All Strings Attached

Chapter Twenty

"I can't ask dad," Nitya says, "he's going to think I'm stupid."

"He doesn't think you're stupid, Nitya."

"I said he will," Nitya argues.  "He's already constantly telling me how Sita would've had it all figured out by now—"

"I had professional experience," Sita shuts her sister up, "you can't compare yourself to me. We're not the same people. I was older than you when I did it. You're twenty, just out of college."

In all honesty, Sita might've been between twenty-two or twenty-three at the time of the elections, and I didn't know shit about how to organise a campaign at that age. Twenty-two is young.

You're barely an adult, you don't even have a fully developed brain.

At twenty-two, I was working 70 hour weeks and getting trashed every Friday, and waking up god knows where on Saturday mornings, and going back to the bar for more drinks that evening, and doing more of it through the week.

At twenty-two, I was a step away from alcoholism, even if I had the best nights in London while I was drunk out of my mind.

"Dhushyanth would've called me a loser and told me to get over it," Dhruv speaks up, making everyone laugh, and break away from the conversation between the sisters.

"Because you're not nearly as cute or sweet as Nitya," I tell him, physically pulling Nitya away from her sister, and sticking her to my side. "Plus, Nitya's trying something new. What are you doing?"

"That is true," Dhruv agrees, "I've been a lawyer for a while now. Nitya is just learning the ropes of what she wants to do."

"And you're so young, Nitya," I tell her, ruffling her hair to ease her, "I didn't even know what I wanted to do when I was twenty."

"He didn't," Dhruv chimes in, "no one studies law at UCL only to switch it up and get an MBA."

"Lots of people do it," I mock Dhruv, "but no one did it like me."

Nitya chuckles, easing into my hold. "Elections are so much pressure, though," she complains, "how do you handle it?"

"I have not been handling it," I realise, "I've not really gotten in the zone yet." I don't think I've thought about the elections or the stress of them half as much as I thought about Sita.

"He knows all of the leaders in Kurnool, all of the leaders in Delhi. Dhushyanth's problems are so first-world, his biggest problem is to choose between being an MLA or an MP," Dhruv mocks.

"Isn't Kandukuri Narendra the MP for your constituency?" Sita asks.

"He is," I answer, slowly, wondering how she knows. "But I was offered either tickets."

"It's your dad's party," Sita points out, and her lips quirk up into a reminiscent smile. "Remember when we used to fight about that all the time?"

I laugh, remember how we had started fighting when we saw each other for the first time after Sita graduated from her Master's degree; it was about four or five years ago.

We hadn't met each other since we were twelve and seventeen, when she had first refused to tie me a rakhi.

And thank god we hadn't, our lives would've taken a whole different turn if we had.

But would it have been worse than hooking up with her for three years and getting caught on camera right before the elections?

Perhaps not.

Since the rakhi incident, I had gone off to university, and spent three years in London, not bothering with societal activities except for hanging out with my friends when I was back, and when I started working, I had started to explore Europe, so I wasn't coming back home a lot at all, and then I moved on and got my MBA, around which time I suppose Sita went off to university, and we were never in town at the same time until she came back, right before she took up a job in London, after graduating from her Master's degree.