twelve An !dea Can Change Your Life
twelve
An !dea Can Change Your Life
That weekend, Nikita gave me a mini heart attack. ‘Babe, I found Neil on Instagram.’
I almost dropped my boiling hot coffee all over our landlord’s living room couch. ‘What?’
I swear I hadn’t told her anything. Even though I’m pretty sure I’d developed acid reflux from keeping Neil’s secret, I hadn’t breathed a word to anyone. And now that he and I had arrived at somewhat of a truce, it was more important than ever to make sure I didn’t jeopardize that.
Nikita joined me on the couch, head buried in her phone. ‘Look,’ she said, handing it to me.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn’t see the words @devilwearscolaba on the screen.
But the feeling was soon replaced with something else …
something strange. Because there he was, standing in front of a waterfall, lips locked with a drop-dead gorgeous, fit woman with legs longer than a Kartik Aaryan monologue.
I recognized her instantly. Who wouldn’t? Her face was plastered on half a dozen billboards around town. ‘The Lakmé model?’
‘Yup. Aarushi Garg.’
And that wasn’t the only PDA-infested photo on her page.
There were hundreds of posts of them holding hands at the beach, dancing at parties, blowing out birthday candles and doing all kinds of nauseating couple BS, dating all the way back to 2018.
And she’d only stopped posting photos with him around December 2024, six months ago.
For some odd reason, that really threw me off. I’d always gotten fuckboi vibes from Neil, so finding out that he’d dated the same girl for most of his adult life was … disorienting.
‘They’re not together anymore?’ I asked Nikita, as if she’d have some inside info on my intern.
‘I guess so.’ She placed her head on my shoulder so she could look at the photos with me. ‘It’s a shame though. They would’ve made some really banger babies.’
I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened. ‘Maybe they’ll get back together.’
Nikita hummed in agreement. ‘Everyone knows you don’t put up a full on kissing photo with your boyfriend on Instagram unless he’s your person.’
I thought about what she’d said before deciding that there was truth in her words.
I had never quite managed to hard launch Arjun on my Instagram, even though we had dated for four years.
Something about announcing us to my friends and family, including every nosy relative who followed me to keep tabs on me, had felt unnecessary.
Maybe, deep down, I’d always known he wasn’t my person.
‘BT dubs, you never told me about the dirt you’d found on him.’ Nikita angled her face to look up at me, pulling me out of my head.
‘Oh …’ I racked my brain to come up with something believable. ‘He, er, takes thirst traps in the office washroom.’
She pouted, clearly disappointed. ‘Who doesn’t?’
A laugh bubbled out of me. In twenty-four years of my existence, I’d never met someone like Nikita. She really was a character. ‘It’s fine, though.’ My torso kept sliding on the couch until I was almost horizontal. ‘We’ve called a ceasefire.’
She harrumphed. ‘Let’s see how long that lasts.’
I groaned, pushing myself upright. Only time will tell. ‘Speaking of ceasefires, how’s the internet treating you these days?’
Her lips twitched into a grin. ‘You mean since my fifteen minutes of fame?’
‘Fifteen? You’ve stretched it to at least twenty.’ I gestured to her phone. ‘Every time I open Instagram, you’ve gained another 10k followers.’
Nikita looked way too pleased. ‘I actually got a few brand collabs this week. I’m also auditioning for a Netflix movie, but that’s definitely not going to turn into anything. Oh, and my manager says a reality show might be interested.’
‘Reality show?’
‘Yes, this new dating show on a music channel. It’ll probably be super cringe, but who cares?’
‘That’s awesome, Niks!’ I was genuinely thrilled. ‘I can’t wait to see you do dumb chemistry challenges in a swimsuit on national TV.’ She punched my arm playfully, but her smile was comically wide.
I thought about what Neil had let slip when I’d grilled him about potentially ruining my friend’s life.
He’d said he’d done his research. Had he really figured out that this controversy would end up opening doors for her acting career?
I still didn’t think it gave him the right to play God with other people’s lives, but it was comforting to know that he wasn’t a completely rotten person. Unlike Aditya Jindal.
‘Did he ever reach out to you? The broke millionaire?’
‘Ugh.’ Nikita made a face. ‘He DMed me several times, asking me to defend him to his fiancée.’
‘And?’
‘I blocked him, of course.’
‘That’s my girl.’ I squeezed her shoulder.
Nikita leaned back against the couch, yawning. ‘Anyway, I’m off for my Sunday nap. Fame is exhausting.’
