25. Ishaan
TWENTY-FIVE
Ishaan
He stood on his balcony, staring out into the distance, his mind a muddled mess. Tonight, the role he’d played, the person he’d been…it had all left him feeling dirty. And then there was that kiss. Kissing Mayukhi had been necessary but the want, the need he’d felt in that moment, it had had nothing to do with necessity. One thing was for sure, kissing Mayukhi hadn’t felt dirty. It had felt right.
The door slid open behind him and Virat and Amay stepped out.
“Vir,” Ishaan commented, his gaze still fixed on the ocean in the distance. “You are the worst actor in the world.”
Virat leaned his back against the wall, watching Ishaan carefully. “Never said it was my forte.”
“Didn’t you learn anything from her? She was the star of the theatre club, wasn’t she?”
Virat stilled. For a second, Ishaan thought he’d gone too far. Amay kicked his leg, a not-so-subtle reminder to shut up. But Ishaan never shut up. Surely his friends knew that by now? Rage simmered in his gut. His head knew it was a reaction to his confused emotions about Mayukhi but the rest of him? The rest of him just wanted to poke the bear.
“All that time,” Ishaan drawled. “Huddled in quiet corners of the school campus and she didn’t give you any pointers on how to be the star of your own little show.”
“Ish,” Amay said quietly. “Shut up.”
In response, Ishaan turned from the view and met Virat’s simmering gaze. “Don’t you think she deserves to know what’s happening?”
“Don’t.”
The single bitten off word was a warning, one Ishaan had no intention of heeding.
“You know when there’s a plague, the first patient, the first victim, is called Patient Zero. This? These guys? They are a plague and she is our Patient Zero.”
“She’s nobody’s victim.” Virat’s voice got quieter but it was, if anything, deadlier.
“She deserves to know!” Ishaan roared, his frustrated, turbulent emotions spilling out of him in a wave of sound.
“The only thing she deserves,” Virat hissed, getting right in his face. “Is to never see any of our faces again. Not theirs and not ours either.”
Amay got between them, ever the peacemaker. “Okay guys, let’s take a step back and try for a deep breath, shall we?”
“Fuck you Ams,” both of them snapped, not even bothering to look at him.
“Don’t you ever presume to speak for her or of her again.” Virat’s eyes were feral, rage and pain bubbling in them, a toxic stew that had been brewing for decades now.
Amay put one hand on Virat’s chest and pushed him back a step. “Take it down a notch, Vir.”
“Don’t fucking tell me to take it down a notch,” Virat snapped at him. “Did you hear what he said, what he’s suggesting?”
“I did,” Amay said quietly. “And he’s right.”
Virat stepped away from him, looking like he’d been struck.
Amay put his hands up, a gesture of surrender. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear but she does deserve to know. What she does with the knowledge after that, would be entirely her call. But she should have the chance to be able to take that call.”
Without another word, Virat spun on his heel and walked out. A second later, the front door slammed shut behind him.
“You are such a dick.” Amay sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face.
“I thought you agreed with me.” Ishaan rooted through his pockets for a cigarette but couldn’t find one. Fuck his life.
“I do but your delivery and timing sucked balls.” Amay stared over Ishaan’s shoulder at the skyline in the distance. “Don’t push him Ish. This whole thing has him so tightly wound, I’m surprised he hasn’t snapped as yet.”
“She’s a festering boil in his psyche that he needs to lance.” Ishaan would never be sorry for fighting for his friends, even if they hated him for it. “This will take him down, if he doesn’t.”
Amay threw him a perceptive glance. “Is he the only one with a festering boil to lance?”
Ishaan shouldered past him and into the hall, a restless ache mixing with the anger he felt.
“Don’t be that person,” he warned.
“The person who wants you to be happy?” Amay asked, shutting the glass doors behind him and stepping into the living room with him.
“She’s no Goody.” Ishaan ran a hand through his hair, a burning heat coursing through his veins. He felt like he was coming out of his skin.
“She doesn’t have to be,” Amay countered gently. “Is that what you want though? Another Dhrithi?”
No. He wanted Mayukhi Fucking Chatterjee. God help me. She was going to chew him up and spit him out and he would be on his knees thanking her for it.
Shit.
“Mayukhi isn’t a festering boil,” he said hoarsely, his desperate gaze meeting Amay’s sympathetic ones. “She’s the bloody plague itself and I have a feeling I’m her Patient Zero.”
Amay sighed. “Only you would fall for someone and compare it to getting the plague.”
Ishaan stared morosely at his reflection in the mirror that hung on the far wall of the living room. He looked like hell and felt like it too.
“This,” he declared mournfully. “Is going to be the death of me. I know it.”