3
Rihaan
GOING TO OUR FAMILY estate always felt like circling a timed bomb, and unlike my siblings, who avoided this place like it was second nature, there was something about this place I still loved. And if recent events were anything to go by, avoidance had a shelf life, and mine clearly expired.
There was a time when Sunday luncheons with our father had meant more than just me—which meant, there was space for his criticism to float around, even if it usually landed on Dev, who had never cared much for our father’s opinion anyway.
Being groomed by our grandfather to take over his company had given him a kind of certainty our father had never managed to shake.
He knew exactly whose approval mattered, and it had never really been our father’s.
But once the truth about our father’s secret life came out, it became easier, almost instinctive, to let go of whatever that dysfunctional version of family we had been.
The weekends didn’t stop, not entirely, but the illusion did.
We were no longer pretending to be the sons he’d quietly cared about while he picked apart every decision we’d made since the last time we’d seen him.
Not when the son he barely spoke to, Vedant, and the daughter he never spoke about were already living lives he had no interest in understanding.
Our father had always been good at wreckage, at smiling just enough to make you question your own anger before pulling the ground out from under you.
It didn't mean much that I hadn't given in to the urge, the one that flared every time I stood in my kitchen with my keys in hand, watching the clock tick down, silently waiting for the part of me that still wanted to go to his house to win out and drag me there, as though history were something that could be negotiated with if you knocked politely enough.
No.
All it had done was give him space to push me into a corner, until there was only room left for his version of hurt, neatly folded around his criticism.
And now, even after he’d gone on the biggest sports show in the country and managed to turn my life into an even bigger talking point that it had been before he meddled without a care for what I’d have to say about it, I still found myself standing outside the estate.
A few feet from the door.
Close enough to see the faint reflection of myself in the glass door of our ivy-clad stone house, warped just slightly, like even that couldn’t decide what version of me was about to walk in.
It was almost laughable. All that distance, all that resolve, reduced to a stretch of gravel and a door I knew too well.
My grip tightened around my keys. I could already picture how it would go, the way it always did.
He’d open the door like he hadn’t expected me, like I hadn’t been the one to close the distance.
He’d let me in without asking why I’d come, as if reasons were optional, as if showing up was explanation enough.
And I’d let him.
Because for all the clarity I seemed to find when I was miles away, it had a way of dissolving the second I stood here, within reach of him, within reach of the version of us that had never quite existed the way I wanted it to.
My hand lifted, hovering just short of the door.
I told myself I could still leave. But I was already pushing the door open and stepping inside.
The instinct to move was stronger than the hesitation that warned to stop me, as I crossed the threshold like I’d done it a thousand times before.
The familiar scent of polished wood and something faintly citrus clung to the air, unchanged, like the house had been waiting to prove that some things didn’t shift just because everything else had.
I barely had time to take another step before the sound of footsteps echoed in from the opposite corridor.
As though bracing myself for impact, I held my breath before I turned and for a second, it felt like the entire house held its breath with me.
His gaze didn’t land on me, not yet. “Dad? You’re back earlier than you said—”
And there he was.
The one person I’d never expected to find standing in this house, not like this. Not here. Not ever.
The secret that had split everything open.
My half-brother.
For a moment, neither of us moved as silence dropped the house. The distance between us wasn’t much, just a few steps across a room that had seen too many versions of my family already, but it might as well have been something else entirely.
And I realised, standing there, that whatever I’d come here for had just been swallowed whole by something far bigger than me.
“Rihaan.” My name landed like something misplaced. Ishaan stood a few feet away, gone still in that careful, measured way people get when they sense a crack in the room. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
I wish I hadn’t.
I cleared my throat, gave him a curt nod. “Wasn’t planned.” The words came easily, no longer in the mood to see my—our father. My mind jumbled with an excuse as I shifted, walking further inside the house.
“Does Dad know you’re coming?” He frowned, and it took more effort than it should have not to react to how easily he said it.
Dad. It wasn’t wrong, he had every right to the word.
Still, even among the rest of my siblings, it had never sounded like that.
Not…full. Not the way it did when he said it.
“I was nearby,” I replied. “My head coach lives down the street,” I added, too quickly before he had a chance to catch my lie. “Just grabbing something from Dev’s room.”
“Huh.” He shifted, a frown settling on his face. “Weird. I wonder why he didn’t ask me to pick it up.”
I froze. “He knows you’re here?”
My attention that had been split between the house and him, was now focused completely on him. His expression had already started to change, like he was replaying his own words and realising he’d said something he shouldn’t have.
“I—nothing, I just—” He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Yeah. He knows I’m here. I’ve been shadowing him. Well, technically it’s a placement for my MBA...but you get it.” He trailed off at my expression.
“How long?” My voice didn’t rise.
“Ten months?”
Ten months, and this was the first time I’d learned about it.
“And he knew you’d be here today?”
“Yeah. I’m here every Monday.”
Of course you are.
I nodded once, sharp. Something tight coiled behind my ribs. “Why?”
That caught him off guard. His brows pulled together, like the question itself didn’t make sense.
“Lunch,” he said. “Dad and I always have lunch together once a week on Mondays—well, we used to do Wednesdays, but with my schedule it changed.”
