18 He Loves Me Knot
He Loves Me Knot
I spent the next five days trying to obliterate the ridiculous notion that I had fallen for Aadar Chauhan.
But the more I fought to deny the idea, the closer to the truth it began to seem.
I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the same man I’d considered my nemesis a few weeks ago was now suddenly the most important person in my life.
I used to detest having to interact with him, and now I stared at my phone for hours, willing him to text me.
But he never did. I hadn’t heard a peep out of him after that hasty phone call when he’d told me about his engagement.
I opened his Instagram profile every day, hoping to get a hint of what was going on in his life.
But he maintained his social media silence even in the face of his successful love story.
When Saturday rolled around and I still hadn’t managed to dismiss him from my thoughts, I picked up my phone and rang him.
He didn’t answer. I tossed my phone on the bed, disheartened.
A sane person would’ve taken his silence as a sign of lack of interest, bitterly accepted the rejection and moved on.
But it had been a few days since I’d lost my sanity.
I desperately needed someone to talk to, a sounding board of sorts.
I’d considered dialling V’s number many times in the past week, but my ego hadn’t let me.
Why couldn’t she call?
And so, in the absence of a rational voice stopping me from making a bigger fool out of myself, I called him again.
And again. I left him text after text, hoping he’d respond to at least one.
I even dropped him an email on his official ID.
The hours passed, but I didn’t hear back from him.
I knew I was being unreasonable, but I couldn’t bear to give up on this without first speaking to him. I just wanted to have a word.
Okay, I wanted a lot more. But this much, I needed.
So I did the only other thing I could think of. I made a trip to his flat. The bell continued to ring as I waited for someone to open the door. After the fifth ring, I figured it had to be one of two things: a) he knew I was at the door and wanted nothing to do with me, or b) nobody was home.
Think, Annie. Who would know where he is?
That’s when it struck me. I opened my phone book and dialled his brother. The first three times I called, there was no answer. But then he called me back.
‘Ananya? Hi, you called?’ I could barely hear him over the commotion.
I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Karan! Thank God! I need to speak to your brother, where is he?’
‘Sorry, what?’ He had to shout to be heard. ‘I can’t hear you properly.’
‘Is. Aadar. With. You?’ I enunciated every word.
‘Um, yes. I’m at his engagement party.’
I zeroed in on the sounds in the background – dhol, DJ, congratulating relatives and laughter.
If there was ever a sign from the Universe to stop trying to talk to Aadar, it was this one. But I was way past listening to the stupid Universe.
‘Tell me the address,’ I said.
‘Uh …’ I could tell he was wondering if he could simply hang up on me.
‘Please, Karan. I promise I won’t make a scene. I just need to speak to him for five minutes.’
‘Something happened between you two, didn’t it?’ he said knowingly.
He took my silence as an affirmative and told me he’d give me the address if I promised to wait outside. There was no way he was letting me into the premises. He’d bring Aadar to me instead.
The engagement party was taking place in Chattarpur Farms. I got behind the wheel of my dad’s car and drove like I’d never driven before.
I was certain that I’d have at least three speeding challans waiting for me in the mail in the coming week.
I didn’t have an invitation card to show at the gate of the farmhouse and I certainly didn’t look like I was a guest in my ice cream-stained sweatpants, so the guard didn’t immediately let me in.
I rang Karan again as I waited at the gate, and a few minutes later, I saw him signalling to the guard to let me pass.
I swerved into the parking lot and quickly parked between two sedans.
‘Whoa, that was surprisingly smooth,’ Karan said. He was waiting for me when I jumped out of the car.
I looked back at my dad’s Swift, realising that I’d reverse parked it in record time today.
‘I’ve been practising,’ I said, thinking about how I’d been playing the simulation game Aadar had installed on my phone every night to feel closer to him.
Pathetic, I know.
‘Okay, wait here,’ he said. ‘I’ll try and pull him out for a bit.’
