Nitin’s sharp and poisoned voice burst through the cracked walls of the house as he stood near the doorway, arms crossed, a crooked smile stretching his mouth.
“What are you talking about, Nitin?” I said through clenched teeth, wanting nothing more than murdering him right then and there.
“Didn’t you see her, Pa?” he sneered, stepping towards us.“She just came out of a Mercedes because last night she was with him.”
“Shut up!” I snapped, my hands curling into fists. “He’s lying, Pa!”
“Am I?” he asked softly before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick bundle of photographs, throwing them straight at my face.
I gasped as the papers struck my cheek and fluttered down like wounded birds.
“See? I have proof.”
Pa bent and picked one up. Then suddenly time stopped and so was breath. My heart crashed violently against my ribs as his eyes moved over the picture.
On the floor, near my feet, I saw it too. It was a picture of Saurav and I. We were on a bed. The image of him shirtless, his hand wrapped around my wrist while he slept, mumbling for me not to leave. But frozen in ink, stripped of truth, it looked filthy, wrong and intimate in a way it had never been.
My vision blurred.
How… How did Nitin get these? Was he stalking me? My shaking fingers reached for another photograph.
Again, the bed but the angle twisted. Now our faces were close enough to look like we were kissing.
A sob clawed its way up my throat.
“That’s not what it looks like,” I whispered, but my voice sounded small even to me.
Pa’s jaw tightened. His knuckles whitened around the picture.
“Explain,” he said, low and dangerous.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came. Inside my chest, fear spread like poison. My thoughts got tangled. Every truth I held felt fragile, breakable, easily crushed under the weight of those images.
Nitin laughed softly. “What’s there to explain, Pa? Our respectable Kavya… sleeps around the city.”
“Stop it!” I cried, turning to him. “You’re twisting everything. Those photos mean nothing. Nothing happened between us!”
But even as I said it, I knew how useless my words sounded.
“What is it, Kav?” Pa asked, his eyes never leaving the photograph. “Is this you?”
“Pa…” I snatched the photo from his hand. My fingers shook violently. “It’s a lie. Everything is a lie. What you’re seeing is wrong…ah!”
A sharp pain ripped through my scalp. I gasped as Pa fisted my hair and yanked my head back, forcing me to look into his face. His eyes were red. They were not tired-red or teary-red.They were the red of madness, of something broken and rotten inside. They terrified me. The way he stared at me, unmoving, unblinking, it felt as if he might smash my head against the table any second.
And he had done it before. His anger had always been my first memory of pain. I was six the first time he smashed my head against the wall because I had broken his spectacles. I was ten when he twisted my finger until it cracked. Twelve when he fractured my legs so that I would never dance again. Fifteen when he broke my nose. And Eighteen when he broke me completely.
He was the most dangerous and disgusting person in my world. A monster wearing human skin. Sick in the head. A psycho.
“Now tell me,” he growled, tightening his grip, “you were with him last night. Admit it, Kav.”
His fingers dug into my scalp as if he meant to tear my hair out by the roots.
“Pa…” I whimpered. My eyes burned. “Please…”
“Your little sister is fighting for her life,” he shouted, shaking me, “and here you are enjoying yourself with rich men!” His breath was hot against my face. “How heartless have you become? You don’t care whether your sister lives or dies, but you care about spreading your legs… I told you to arrange money but you…”
“I tried, Pa,” I cried, clenching my teeth, forcing myself not to sob. “I tried to arrange the money… ”