Rahul stared at him in abject terror, an odd choking noise stuck in his throat.
“Go!” Vihaan barked, watching his cousin scurry and stumble in his haste to escape with his life intact. When he finally turned towards his friends, they were observing him with a curious mixture of pride, amusement and concern. “What?” he self-consciously asked, joining them at their booth. He reached for the chilled beer bottle, pressing it against the top of his cheek for relief.
“Not exactly what I had in mind when you said you wanted boy’s night at the club,” Arjun teased. “You ready to tell us what is happening with you and Vera?”
“Damned if I understand it.”
Rian and Arjun exchanged looks before turning in unison to stare at Vihaan. He sighed, knowing that neither man would let him leave today without an explanation for his behaviour. After that eveningwhen they caught him with Vera, about to get hot and heavy, it was only a matter of time.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he grumbled, chugging down half the bottle of beer, letting its coolness soothe some of the ache inside his mouth.
“How about from the beginning?” Rian suggested, patiently waiting until Vihaan gave in.
For someone who had assiduously refrained from mentioning Vera for half a lifetime, Vihaan found himself recalling every little detail about their childhood together. Their rivalry, their fights, his boyish interest which he could only express through silly bullying attempts, her fierceness which kept him wanting to battle with her so that she wouldn’t ignore him, finally befriending and falling in love with her before she’d betrayed him. Every moment of the first eighteen years of his life with Vera played in his mind with the clarity of high-definition cinema. By the time he’d finished telling a captive Arjun and Rian everything, it was all he could do to not give in to the absolute agony of having to relive their breakup and the hurt he’d endured at knowing she didn’t care for him as he had believed.
“Wow. That’s quite the history, man.”
“Yeah,” Vihaan quietly agreed with Arjun. “I felt used. And foolish. Ironically, if it was money she wanted, I could have given her so much more. She didn’t believe I was capable of being more than a fuck-up and took the first offer my father made her.”
A contemplative silence shrouded the three friends.
“After everything you told us,” Arjun admitted after a minute, “I finally understand why you were so angry with me when you thought I was marrying Kaya for money.”
“You were?” Rian questioned.
“It was the whole merger thing,” Arjun explained. “Anyway, what’re you going to do now?”
“No clue,” Vihaan admitted. He could barely think straight when it came to Vera. “All I know is that at least for now, she’s mine to take care of.”
“Have you considered that there is more?”
Vihaan shot Rian a puzzled glance.
“People change, V. I might not have said this if we hadn’t already met her. Vera doesn’t come across as a gold-digger.”
“I agree with Rian,” Arjun muttered, garnering identical looks of shock from his two friends. “She seemed like a decent woman. When I left Kaya behind in Velas, you were the one who urged me to forget the past and focus on the future. I feel like I owe it to you to tell you to do the same.”
“Aditi has hung out with Vera quite a bit,” Rian added. “If there was anything concerning about the kind of person she is, Aditi would have been the first to pick up on it. She likes Vera a lot.”
“So do you,” Arjun added, pointing towards Vihaan with the butt of his bottle.
“I’m fond of her, yes. Of course I am. But it’s just a fling,” Vihaan protested, startled when Rian laughed so loud, he sprayed his beer everywhere.
“Dude!”
“Sorry,” he snorted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve heard a lot of bullshit but what you just said takes the cake. You don’t beat up a man and threaten his entire existence over a fling.” Rian pointed one long finger in Vihaan’s direction. “You love her.”
Acceptance warred with uncertainty, his entire body awash with the slow glow of hope even as his mind tried to reject it. “I made that mistake once,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I have the strength to make it again.”
Vihaan couldn’t decipher the look that his friends exchanged before Arjun spoke again, clapping him on the back encouragingly.
“It’s only a mistake if it doesn’t end in a happily-ever-after.”
32
Chasm
Vihaan