Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AMAY
Fatigue dragged at him as he made his way through the building foyer. He’d been pulled into the hospital on an emergency and had ended up in a three-hour surgery on top of his earlier shift. It didn’t help that his conversation with Dhrithi had been a low, humming, irritant at the back of his mind the whole fucking day.
Conversation. Could it even be called that? More like argument or full blown fight. Amay had a healthy dislike for anything resembling a fight after having lived in what felt like Fight Club for the first ten years of his life.
“Hey man.” Ishaan walked into the foyer and came to stand beside Amay in front of the elevators. In his custom tailored, pinstripe suit, he looked like he’d strolled off the cover of a business magazine. Until you looked closer and saw the stress lining his face.
“Hey,” Amay responded. “All okay?”
Ishaan shrugged. “The usual. You?” He followed Amay into the elevator as the doors slid open at that moment.
Amay leaned against the wall of the elevator watching Ishaan punch the button for the penthouse and Amay’s seventh floor.
“You want to come to my place for dinner tonight?” Ishaan asked, stepping back to stand beside Amay. “Virat was planning to cook. At least, that’s what he said when I left for work.”
Virat was rooming with Ishaan since Dhrithi was using his apartment for now. Amay hoped she was getting some sleep and not wandering around the building dragging that stupid duffel bag with her.
He realised Ishaan was still waiting for a response. “Not tonight, man. I’m wiped.” The elevator dinged open on Amay’s floor and he raised a hand in a goodbye and stepped out.
Ishaan held the doors open with one hand and popped his head out. “Ams, you’re sure you’re okay?”
Amay nodded, smiling. “I’ll try and come up for a beer later, if I’m not too tired. I have the day off tomorrow.”
Ishaan raised a hand in acknowledgement, stepping back into the elevator and letting the doors shut. Amay input his code, unlocked the front door and walked in, not bothering to hit the lights as he entered. He came to an abrupt stop a few steps in.
Dhrithi was sleeping but she wasn’t sleeping in Virat’s apartment. She was passed out on his couch, that annoying duffel bag still parked right near her hand. Shadows lengthened inside the apartment, the only light coming from the city outside.
He watched the play of light and shadows on her face. The face that had haunted his dreams for years now, over a decade and more. She’d been all planes and angles in school. She was still too thin to be healthy, but he knew that was more recent events than anything else. She murmured something in her sleep, wincing as the movement pulled at the healing cut across her lip.
As always the sight of the violence she’d endured caused another rip in his already bleeding heart. Did she mourn him? Did she grieve the bastard’s death? She claimed he’d blackmailed her into a relationship but surely, at some point there had been love? She’d married him, hadn’t she?
She turned restlessly on the couch, almost falling over the edge. Amay moved before he could stop himself, kneeling beside the couch and murmuring her name. She woke slowly, her eyes opening to meet his, sleepy and unfocused.
“Amay,” she whispered, one hand coming up to touch his face, the whole movement dreamlike and surreal. The gentle trail of her fingers on his face had him swallowing convulsively.
“You’re going to fall off the couch,” he said brusquely. “It was a stupid idea to fall asleep here.”
The sleep fled her eyes at his curt tone and she dropped her hand, sitting up in one smooth motion.
“Get your stuff,” he said, straightening to his full height. “I’ll take you back to Virat’s place.”
He was turning towards the door when her hand grabbed his and stopped him. He glanced down to where her pale fingers rested on his darker ones. As he watched, she slid her fingers through his tightening her grip and sending a tremor through his body. The moment felt fraught with emotion that shouldn’t exist, with sensation that felt both horribly familiar and distressingly strange.
“I’m not going back to Virat’s place.”
Dhrithi, like him, seemed to be hypnotised by the sight of their hands together. She stared at it, her fingers trembling in his. Instinctively, Amay tightened his grip in an effort to soothe her.
Amay sighed. “A hotel isn’t-“
“Not a hotel.” She raised her eyes to meet his now. “I want to stay here. With you.”
It felt like the air stilled around him. Her words wrapped themselves around the neediest part of him, the one that had always craved love, the one that had hoped to one day be chosen by someone, anyone.
But when he spoke, he forced himself to say, “That’s not a good idea.”
“Please Amay.” She rose to her feet, his deepest longing in human form, standing before him. “Before I ruined everything, before I destroyed what we had, before we thought we could be more, you were my best friend. I miss my friend. I miss you. Please?”
He didn’t know what she was asking of him. He doubted even she knew. But that same part of Amay who’d always longed for her, couldn’t deny her anything, even an unvoiced, unnamed thing.
“You can stay here,” he said gruffly. “But not on the couch. I’ll make up the bed in the guest bedroom.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick with unshed tears.
Amay nodded, forcing himself to let go of her hand and step away. He walked towards the guest bedroom, his mind listing all the ways in which this was a mistake. The biggest mistake of his life.
I miss my friend. I miss you.
She’d broken him the last time. But this time…this time she would destroy him.