“Then talk.”
“I can explain everything, but will you believe me? You can’t even look at my face.”
At that, Aditi thwacked her bag on the ground, her anger driving her sadness and vice-versa. She moved to the dresser, grabbing items at random.
“I have done nothing but believe you, Rian. Since the day I met you until today, I believed you. When you told me that you didn’t want a traditional relationship, I believed you. When you said you’d changed your mind and asked me to marry you, I believed you. I never inquired why because I thought it didn’t matter. But it does.” She stopped, feeling exhausted already, her voice trembling. “Why are you with me?”
It was a question as much to herself as it was to him. With everything she’d heard today, she no longer knew if she understood Rian as well as she’d once believed.
“I guess I really know how to pick guys,” she scoffed, shaking her head. “First Harish, then you.”
His lips thinned, knowing that Aditi was justified in her anger. He had been willing to let her speak her piece; lay her thoughts out so that her fury would abate. But he couldn’t remain silent at this.
“Don’t compare me to him. I never disrespected you.”
When she finally turned around, it was with a look Rian couldn’t read.
“Choosing me only because I’m useful to piss off your mother is giving me respect?” she asked emotionlessly. The lack of inflection in her tone spread a chill in the air.
The sinking feeling within him deepened when he realised that Aditi had been subjected to much more than just the end of his argument with Leela. He was horrified.
“You heard that?”
“Yes. I heard it. Along with anyone who was within earshot of you.”
He raised both palms up in a gesture of surrender, approaching her as slowly as one would a wild animal who lay injured in the woods.
“I said that to make my mother unhappy. You have to believe me. It meant nothing.”
He reached for her, stilling when she backed away quickly, rejecting his touch.
“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked, her features contorted with grief. Her eyes filled rapidly with tears she wished she could have hidden.
“Can you even imagine what it must’ve been like for me to hear you say those words?” she whispered, her throat closing as emotions flooded her. “I thought you accepted me for who I am. I loved that I never had to feel like I had to be someone different when I was with you. But, you made me sound like an idiot.” Hot tears spilled out of her, her features contorting in grief. “You made me feel like you'd have never picked me under different circumstances. All for what? To win an argument with your mother?”
With every broken question, Rian felt like he’d become unworthy of her. With every tremble of her lip or shaky breath she took, telling him without words that she was devastated, he felt like he’d somehow repeated his mistakes of the past.
He had done to Aditi what he had done to Kaya.
Unlike Kaya, however, he couldn’t let Aditi go. Not without a fight.
“I made a terrible mistake,” he admitted, trying to close the gap between them. He hated that he felt like he’d lost the right to touch her. “I know an explanation or a reason won’t make this okay, but please, youknowhow I feel about you.”
“Do I?” Aditi shook her head, resignation etched upon her features. Fear gripped him.
“You do!”
“What about Kaya?”
“What about her?” he repeated, confused with the unexpected detour in their conversation.
“I remembered meeting you in Velas earlier this year but I couldn’t recollect the woman I’d tended to that night. It only occurred to me today when I heard you with your mother.”
“Aditi. . .”
“That night,” she continued, as if he’d never spoken. “It was Kaya who’d been ill. She was the patient I’d attended to. You’d been so worried about her because you were in love with her. I thought I’d made it all up in my head after the way you’d gotten angry when I told you to move on, but I was right. Wasn’t I?”
Rian was at a loss for words. Giving her any answer right now felt like it would backfire on him.