard, brief motion.
He should have ended the call.
Instead he asked, quieter now-
"Are you with him?"
The silence that followed was different.
Not shocked.
Not offended.
Only still enough to make the question sound exactly as it was.
Personal.
Late.
Unwarranted.
When she answered, her tone had changed.
Not colder.
Just more distant than before.
"That isn't your concern."
Something in his chest tightened-sharp, immediate, irrational.
Aarav straightened.
"It is if-"
He stopped.
Because he had no acceptable ending for that sentence.
Her voice came after one measured beat.
"If what?"
Silence.
Aarav said nothing.
Could say nothing.
Because every answer available to him exposed too much.
If you're still my wife.
If he matters.
If I mind.
Each one sounded like ownership he had forfeited the right to claim.
The silence stretched too long.
Then Kavya exhaled softly.
Not impatient.
Worse.
Certain.
"You don't get to ask me questions you never cared enough to ask when I was yours to answer them."
The line went very still.
Aarav felt the words land before he understood them.
Not because of the accusation.
Because of the past tense.
Was.
He said her name once.
"Kavya-"
But she had already ended the call.
The screen dimmed in his hand.
Call ended.
Aarav stood alone in the concrete silence of the parking level, staring at nothing.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
For the first time, the problem was no longer that she had left.
It was that she had become unreachable in ways distance alone could not explain.
And no matter how many times he called-
he was beginning to understand something he did not know how to fix.
He could still reach her phone.
He just couldn't reach her anymore.