Chapter 30 Aditi
Aditi
The event is a success. A roaring, crazy success.
I have seen it happen. It’s what fuels me.
The string lights we fought with the staff at the brewery to hang up cast a warm, flattering glow over the crowd.
The pictures the social media team is clicking are perfect.
The playlist I curated is the perfect soundtrack to these budding love stories.
The custom cocktails the brewery came up with and that our team named are a hit.
I watch as Kunal moves through the space—a natural host, checking in with the staff, greeting guests, putting out small fires before they can start, and helping create conversations between people where otherwise there would have been an awkward silence.
The hundred people who have gathered here will at least have one meaningful conversation thanks to Kunal, and that’s saying something.
I sit back with my laptop open and watch it all unfold. I feel competent. I feel alive.
And then, Kunal turns and smiles at me from across the room. I feel my heart jump a little. But with it, it burns too.
Raghav makes sure of that. He makes sure he taints everything I allow myself to feel.
Love. That’s what Raghav used for Kunal and me.
It’s not that, it’s not love, not yet, and he knows.
But he knows that’s what will hurt me. To call it more than it is.
To insinuate that Aman’s forgotten. That I was responsible for keeping his memory alive and I failed.
I want to tell him that even without him doing it, I do a pretty good job of that.
I keep watching Kunal easily insert himself into conversations with people.
If only Raghav would see him and understand how he grounds me.
How he pulls me into the present and forces me there.
I wish Raghav understood how he’s a calm island in the middle of the chaos that’s my mind.
But he can’t see anything beyond himself and the world he has built for himself. He wants me to stay in that too.
Now I see Kunal walk towards me with a big smile, rubbing his hands in obvious delight.
‘You did this,’ he says, his voice low and warm. A quiet pride fills my chest. ‘Look at them. You made this happen.’
‘So Sameer and Kanika did nothing?’ I tease him, but I’m beaming. A part of me wishes I could share this feeling, this specific victory, with the Raghav I used to know. With the Raghav I thought I knew.
‘Cheers,’ Kunal laughs, raising his glass.
I clink my glass of Coke against his. ‘Cheers.’
And in that moment, looking at his kind, smiling face, I feel a flicker of something real. A possibility. That’s what it is. I’m still trying to unravel what I’m feeling when my phone buzzes in my purse. It’s a conference video call. It’s Tejal and Sumrit in their houses.
‘Bro, I fucked up,’ says Sumrit the moment I answer.
‘What happened?’ I ask.
‘And it’s Tejal’s fault! She told me how he spoke to you. I called him, gave him shit about it.’
‘So?’ I grumble. ‘He deserves it. Sometimes he just crosses the line.’
Tejal and Sumrit fall silent for a bit. I notice their glum faces.
‘So what? Not the first time it has happened,’ I say.
Tejal starts speaking in a small voice. ‘Actually . . . today’s . . . today’s their anniversary. This is the day they used to celebrate . . .’
‘No!’ I gasp.
‘Yes,’ says Sumrit. ‘Just saw it on Facebook, bro. It gave me a notification.’
‘Shit.’
The guilt is instantaneous and overwhelming.
Days like these . . . these are tough. For him.
For me. For us. We used to remember these dates.
Be there for each other. Order food the other likes.
Get the house work done. Not be too happy.
Tiptoe around each other. Rail at the happiness of others together.
Suddenly, I feel a physical weight pressing down on my shoulders.
His words from our fight echo in my head: Seems like you’re moving on.
Forgetting. Fortress of grief. And I was asking him to come out and find love?
How could I forget? Am I forgetting? I feel stupid.
Stupid and small and rude and insensitive and everything he has accused me of being.
‘Aditi,’ Kunal says, his voice gentle but firm. He’s seen this before. He knows what’s coming.
When he asked me to join his company, I laid bare everything that he was signing up for.
I told him I was a wreck, more of a liability than an asset, and would drag his little team down.
He said he liked my spark, and I’m not stupid, and I know a part of it was because he found me cute.
Or maybe he likes broken people. That could be why he started his little company.
For the ones without hope. Without love. Without a future.
‘I have to go,’ I say, already starting to gather my things from the table.
‘Aditi? Can’t this wait an hour? We would need you—’
‘No, I have to go,’ I say packing up my stuff.
‘Are you sure he won’t be able to handle himself for an hour?’ he says, his voice tight with a frustration he’s trying to hide.
I look around. They do need me. They have to wrap this up, the bill needs to be closed, the accounts need to be settled with the decorators, and the social media team needs to be briefed about what needs to be done with the content that’s been shot today.
‘I will work from home,’ I lie.
Kunal sighs. He knows it’s done. He knows when to stop pushing.
I want to stay too; he knows that, but I can’t.