Always.
The word scraped.
“Since when?”
He hesitated, clearly uncertain where my interrogation was leading him. “Since…I don’t know? As long as I can remember.”
It wasn’t his fault.
The thought pushed in, unwelcome in a familiar voice.
It wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t mine. Clearly, and still I held onto it like a railing I didn’t trust.
“Right,” I said finally, the word flat. Silence stretched again, thinner this time. “Well, it’s for me. So, I’m just going to...”
I didn’t wait for a response. I turned toward the curved staircases, deliberately choosing the one furthest from him. The closer one would’ve meant brushing past his shoulder, breathing the same air for too long. Not happening. Not when everything inside me threatened to explode.
I took the steps two at a time, pulse kicking hard, like my body hadn’t decided which way to run. By the time I reached Dev’s door, I barely made a sense of what I was doing before pushing it open, already inside, like distance alone could quiet the noise clawing up my chest.
It couldn’t.
It wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t his fault.
It wasn’t his fault.
My heart was splitting itself down the middle, fighting two battles I didn’t know how to name—only that I was losing both.
My hands moved before my head could catch up, rifling through drawers, shelves, anything that would justify me being here when I spotted Ma’s journal.
My fingers closed around it, grip tightening like I was afraid it might vanish if I hesitated. I didn’t check if it actually belonged to her, or was another one like Raina. Didn’t question why Dev had it when it was supposed to be with Vedant. I just took it.
Good enough.
More than enough.
I turned on my heel and walked out, faster this time, the room shrinking behind me like it wanted to swallow the evidence of me being there. The hallway stretched long and narrow, and for a split second, my gaze snagged on the door across from Dev’s.
My childhood bedroom.
The handle gleamed, untouched. Closed. Like it had sealed itself the day I left and decided that was the end of it.
Nothing that held importance to me no longer held a space behind those closed doors, all packed and kept in storage for the day I felt brave enough to let myself unravel about what became of my childhood.
Instead of taking a step towards it, I took the stairs. Each step sharp, deliberate. By the time I reached the bottom, Ishaan was exactly where I’d left him, like he hadn’t dared move. Like this house had assigned him a place and he’d learned not to step outside it.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Up close, the resemblance was worse. Same height. Same shoulders. Echoes in bone and posture, diluted just enough to be irritating. To be undeniable.
Strangers, stitched together by someone else’s choices.
I didn’t trust my voice to come out clean, so I didn’t try. I just headed for the front door, hand already reaching for the handle—
“Rihaan?”
I turned back slowly, every movement measured, like something might snap if I did it too fast.
For a second, he hesitated. Not long. Just enough to make it obvious he was choosing his words carefully.
“Happy belated birthday.”
The sentence landed awkwardly between us, too light for the weight in the room. Too practised, like he’d been holding onto it since the moment I walked in, maybe even longer, waiting for the right moment that never really came, and all I could do was nod.
“I’ll tell Dad you stopped by,” he added, quieter this time.
That word again.
Dad.
Something in my jaw locked then. This time I knew I meant the words as I spoke them. “Don’t bother. I got what I came for.”
His expression shifted, something flickering there, but I didn’t stay long enough to read it. I stepped outside before the air in the house could follow me out, the door shutting behind me with a soft click that felt louder than it should’ve been.
By the time I reached my car, the journal was still clutched in my hand, edges digging into my palm like it was reminding me of something far greater than I’d let myself remember when I’d been inside the house.
I sat in silence, the cold clinging to the air, the house still watching from behind like it hadn’t quite let me go. I leaned back, closing my eyes, just for a moment—just enough to steady the noise in my head.
But it didn’t stay quiet for long.
It drifted.
Not to what had just happened, not to the sharp edges of it, but further back—somewhere softer, less defined. A memory worn thin at the corners. It was one I’d often revisit as a child, but I could never quiet figure out why.
For the longest time, that’s all it had ever been. A stray memory. A face without a name. Someone the past had folded away without asking permission.
The early days of Dad taking me to the nets.
The details didn’t sit still long enough to be certain.
It never did. Just sunlight, harsh and golden.
The scrape of gravel under trainers. The hollow shock of a tennis ball hitting a plastic bat.
Laughter, breathless and easy in a way that felt foreign now.
I was smaller. Lighter. The world hadn’t split itself into sides yet.
But there had been another boy.
Same age. Close enough in height that it hadn’t mattered who was older, who was better. Just two kids passing time without keeping score of anything that would matter later.
I’d always thought it had been just some kid who was also there with his dad, playing and making memories.
But now, it wasn’t the memory that changed.
It was the recognition.
Something in it had shifted, sharpened just enough to feel wrong. The outline of that boy no longer blurred at the edges. It held. It stayed.
It was the eyes.
The same one that I’d seen today, and I’d realised that there had been a time I’d known my younger brother.
My eyes snapped open, staring ahead at the gravel that lined near our driveway, but unable to shake the feeling that something had quietly rearranged itself without asking.
It hadn’t meant anything then.
It probably shouldn’t mean anything now.
Still it did.
But a lot had been said and done to do something about it now.