The flat fell silent after her door clicked shut. I reached for my laptop on the coffee table.
There were a few hours left in my weekend and I was about to spend them all doing market research for the new clothing line pitch.
Neil and I had come up with a list of ten half-decent ideas over the week, but none of them felt like they were it.
I told myself it was fine—that we still had time—but the ball of anxiety in my stomach was getting bigger and bigger.
My phone buzzed and I clicked on the message notification mindlessly. It better not be another goat meme from Neil telling me ‘we’ve goat this’.
It wasn’t. It was a text from Arjun. My ex, Arjun. Whom I hadn’t spoken to in over a year.
Arjun: Heard you’re coming home soon? It’ll be good to catch up.
Why, God, why did I have to leave my read receipts on? I stared at the screen like it might explode. This was not good.
Me: Hey. Not sure I am, yet. Depends on work. Who told you I’m coming?
I didn’t have to wait for his response to know who I needed to murder.
Arjun: Your brother.
That’s it, I decided. I’m never tying Keshav bhaiya a rakhi again. What’s the point if he keeps throwing me to the wolves instead of protecting me from them?
Arjun: Should he not have…?
Me: No no, I just wasn’t expecting to hear from you.
Arjun: Fair enough. I just thought we should go for coffee if you’re in town. Only if that’s ok with you … no expectations or anything.
That familiar ache from our last year of being together spread slowly inside my gut. It was guilt, I knew now. Of not being able to meet him halfway, no matter how much he tried to close the distance.
Me: Sure. I’ll let you know if I do come.
I wasn’t entirely surprised that he wanted to meet me, even after everything he’d gone through after our breakup.
I’d heard from several people that it had hit him harder than he’d let on.
But then again, Arjun had always been the sort of person who left doors open, even when I needed them sealed shut and double bolted.
There’s only so long you can hold out for The One before you decide to settle for The One That’ll Do. Especially when you’ve got a ticking clock to beat. So, after two more days of desperately chasing a genius, groundbreaking idea, Neil and I decided it was time. We had to settle.
‘Should I change the title of slide two from “Best of both worlds” to “Designs that do it all”?’ Neil slid his laptop in front of me.
‘Yeah, maybe that’ll save this pitch,’ I muttered without looking at the screen.
‘You hate it.’
‘You don’t?’
We both stared at the deck that had consumed two evenings of our lives and roughly 70 per cent of our will to live.
We’d been staying back in the office for two or three hours every day, convinced that if we kept tweaking the deck by adding stats, animations and pie charts, it would somehow transform itself. So far, no such luck.
It didn’t help that the Mumbai monsoon had arrived two weeks early. The air was sticky, the days gloomy and everything felt vaguely damp. It wasn’t exactly the kind of weather that inspired brilliance.
We were holed up in one of the smaller meeting rooms by the pantry, the only one that the sales team had not laid their claim on, mostly because it had a malfunctioning AC.
I wasn’t sure if cracking the window open had been a good idea—the humidity had made my hair puff up to twice its normal size.
Even the sky outside looked like it was ready to call it quits, turning a dull, end-of-day grey even though it was only 4. 30 p.m.
I sighed, running a hand through my frizzy hair. ‘You know what? It’s fine.’ I really need to shed this negativity. It was as if the dark clouds outside had started seeping into my brain. The pitch off was on Friday. With less than two days to go, we had no option but to accept our fate.
‘Are you trying to convince me or yourself?’
‘Look, is it a brilliant idea? No,’ I began reasoning out loud. ‘Do we have a better idea? Also no. All we can do now is pray that everyone else has worse pitches.’
Neil twirled his pen between his fingers, his gaze fixed on an unremarkable point on the table. ‘You know what, you’re right.’ He looked up and met my eye. ‘Nitya might’ve mentioned her idea to me in passing yesterday and it was pretty lame.’
‘Oh? What was it?’
‘Something about Marie Kondo-ing your wardrobe and doing more with less.’
‘God, that is lame,’ I said, feeling a crackle of hope. ‘What made her tell you though?’
Neil stretched his left arm behind my chair, twisting slightly to ease his stiff shoulder. Instinctively, I sat up straighter. ‘I don’t know … we’re friends, I guess.’
‘Right, friends.’ I didn’t quite like the sound of the words coming out of my mouth.
Why did I care if Neil was popular with all the women in the office?
It’s not like I had any interest in him.
I guess what I didn’t like was that he’d been here all of three weeks and already had a fan club, whereas I’d been around for years and only had one friend to show for it.