Now that I know what I did, I won’t be here mentally anyway.
Despite what Raghav likes to think of me—which is very little these days, zilch—my sense of obligation and friendship, the deep, ingrained bond of our shared tragedy, is stronger than anything else.
Stronger even than the slightest possibility of a future.
It’s a gravitational pull I can’t escape.
It’s my fate. He and I are tied together.
I can never leave. Even if I want to, I can’t leave.
‘I have to go,’ I say to Kunal, my voice tight. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He looks at me, and I see the understanding in his eyes, but also a disappointment. It’s the look of a guy who knows he’s lost a battle he never had a chance of winning. I tell him that every day. And yet, he keeps fighting.
‘I get it,’ he says quietly. ‘Let me drop you to the cab.’
On the way to the parking lot where a Swift Dzire waits for me, we don’t speak. It’s only when I put my bag in that he says, ‘But Aditi . . . you can’t keep setting yourself on fire to keep him warm.’
I chuckle sadly. ‘Now that’s a metaphor. How long have you been thinking about it?’
He’s irritated. ‘You can’t deflect this, Aditi. At some point, you have to choose yourself.’
I nod. ‘I will when it’s time. Right now, it’s not.’
I get into the cab and rush home, my heart pounding with a mix of guilt and resentment.
I burst into the apartment, ready for a crisis, ready to find him in the depths of despair.
I’m already trying to figure the menu I’m going to order.
Would we watch a movie together? Rerun of Pitchers?
Or Brooklyn Nine-Nine? Or Student of the Year?
But . . .
He’s just sitting on the sofa in the dark, a glass of vodka and Red Bull in his hand, staring at the highlights of an old Wimbledon final. There’s a glow from the phone beside him too—the only lights in the room. He looks calm.
‘You’re back early,’ he says without looking away from the screen.
‘I came back,’ I say. ‘For you . . .’
He finally turns, an eyebrow raised in mild, infuriating surprise. ‘For me? Why would you come back for me?’
‘What do you mean?’ I say, the words emerging harsher than I thought they would. ‘Today’s the anniversary . . . when you guys . . .’
He takes a slow sip of his drink. ‘Yes, it is. And I was handling it. Why would you come back for that?’
And something inside me snaps. ‘Because I felt guilty!’
‘Oh, please.’
‘What please?!’
‘Stop pretending you care any more,’ he says.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Did I ask you to come back?’ he asks, his voice unnervingly calm. ‘Did I call you and beg you to leave your party? No. Why did—’
‘Because—’
‘Don’t fucking interrupt me. You came back because you felt guilty about not pretending hard enough. That’s on you. Don’t put it on me.’
Argh.
My eyes dart to the phone. ‘Of course, you don’t need me now. Because you have that stupid chatbot.’
He turns to me, eyes red. ‘Please go back to your party.’
He starts to get up and leave.
‘You can’t go!’ I shout, moving to block his path to the bedroom.
‘Why the fuck can’t I? I will do whatever I want to do,’ he says, his voice rising.
‘And yet, when I do what I want to do, you throw guilt and whatnot in my face. You are holding me hostage with your grief, Raghav!’
‘I didn’t do anything!’ he yells, his false calm shattering. ‘You’re the one who came storming in here, rubbing your guilt in my face! I was fine! Please, go back to your little party and your new boyfriend and leave me alone!’
The words screw me up.
‘That’s not . . . that’s not fair . . .’
‘Fair?’ He screams, his voice finally breaking. ‘What about this—’
‘Don’t scream at me!’
But soon, we’re screaming at each other now. All the pain and resentment and grief of the past six months erupting in waves of cruel, unforgivable words. Again. Like a ritual. We are stuck in a time loop of hate. And we can’t leave. I can’t leave. And he wants to stay here.
‘You’re the fucking worst friend!’ I say when I’m done.
‘SO ARE YOU!’ he roars back.
In the middle of the screaming, a frantic, desperate ringing cuts through the noise. It doesn’t even register the first couple of times. The doorbell. It rings again and again.
Finally, I march to the door and yank it open.
I don’t recognize her at first. And then I do. It’s her, Raghav’s sister. A spitting image of him, just softer, younger, prettier. Shilpi stands on the welcome mat, a small duffel bag at her feet, her face streaked with tears. She looks from my face to Raghav’s.
‘I’m sorry,’ she sobs, her voice trembling. ‘I . . . I had a fight with them. They want me to . . . I can’t . . . I can’t do it, Bhaiya . . . non-medical, it’s not . . . I can’t . . . I didn’t know where else to go.’
Raghav rushes past me and holds her and gets her inside.
‘Hey,’ he says to her, his voice suddenly gentle. ‘Stop crying . . . you’re home now.’
Home. Such a strange word now.