Chapter 45
VEDIKA
Grief and heartbreak had Vedika throwing herself into her work. She worked eighteen hour days, usually the first to reach the office and the last to leave. Her family watched her, concern radiating from them but they didn’t interfere knowing she had to work through this on her own.
She waited, endlessly, for contact from him. But there was none. She stalked his social media page and for the first few weeks, there was nothing new. And then, one day, while on her daily cyber stalking routine, late at night, she noticed a new post.
A picture of a dolphin launching out of the ocean, the sunset framing its sleek body, the crystal clear water sparkling a glorious blue beneath.
The caption had her catching her breath.
Dolphins surface to breathe. I keep going under.
She sat in the dark, tears streaming down her face, her thumb stroking the screen, wishing she could reach through her phone and touch him.
A week later, she was at work when she saw the next update. She tapped the app open, her fingers trembling in her haste to see what he’d posted. A cheetah cub peeked out at her from behind a shrub, one mischievous eye exposed and its tiny, sharp teeth bared.
Attitude bigger than its body. Reminded me of someone I know.
God, this man was going to be the death of her. She printed both pictures out and stuck them to her soft board. The dolphin and the leopard. The held breath and the leashed violence. Her world on pause and the unrealised potential for more.
Three days later, snuggled into bed, she was looking at a picture of a cliff’s edge, the ground falling away to nothing. Her heart dropped away in her body as she considered the angle it was taken at. He had to be standing at the very lip of the cliff, the fool!
Running from chaos…Ran out of road.
Tears stung her eyes but she blinked them back. The likes on the post were jumping even as she watched, the comments flooding his page. She shut it down and lay back in bed, her mind going back to their time together.
Chaos is my drug of choice. His words ran in her head, an endless loop, that she couldn’t get rid of, didn’t want to get rid of.
A week later, Vedika ran her thumb over a gorgeous shot of an eagle mid dive, its fierce eyes fixed on something on the ground. Vedika zoomed in on the image, trying to spot what the eagle was looking at but could see nothing.
When prey wins, I cheer.
A small smile touched her lips as she drank in the picture. His social media was starting to feel like a lifeline, one that connected to her, gave her a glimpse into his life even if he’d shut the door on it, shut her out.
For another two weeks, she obsessively checked his page but nothing showed up.
And then, one day when she was sitting in the middle of an interminably long data analysis meeting, her phone screen lit up with a notification.
She opened it immediately to see an image of a snake, a King Cobra, coiled, hood open and ready to strike.
Can’t outrun conflict.
Her heart stopped. He was fine, she told herself. He had to be. This was what he did. This was the life he lived. This was…even before she could complete the thought, she was excusing herself from the meeting and running for an empty conference room.
Her finger hovered over Daksh’s name and then she switched, calling Ashish instead. “Is he okay?” she asked, without preamble, when Ashish picked up.
“As far as I know,” Ashish said cautiously. “He hasn’t really stayed in touch.”
“Did you see the picture he just posted?” she demanded.
“Picture?” Ashish sounded confused. “Hold on.” He pulled away to check out the picture and then he was back, “The one of the snake?”
“Yes!”
“Vedika, he takes pictures of wild animals. That’s literally his job. What exactly is worrying you?”
“The snake looks like it is about to strike!” she shrieked. “What if he got bitten?”
“Then he will get to the nearest hospital and take an anti-venom dose,” Ashish said reasonably. “This is his reality, Vedika,” he added gently.
“Can you call him? Can you check if he’s okay?” Her anxiety spiralled, landing as always in the pit of her stomach.”
“Are you okay?” Ashish asked, interrupting her doomsday freefall. “You sound a little out of it.”
Irrational, he meant but didn’t say, diplomatically swallowing his words.
“I’m fine,” she said abruptly. “But will you check? On him?”
Ashish sighed. “I will.”
But a day later, when she checked in with him, Ashish reported that he hadn’t heard anything from Daksh. All his calls and texts were met with complete silence.
Deflated, Vedika stopped badgering Ashish and went back to her sad, online stalking.
Three days later, she hit the motherlode.
Someone had uploaded a story and tagged Daksh in it.
He’d shared it on his story and Vedika got her first glimpse of Daksh since the day he’d left, the day he’d walked out of her life.
He’d lost weight, she thought, her gaze tracing the clean lines of his face, noting the dark circles under his eyes, and the thin, tight smile he flashed at the person taking the video. His clothes hung loosely off his tall, lean frame as he moved out of a tent and on to open ground.
Daksh looked out towards the horizon, an endless stretch of dry, brown land. As she watched, he squatted, lifted the camera to his face, focusing on something in the distance, something she couldn’t see. The camera clicked and he rose, a small, satisfied smile curving his lips.
“All that effort for a picture of a mouse?” the voice behind the video said with a laugh.
Daksh turned slowly, his gaze locking onto the camera. The hint of a smile faded from his mouth, something far more serious taking its place.
“All the effort in the world,” he said quietly.
And then it cut out, leaving her to slide slowly to the ground, her back braced against the wall as she played that clip over and over again.
Daksh’s tired, beloved face looked directly at her from the screen as he said, “All the effort in the world.”