Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
DHRITHI
“There isn’t any point in dwelling on what ifs.”
His matter-of-fact words slammed through her, shattering the hope she hadn’t known she’d carried in her heart, so deeply buried that it had required almost dying to bring it to the light.
“Of course.” She took a sip of her coffee trying to hide her devastation from his astute gaze. She thought she heard him sigh but she didn’t look up, keeping her eyes on that sliver of supposed ocean.
Amay sat down beside her, his long legs resting on the metal railing that hemmed in the balcony.
“We were children,” he said after a beat of silence.
She turned to look at him now. “Does that mean our feelings didn’t matter?”
“Of course it mattered.” He met her gaze. “It mattered then. It just doesn’t matter now.”
She wondered why that hurt so much. Her husband, the man who was supposed to love her above all else, had hurt her in ways she couldn’t have even imagined. And yet, he’d never hurt her heart. For she’d never felt this ache before. This anguished yearning for a life she could have had, one she’d shoved away with her own hands.
She heard the front door open, voices filtering through to them. Amay got to his feet and went to greet his friends.
Virat raised a hand in greeting when he caught sight of her sitting on the balcony. Ishaan didn’t bother with even that. She turned back towards the ocean sliver, slipping her sunglasses over her eyes.
“Have a moment?” Virat was standing behind her, his hands tucked into his frayed jeans, a t-shirt that screamed ‘Goa is life’ hanging on for dear life to his chest. The man needed new clothes. Couldn’t he afford them?
“Sure,” she replied, looking down at her feet and shrugging. “I have nothing but moments.”
She felt him pause at that before taking the chair Amay had vacated. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Amay and Ishaan in a heated conversation by the fridge. She thought she caught the words ‘corn’ and ‘chips’ but she couldn’t be sure. If they had corn chips, she really hoped they’d share. She’d always loved them.
“Do you know if Varun was still in touch with his group of friends from school?”
Virat’s question had her rambling, meandering brain come to a screeching halt.
“Friends from school?” she repeated dumbly staring at him.
Virat nodded, nothing showing in his face and yet, she could sense his impatience and irritation with her. The silent judgement was starting to get to her. She preferred Ishaan’s open hatred.
“Of course, he’s in touch with them. He was, I mean,” she corrected herself. “They’re his best friends.”
“Even now? After all these years?”
She glanced pointedly at where Ishaan was gesturing wildly with his hands at Amay who seemed to be shaking his head with disgust.
“Point taken,” Virat said with a small smile. “So, whatever Varun was involved in, they’d know about it.”
“If Varun was involved in something, they wouldn’t just know about it. They’d be hand-in-glove with him, waist deep in the muck.”
Virat nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense,” he murmured. “Ish!” he called out, cutting through whatever argument was happening at the far end of the room. “I need you over here.”
The guys walked over, Ishaan giving Amay one last shove to the shoulder like a petulant teenager.
“What?” he asked Virat truculently, not even bothering to acknowledge Dhrithi’s presence.
“You’re still in touch with the Crestwood crowd, aren’t you?”
“If by that you mean, I cross them at Otter’s Club or elsewhere and we nod at each other, sure.”
She could practically see the wheels turn in Virat’s head as they spoke. “I have all their official information already. I need you to get me something else.”
Ishaan’s eyes sharpened, an unholy gleam lighting them up. “If it means we get to finger those bastards, I’m game.”
“Easy tiger,” Amay murmured. “Don’t do something that gets you in trouble. All it takes is one mistake…”
Ishaan glanced disdainfully at him. “I don’t make mistakes.”
Dhrithi laughed. All three men turned to look at her, surprise darkening their eyes, almost like they’d forgotten she was there. She stopped laughing.
Ishaan turned his back on her, dismissively. “Whom shall we start with?”
“Let’s start with Naveen,” Virat answered, his gaze still on Dhrithi. “Varun and he were best friends.”
Dhrithi shook her head. “Not in the recent past.”
Interest lit Virat’s gaze as he leaned forward. “I didn’t catch a hint of that. How recent?”
“They had a massive fight a week or so before the accident.” Her cheeks warmed at the thought of what she was going to disclose. “They had a threesome with a common friend and it turned out that she preferred Naveen to Varun, in bed and out.”
“Sparsha Bhavnani?” Virat asked.
Dhrithi shook her head again. “Sparsha would never prefer anyone to Varun. Charithra Shankar. She’s a Kathak dancer, a pretty big name on the classical dance circuit.”
“So, she thought Naveen’s dick was bigger than Varun’s and that caused a decades old friendship to crumble?” Ishaan asked skeptically.
“I think it was less about how big his dick was and more about what he could do with it,” Dhrithi murmured dryly. “That wasn’t really Varun’s forte.”
Ishaan laughed, a sudden bark of sound and for the first time since he’d entered the flat, he looked directly at her. “Alright, I’ll look her up too. Let’s see exactly what those three were up to, in bed and out of it.”
“How would you find that out?” Dhrithi asked curiously.
“I have my ways,” Ishaan intoned, clearly trying to sound mysterious but only sounding idiotic instead.
Dhrithi laughed and leaned back in her chair, sipping from her now cooling coffee. “Just don’t bring me any videos please. I don’t need those images living rent free in my head.”
“You didn’t care?” Amay asked. “About what he was doing with other women?”
“I didn’t give a shit what or who he stuck his dick in, as long as he left me alone.” The brutal frankness of the answer had the men appraising her differently.
“You don’t get it,” she told Amay. “Or maybe you don’t want to. I didn’t have a marriage. I had an arrangement, one in which the power dynamic was so skewed, the scars it left me with will stay forever. Judge me all you want, but don’t expect me to fake emotions. The only thing I feel about Varun’s death is relief.”
She pushed to her feet, the chair legs screeching against the tiled floor. Coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug and spilled over her hand and onto her foot.
Dark brown stains on the pristine white floor. Apparently, Dhrithi wasn’t done leaving her mark on Amay’s life.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” she said, looking at the coffee stains that marred the otherwise perfect flooring. “I’m glad he died before…”
She felt them still, every one of them watching her. She shouldn’t, she knew she shouldn’t. Years of betrayal and hurt from the people who should have loved and protected her had taught her to guard her tongue, to only show the world the face she wanted them to see.
She looked up and at the three men who were helping her. They owed her nothing and yet, they were risking their normal to help her find her own. Two because they loved their friend, and one because, at one point in her useless, hopeless life, he’d loved her. The time for watching her words was over. If nothing else, she owed them the truth.
“I’m glad he died because if he hadn’t, I would have killed him.”