Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Advik
“So yeah... that’s basically it. We just started talking about it. Vikram encouraged me to open up to my parents and... it helped.”
I exhale slowly, the weight of it all still pressing on my chest.
I’ve told her everything. About Khushi’s death. About the gaping hole her absence left in my family. How I wasn’t involved in that shared healing. The carelessness of adults, the way they tried to protect me by pretending she never existed. Like grief would disappear if it wasn’t acknowledged.
I remember my mother’s cries from just a few days ago—raw, broken, like a wound reopened after decades.
“Mera baccha! I’m so sorry...” she hiccuped. My dad circling his arms around her. “If I knew I would’ve—we could’ve cried together. We could’ve grieved together. We will now.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Trying hard to banish the image of her open arms that I reluctantly went into. I still don’t know why it’s so hard to resume this grief when I know they’re decades ahead of me.
I glance up. Greesha hasn’t said a word. She’s sitting perfectly still, elbows resting on her thighs, gaze fixed somewhere on my desk. Not blank—focused. Thoughtful. A crease forms between her brows.
“I didn’t tell you because...” I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck, “Well, I didn’t tell anyone. Not even Vicky. I thought it was a...”
“Forbidden topic,” she finishes, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her fingers curl into her palms. Her eyes flicker—pain, recognition, a touch of disbelief.
“Yeah,” I murmur.
She sits back then. The moment shifts. Her spine straightens. “And the problem?”
God! She can’t let it go, can she? My curious girl.
I can’t tell her the damn problem. Because the problem I was sharing with Ishika was how my pill-ridden secret activity was more than just Khushi’s death. I glance down, try to summon something passable.
“Uh...” I hesitate. “The thi—”
“You’re about to lie,” she says flatly.
I look up, blinking. “What?”
“I know you, Advik Sharma. At least a version of you. And I damn well know when you’re about to lie.”
There’s no venom. Just certainty. Quiet, practiced certainty.
I’m torn between awe and dread. “How?”
She tilts her head slightly. “Why do you wanna know? So you can use it better next time and perfect your deception?”
My breath catches. “I... I never deceived you.”
Her eyebrow lifts.
“Okay. Maybe I wasn’t truthful about my...” I grit my teeth. “—feelings for Aarohi. But I didn’t understand what they actually were. Now, I do.”
Her mouth twists. “Why, dipping your dick into her clarified things for you?”
The words hit like shrapnel. I flinch. My throat burns. “You want to talk about it? Fine. Let’s talk.”
But she sighs, the fury already draining. “No, Advik. Whatever feelings you thought you had—were enough to make me feel I was not wanted in that—your life.”
Her voice is quiet, but not weak. Just... hollow.
I ignore the slight fumble she had, my voice softening. “You were not just wanted—you were needed. Gree, I can’t tell how many moments I went back to and realized I was failing you. I should’ve seen—”
“You said you wanted to kiss her goodbye,” she cuts in, voice like a whip.
The silence crashes around us.
She’s not yelling. But her eyes... God. Her eyes are wet. Not panicked, not angry—just devastated. Quietly, silently, unraveling in front of me. I caused this. And I don’t know if my explanation will worsen it or ease it.
So I shut my mouth for a good few seconds and adjust myself in my seat. “I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking that—”
“Stop. Lying,” she growls.
I recoil slightly. Her voice is steel. That calm, dangerous kind. The kind that cracks things open.
I steel myself and find the words I was initially about to say. But before that—
“I’ll tell you. Everything. But I need you to bear with me. Please,” I plead.
When she nods stiffly I start. “I wanted to kiss her because... because I wanted to end whatever strange, unsaid bond I had with her. My therapist said... he said that I have a hero complex. A type that in my case is... just reckless.”
She scoffs, but I push through.
“My earliest memories of Aarohi were... she was usually going through something. Bad breakups. Terrible comments from her family. She’d be at gatherings, off to the side. Sad. Isolated. And Vicky kept encouraging me to make her feel seen. Well, she was his girlfriend’s cousin and I understood.”
I take a breath. “So I did. I watched out for her. I made space. I was kind. With zero romantic feelings.”
Greesha’s expression doesn’t shift, but her fingers twitch slightly against the armrest.
“But one night... she was on the phone with someone, and I overheard her saying she wanted to be done. That even her mother hated her. I—God, I don’t know if she was suicidal or it was just a moment, but she sounded so lost. And with Vikram speaking in my ear about taking care of her, I. .. I started to feel responsible.”
Greesha is no longer looking at me. She’s staring at the window, maybe piecing my story together.
“I started keeping an eye whenever we met. But I swear to you I never... I never actually wanted anything beyond than just taking care of her. I see how it was absolutely stupid of me to want to save someone from dying. I know, now, that feeling responsible for Khushi and her being the forbidden topic was the cause but...”
I breathe in tightly. “But back then, I let this fantasy of Aarohi take over. That she needed me. And I made mistakes because she actually never did. I had zero influence on making her come out of that horrible spiral because I know how—”
I stop my train of thought. Fuck. This is way too close to my own stupid spiral. “B-because now I know how... me forcing that savior shit on her wouldn’t have helped her. Only she can help herself.”
Only I can help myself.
Greesha spares a quick glance. I have no idea what she’s thinking because her expression hasn’t given anything away after she snapped at me for lying. Shit.
“And it was exhausting. Also, in hindsight, I didn’t realize how much it bothered my significant others.
That I was keeping that level of watch on her.
My feelings were never intense. Just a twisted version of protectiveness.
And I confused them with romance over time—while never actually pushing for her. Because I didn’t want to.”
Her jaw tightens.
“Then I met you. I fell in love with you. And that made everything messier because I should’ve gotten rid of those twisted feelings in time.”
She doesn’t react. Her face is unreadable now, closed off like a vault. And it terrifies me more than her anger.
“So yes,” I say, voice lower. “When she was leaving the country, I thought I wanted to kiss her goodbye. Because the delusion was ending. My self-appointed duty was over. And I was grieving it—not her. I wanted it all to go away—while still carrying that grief. I want to... b-burn it down. I thought a kiss would crumble the whole thing. Because I knew my thoughts were wrong and I thought I’d be able to prove to myself that ‘see? Kissing her meant nothing’. ”
She exhales slowly, like she’s been holding her breath this whole time.
“Was it wrong?” I ask, forcing myself to look her in the eye. “Yes. Was it emotional cheating? Absolutely. I shared something sacred—my attention, my guilt, my misplaced care, protection—with someone else. When all I wanted—truly loved—was you. And then I couldn’t p-protect you. You... you died.”
My voice breaks and she looks at me finally. Not with anger. Not even disappointment.
Just quiet devastation.
And that’s so much worse.
She averts her gaze and stands slowly, like even the motion costs her. Her footsteps are silent. Her spine rigid. Her eyes never meet mine again.
I don’t stop her.
I just sit there, breath shallow, chest caving in with something that feels a lot like finality. A lone tear accompanying me.
And then—
Just before she reaches the door, her voice cuts through the silence. Low. Steady. Back still turned.
“You gave her the things I should never have had to share with another woman. Your protectiveness. Your care. Maybe not your love... bits of it, though. I don’t know.”
She turns slightly. Just enough for me to catch the anguish contorting her face.
“But then you gave her your body for thirty minutes.”
My heart stops.
Thirty minutes.
Oxygen evaporates. Words disappear. All that remains is the sound of her walking away.
And the soft click of the door behind her—
Louder than any scream. More absolute than any goodbye.
Echoing long after she’s gone.