My Life is a Soap Opera

27. Finding out a lot.

Naira hadn't texted me more than two and a half days. I was getting anxious but I knew she needed some time to herself. After Arunav appeared and assumed that it was an intervention of some sort, he wanted to leave immediately.

"I swear I didn't know it! Dyuti didn't tell me they would be here!"

"No, but you wanted Dyuti to be here, didn't you? You wanted this to be in a public place instead of the privacy of my flat. You wanted to involve your friend into this so you could corner me."

"No! I just wanted her here because I was nervous. I was worried about what you wanted to talk about and you know Dyuti being around helps me."

"It definitely helps you. Normally, whenever she's around, you get to corner me because you know she would side with you. This time, I don't mind her being here. I know she wouldn't side with you this time."

That had sent a chill down my spine. I didn't like exactly how confident he was. He refused to say anything else and just left. Naira chased after him and since then she had no contact with me.

"You should just go to her house." Ritwik pulled me closer to him so my back was flush to his chest.

Still lying, I turned around to face him. "I don't think it's a good idea. If she wanted to talk to me, she would."

"Stop it."

"What?"

He traced my lower lip with his thumb forcing me to let go of the skin I was holding with my teeth.

"That. You'll make yourself bleed."

"Don't care. I just. Fuck. I don't know. What if I screwed her relationship up beyond repair and now she doesn't want anything to do with me? What if she hates me her whole life? Did I just ruin her life?" I bit down on my lower lip again and closed my eyes as tightly as possible.

"You're her best friend. She loves you." 

I hid my face in the crook of his neck. "Does she? Will she? I just ruined her three year old relationship. She will never want anything to do with me. She hates me. Fuck, I'm so stupid. I hate mys-"

"You didn't ruin her relationship, she did that herself."

"What?" I pulled myself out of his embrace and sat up on the bed.

Ritwik sat up too and sighed. "Do you know that Pratyush dropped her off on our reception?"

I nodded.

"He stayed the night at her house."

"What?!"

"Yeah."

"Why did he stay at her house?" I couldn't wrap my head at the absurdity of it all.

"Her parents insisted he went inside to get some tea."

"She left the party after 11pm."

Who the fuck had tea so close to midnight?

"Yeah, but they did invite him because he went to drop her off. Then they insisted he stay there. He refused but they kept asking him to at least have something before he left. He tried to refuse again but being a huge parent-pleaser, he finally gave in. He fell asleep on the couch while her mother was bringing him food and her father trying to chat with him. He woke up around 7 in the morning and then left."

"Oh." It was still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that Pratyush had a sleepover at Naira's house before me. But fine, whatever. "I still don't get why you're saying that she ruined her relationship. And also how do you know all this?"