I nodded, watching him disappear around the corner. The engagement, I figured, was taking place in the lawns to the right of the parking lot. I began to inch closer towards it, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was going on inside.
This was all happening too quickly. I’d barely had the time to process my feelings for him, even though I’d known him for over two months. How was it that he’d decided to marry someone he’d just met two weeks ago? Was she really such a catch?
I saw Karan dragging his brother towards me. Aadar was arguing with him, gesturing wildly with his hands. But when he saw me, he froze.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked, looking from his brother to me.
Karan shrugged, slapped his brother’s shoulder and left, indicating that he was on his own.
I walked over to him, my knees feeling weak with apprehension.
It was strange to love and hate the sight of a man with the same blinding intensity.
On the one hand, I couldn’t stop admiring how good his broad shoulders and strong chest looked in the black and gold sherwani.
But the thought that he was dressed up like that to put a ring on another woman’s finger made me want to burn it off his skin.
‘Why haven’t you been answering my calls?’ I asked when I was close enough.
‘I’m getting engaged today, Ananya,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘I haven’t had the time.’
‘Can we go somewhere, please?’ I asked. ‘To talk?’
He placed his hands on his hips, looking around. ‘I can’t just go with you. I need to get back inside.’
He waited for me to say something and when I didn’t, he began to turn around.
‘Okay, no, wait.’ I lurched forward and grabbed his arm, saying, ‘I need to tell you something.’
He neither moved nor pulled his arm away.
‘I …’ I began saying, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’
He turned his face to look at me, his arm still firmly in my grasp. ‘Ananya …’
‘No, let me finish,’ I said, stepping closer to him so I could slide my hand down his forearm and place it in his. ‘I know you think that night was a mistake, but I don’t. I wasn’t drunk. You weren’t drunk. We knew exactly what we were doing. And we wanted to do it … so very much.’
He let me entwine my fingers with his as I continued talking. ‘I spent so much of my time hating you that I never even realised when I fell for you.’
A shadow crossed his features. I desperately wanted to know what he was thinking, but his eyes didn’t give anything away.
‘Please, say something,’ I urged him.
‘I can’t do this, Ananya.’ He sounded pained. ‘Not right now.’
From the distance, we heard a woman shouting his name. Aadar’s mother was standing at the parking lot’s entrance.
‘I have to go,’ he said, pulling his hand out of my grip. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ I raised my voice.
Tears began to sting my eyes and threatened to spill onto my face.
‘What do you suggest I do?’ he spun around and demanded.
‘Don’t go.’
‘So I should abandon my chance at marrying a nice girl, starting a family … for what?’ he asked aggressively. ‘For a girl who can barely go on two dates with the same guy … let alone think about marriage?’
His words stung and I felt my vision blur with tears as I said, ‘For a girl who’s telling you she loves you.’
He scoffed and said, ‘I’m too old to play these games with you, Ananya.’
His mother shouted for him again and he began walking away.
I thought about how a few months ago, he’d sat across from me in my home, asking for my hand in marriage.
I didn’t want to marry him then, I didn’t want to marry him now, and it was too early to tell if I’d ever want to marry him.
But watching him walk out of my life broke my heart harder than anything ever had before.
If my life was a romcom, I would’ve risked it all, gotten down on one knee and proposed to him.
He would’ve smiled, bent down next to me and pulled me into his arms. But I knew by now that romcoms were a lie.
However strongly I felt for this guy, I couldn’t sacrifice my own beliefs and values to keep his interest in me alive.
I couldn’t ask him to marry me to prove to him that I did, in fact, love him.
And so, I held my breath as he took step after step, adding to the growing distance between us.
My brain, wired as it was, repeated ‘palat, palat’ as he walked away.
But he didn’t turn. He put an arm around his frowning mother and left the parking lot, but not before I heard her say, ‘Wasn’t that Mrs Kapoor’s daughter? ’