Marry Me

CHAPTER- 17 DREAM & LIES

Two days have passed since he called or contacted me at all. Even though I try to reason that it was not my fault, somehow I feel like it is. Two days since his hurt expression is continuously flashing back in my mind, the silence in the car eating inside me.

I remember how when I was in London it was only him making efforts to come and meet me. He used to visit me at King's college every Christmas. Every birthday it was him surprising me, even when most of the time all we did was fight.

Two days I have been in my apartment alone, writing, editing and living like a zombie. I pick up the short movie script he helped me to write and look at the ending with a smile slinking on my face.

'He was not a writer but he made me write' Mia, the main character says to the grave digger.

And the grave digger replies, 'Someone who loves you never goes away, they are inside you, just to a part where you think you can't reach anymore, but you can. If he made you write then, he will still make you right. You were just scared before, going to his favourite places when he isn't there anymore and now you are not.'

I sigh and dial his number, it rings five times and I think he is not going to pick up the call, so I am just about to cut the call when his gruff voice comes from the other side, "Hello."

I feel so relieved to hear his voice that it takes a minute to realise that there is loud music coming from his side.

My heart thuds, "Where are you?" the words are a crinkled 'meh' of a goat out my mouth.

"At the gym," he says.

Oh god.

I have been to the gym at times with him, the thought of him in his workout clothes, and women's baiting eyes daggering at him sends rippling jealousy coiling through my stomach.

I hear a beep of button, and his breath comes to a slower stance, "Are you okay?"

I shake through my thoughts, "Yes..yes I am. Just..."

He has stepped somewhere, he waits in silence, the music gone.

"I want to meet you." I say with new confidence in my voice.

He takes a long breath, as if he was breathing after a long time. I know our fight unsettles him too. It is the first time that we haven't talk so long with each other after a fight

"Do you want to come over at my place?"

The thought of going at his place unzips the nervous energy in my stomach. There's a reason I have been avoiding his place but I can't forever. I close my eyes, "Okay."

There's a smile in his voice when he says "I will pick you up after my meeting at 7 okay?"

"Okay." I smile back and cut the call. I get up from the bed and look at myself in the mirror, my hair looks like a bird has pick on it for hours. "Ughhhh," I grumble and start my journey towards humanity again.

*****

At 7:05 my doorbell rings. I jump from the wingback chair and head towards the door.

"You didn't have to come up." I eye the loosed black tie and stone gray suit he is wearing. His face looks flushed and fresh, a hint of stubble on his jaw. I wrap my hand around the door handle.

"You have been eating that?" He raises his eyebrows towards boxes of crackers and wrappers of potato chips on the coffee table.

"I forgot to clean it" Trust Kiyansh to not once notice unclean things. I scoff and move to the mantle to switch off Stranger's things playing on the TV and pick up my phone and laptop under the tweety pillows from the lounge.

"I think you forgot that you had a stomach to take care of." I turn to see him picking at the wrappers from my table.

"Clean freak." I mutter.

He shakes his head at me and moves to the kitchen to throw the wrappers in the dustbin.

"Come on." He says after a minute checking left and right from the doorway for any other misplaced things, then nods his head after moving and adjusting the pillows on the lounge chair, then abruptly he throws a car key at me.

I catch the key, and grin when I look at the key ring.

*******

I drive the orange vintage mustang in front ofthe iron gates with a grin still plastered on my face. It was our first official drive to school,our first official vehicle that we bought from our summer internships at ourparent's place. Sometimes I drove it and sometimes Kiyansh, I gave the keys tohim when I went to London. The iron gates scan the car and it opens with acling to let us pass through. I drive on the road that is part of his estateand takes us to his quarter. The song Bustyour windows from my playlist ends and it changes to Somebody Else by 1975. My breath stops when Matthew Healy's voice steams through, So I heard you found somebody else. I reach to the phone so fast that I have to pull the break. The car stops with a screech,

And at first I thought it was a lie. 

I hastily pause the song and ignore Kiyansh's eyes at me. "Hey why did you stop the song?"

I start to move the car, my heart thrumming inside my chest. "It's just a lame song that Megha of my editing team likes to hear."

"How lame it could be? Let me hear it." Kiyansh laughs.

"No." I say and snatch the phone away from the cup holder so fast that Kiyansh fixes me with a pointed stare. I ignore him and move the car towards the big garage connected to the staff quarters of his home. It's made cave like with grey and white stones and automatic steel door sensors that beeps and opens to a line of cars parked.

I count Audi R8, Bugatti, Range Rover and Jeep on my way, ignoring the burn of stare I feel on my face.

When we were kids Kiyansh always said that he would buy a horde of cars. I used to laugh and tell him that we already had cars but he used to reply, 'Not the ones that we like.' I smile at the thought and find a vacant spot under the bright light that falls on the floor as if to highlight that spot and I park the car there.

"Why are you smiling?" Kiyansh asks still sitting at the passenger seat.

I turn towards him, "I was thinking about how when we were kids you always said that you were going to buy these hordes of car. And now you have."

The bright lights makes his hair look more gold than before, his lips have turned to that candy pink, that usually hidden dimple makes a way on his face. "We, we bought these cars, it was our dream."

I roll my eyes, "I pretended to have that as my dream, because it made you happy. I just love this baby so much." I say and kiss the steering wheel of Mustang.

Kiyansh narrows his eyes and says, "You are such a player" I see his arm slowly move towards mine, but before he can grab mine, I squeal and jump out of the car.

He laughs a deep honey laugh that I haven't heard from him for years.

It makes me so happy that I ignore the images my brain hurtles at me when it hurt to remember these laugh for years, and just run outside the garage, in the now, so that we can chase each other like old times without a care.

*****