seventeen Homebound
seventeen
Homebound
Nikita’s grand theory couldn’t have been further from the truth. Neil Desai did not like me. Not in the way I’d secretly begun to hope anyway. And all I could do as I boarded my flight back home was replay the past week in my head and analyse how I’d managed to delude myself so spectacularly.
At first, I hadn’t thought much of it when Neil hadn’t immediately launched into lover-boy mode at work on Monday.
If anything, I’d been relieved. Can you imagine the office rumours if someone had caught him kissing me senseless by the coffee machine, holding my hand under the conference table or feeling me up in the pantry?
But then three days went by. Three whole days of him being completely normal.
Pre-sex normal. I mean, sure, he was warmer towards me.
He got me coffee everyday in the morning and offered to drop me off at the train station after work—I’d made the mistake of accepting once and had to endure him treating me like a polite coworker, as if we hadn’t crossed (read: obliterated) that line a few nights ago.
And yes, he laughed at my jokes and sat next to me in long shoot meetings with the production agency.
But there was no echo of what had happened between us.
No invitation back to his place. No secret smile that said, ‘Hey, remember when I lifted you like a feather and made sweet, sweet love to you?’
So, like an idiot, I finally cracked last night and asked him if he wanted to hang out after work.
He paused for a second, then gave me this gentle, maddening look like he was choosing every word carefully.
He said this week was too hectic, that I had enough on my plate with the shoot, that he didn’t want me tired or distracted.
‘This campaign is huge for you,’ he’d reasoned.
‘Let’s get through the Mussoorie shoot first. Once we’re back, we can pick up where we left off. ’
Which, obviously, was fuckboi code for let’s wait until my internship is over so I never have to see you again.
I knew now that it had been a one-time thing.
A spectacular, three-times-in-one-night one-time thing.
But what I couldn’t figure out was why he’d implied that night that I’d be around at his place a lot.
Had that just been heat of the moment nonsense?
Or was it a textbook false promise? Or maybe, just maybe, you’re reading too much into it.
Maybe he just wants to take things slow.
A dry, bitter laugh sputtered out of me at the absurdity of the thought. The passenger next to me, a college boy in an oversized hoodie, stole a curious glance at me. I pointed at my wired earphones by way of explanation.
It was Friday night and I was flying out on my own, two days before everyone else—partly to spend some time with my family, partly to lock down the shoot location in person.
The ad shoot was scheduled for Monday, and Neil, Tanya and the production agency we had hired for the project were booked on a flight for Sunday night.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai part of the shoot was set to take place in the office tomorrow afternoon, and I’d left Neil in charge.
‘You sure he’s got this?’ Varun had asked me when I’d informed him of the plan.
‘Positive.’
Now all I could do was hope that my faith in Neil had nothing to do with whatever lingering effect that night had left on me.
My phone buzzed as the plane started taxiing on the runway.
A pathetic part of me hoped it’d be Neil.
But of course it wasn’t. It was a screenshot from Nikita.
For a second, my brain didn’t compute what I was looking at.
A restaurant with dim lights. Two wine glasses. And in the centre of the frame, Neil.
It was Aarushi Garg’s Instagram story. Aarushi, Neil’s ex. There was no caption—just three red hearts.
Nikita: Why is he having dinner with her???
My stomach dropped so fast I had to grip the armrest for support.
Suddenly everything made perfect, horrible sense—why he’d kept that careful distance at work, why he’d pressed pause, why he’d been so damn buttoned-up around me all week.
Because he’d been planning to patch up with his ex all along.
That night with me … that had probably just been a tiny suburban pit stop on his way back to his Bandra girlfriend.
I swallowed hard and typed back.
Me: Don’t know. Don’t care.
I tossed my phone and watched the twinkling city lights as our plane took off, determined to leave Neil and his stupid mixed signals behind.
‘You brought the 4x4!’ I shouted as I ran up to my brother in the airport parking lot. He was leaning against the driver’s side door of his beloved beast—his Mahindra Thar—grinning like an idiot. He tossed the keys to me as I got closer. ‘Wanna drive it?’
‘No way!’ I squealed and threw my arms around him, forgetting for a moment that we’d been tiptoeing around each other for months.
The drive from Dehradun airport to my house in Landour, upper Mussoorie, would take about an hour and a half, perhaps longer tonight because the monsoon mist had settled over the hills.
I slid into the driver’s seat, still buzzing, while my brother threw my suitcase into the back and climbed in beside me.
