CHAPTER 44! THE PRICE TAG #2
She stopped wearing perfume entirely-the faint hint of cedar or sandalwood on anyone walking past made her lungs lock up.
She stopped sitting near the middle of lecture halls, choosing the seat closest to the emergency exit instead.
When a classmate dropped a pen behind her desk and reached out to hand it back, her body flinched so violently her notebook scattered across the floor.
When someone offered her a sip of juice from a open carton, her throat closed up. She refused.
Always.
At home, the trauma showed itself in quiet, agonizing rituals.
She avoided mirrors.
When she washed her hands in the bathroom, she scrubbed them under hot water until her skin turned raw and bright red.
Padmini had stood at the doorway one evening, watching in growing alarm. "Aadhira, stop, beta. Your hands will bleed."
Aadhira hadn't looked up from the streaming water. "They're still dirty."
Her mother took to asking gently every morning, "What would you like for dinner, Aadhi? I'll make your favorite."
Aadhira's answer was always the same flat whisper: "Anything."
Padmini would offer a sad, forced smile, remembering the girl who used to request elaborate meals three days in advance.
On Day 5 after her return, Riya cornered her outside the lecture hall.
"Aadhi... come sit with us today.
Please. We miss you."
Aadhira stared past her shoulder. "No."
On Day 9, Rohit blocked her path near the canteen, his expression full of frustration and guilt. "Come on, Aadhira. We're just getting coffee."
"No."
It was on Day 14 that Samiksha caught her near the library courtyard. "We're worried about you, Aadhi," Samiksha said, her voice trembling with performative guilt. "We really are."
Aadhira stopped.
She turned her eyes to Samiksha.
"Were you worried when he dragged me away?" Aadhira asked, her tone conversational, yet slicing through the humid afternoon air.
"Or did you decide it just wasn't your problem?"
Samiksha opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Aadhira turned and walked away.
No one followed her after that.
Samarth never returned to campus. Official rumors whispered that his family had suddenly packed him off to manage a distant branch of their business.
Shourya had kept his promise, but Aadhira never asked how. To her, Samarth was already dead.
It started on a Tuesday.
Halfway through dinner, the familiar aroma of toasted cumin and ghee suddenly turned violently, inexplicably unbearable.
Aadhira dropped her spoon against her plate with a sharp clatter and bolted to the bathroom, dry-heaving over the sink until her ribs ached.
"It's just a touch of food poisoning from the college cafeteria, beta," Padmini called through the door. "I'll make you some ginger tea."
"Yeah," Aadhira whispered to her pale reflection. "Cafeteria food."
Day 1: She told herself she was just stressed. Her body was recovering from trauma.
Day 3: The nausea returned at dawn, sharp and unforgiving.
She sat on the cold bathroom tiles, pressing her forehead against the wall.
Day 5: Sitting in the library, she opened a browser tab on her phone and typed in a list of symptoms.
She read the first three lines of the search results and closed the browser instantly, throwing her phone into her bag as if it had burned her.
Day 7: She sat at her study desk in the middle of the night, pulling out her calendar.
She counted the dates. She deleted the calculation. She counted again.
Her breath caught. The numbers didn't lie.
An hour later, Aadhira stood inside a dimly lit pharmacy three neighborhoods away from home, wearing an oversized hoodie pulled low over her face.
She paid in cash, grabbed the plain paper bag without making eye contact with the clerk, and left.
Back in her locked room, the small cardboard box lay on her desk for thirty long minutes. She didn't touch it.
She just stared at the clinical font while the ceiling fan hummed overhead.
When she finally gathered the courage to open it, her hands were cold.
Two dark lines stared back at her from the narrow plastic window.
A dry, breathless laugh escaped her lips into the empty room. The test slipped from her numb fingers, clattering softly onto the floorboards.
She collapsed onto the edge of her bed, pressing both hands tightly against her ribs as if she could physically hold her fracturing identity together.
One appointment.
One signature.
One secret.
Her life could go back to what it was.
Except... it never would.
Slowly, Aadhira leaned forward, pulled open her desk drawer, and looked down at Aryav's white envelope resting undisturbed under her textbooks.
The money remained untouched beneath her books. She still intended to return every single rupee.
She just hadn't expected to be carrying something he could never take back.
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Hi everyone!
I wanted to let you know that there's a Bhagwat Katha at my cousin's house from 24th to 31st, and I'll be attending it. Because of that, I won't be able to upload any chapters during those days.