‘I can’t believe you’re letting me drive this thing,’ I said as I eased out of the parking lot. ‘You wouldn’t let me near your car when we were younger.’
‘Well, you’re not a teenager anymore,’ he said, stretching his legs out. ‘It also helps that you can finally reach the pedals now.’
I smacked his arm as I turned a sharp corner. ‘Height jokes, how original.’
‘Hey! Hands on the steering wheel at all times,’ he instructed as he rolled down his window.
Cool air rushed in immediately, bringing with it a whiff of pine, wet earth and that crisp mountain chill that I often daydreamed about on humid days in Mumbai.
The Thar’s soft-top, which my brother loved rolling down on sunny winter days, was firmly shut tonight.
Monsoon wasn’t open-roof season. The drizzle had turned into a thin curtain of mist and the car’s headlights sliced through it as we began the ascent.
After a few minutes of general chit-chat, Keshav bhaiya cleared his throat. ‘So, you’re here for two days, huh?’
‘Three and a half,’ I corrected. ‘I fly back on Tuesday evening.’
He let out a low whistle. ‘Wow. Generous. Thank you for taking the time out for your family.’
I groaned. ‘Please don’t start. I’ve been slammed at work.’
‘You’re always slammed at work,’ he said, not entirely unkindly. ‘Dad was actually betting you’d bail last minute.’
‘Rude.’
‘Accurate,’ he shot back. He exhaled, then continued in a softer voice, ‘You know Ma’s been worried about you.’
‘She has no reason to be.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. She thinks you were trying to avoid us. Avoid me, to be precise.’
That made me glance at him. ‘I’m not avoiding you.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded slowly, staring straight ahead. ‘Just … felt like it.’
I shifted in my seat. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a crazy year.’
He hummed, accepting the half-truth. Then, after fifteen minutes of pretending like he wasn’t going to bring it up, he couldn’t hold it in any longer. ‘So, Arjun was asking about you.’
I let out a long, pained sigh. ‘Here we go.’
‘What?’ He let out a laugh, but he wasn’t fooling me with that fake nonchalance.
‘This is exactly why I didn’t want to come home,’ I muttered. ‘I knew you’d try to stage a reunion.’
‘Well, why not? I thought you guys were in love!’
‘We were … or at least I think we were.’ I kept my eyes on the road as I tried to unclench my jaw. ‘But that was almost three years ago! We grew apart.’
He shook his head, like I was the one being unreasonable. ‘Kavu, people who grow apart can always find their way back to each other.’
‘Or, hear me out …’ I gave him a pointed look. ‘They can stay apart and be perfectly fine.’ I exhaled sharply through my nose, frustrated at him, frustrated at myself, frustrated that I could no longer have a single conversation with my brother without my ex being dragged into it.
Mussoorie Lake slipped into view on our left, half-hidden in the fog. I usually loved this stretch of the drive, but today, I didn’t slow down to take it in. The sooner I got out of this car and away from my brother’s matchmaking agenda, the better.
‘I’m just saying you should meet him. That’s all.’ He tried to wrap it up with a relaxed shrug, but the message was clear. Conversation paused, not finished.
We spent the rest of the drive pretending like everything was normal, even though he’d already proved why coming home while he was in town had been a mistake. As we finally rounded the bend to my house, I spotted my parents standing outside in our little vegetable garden.
Keshav bhaiya grinned. ‘Brace yourself.’
I barely had time to pull the handbrake before my mom was yanking the car door open and throwing her arms around me.
By the next morning, the mountain air had rinsed off most of last night’s irritation.
Or maybe I’d just forgotten what I had been so worked up about.
Either way, waking up to mist fogging up my bedroom window was all the reminder I needed to not waste my precious time at home being salty at my annoying (albeit well-meaning) older brother.
And any leftover grumpiness I may have had dissolved as soon as a hot paratha appeared on my plate at the breakfast table. ‘Mom, you’re the best,’ I beamed at my mother, who was shuffling to and from the kitchen in her night dress.
‘Eat up.’ She waved the steel spatula at me as she walked back to the kitchen. ‘You’re looking so thin.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I’ve not lost a single kilo.’
‘Might have even gained a few,’ Keshav bhaiya mumbled from across the table. I gave him a deadly sweet smile.
‘Nonsense,’ mom shouted from the kitchen. ‘Ask your dad … you look like a skeleton.’
I turned to my dad, who lowered his newspaper to regard me for a brief second. ‘You look fine.’