Stars | completed

35. Babydoll

"Mom," I held her hand, "What– what are you saying?"

"Manik, don't lie to me," she said, anger in her eyes, "The child is not yours, is it?"

"Mum, calm down," I said, holding her hand gently. Where did she even find the real reports?

"You knew this," she said, almost accusatory.

"Yes I did," I say quickly, "Hear me out, please?"

"Nothing can explain this, Manik. Why are the two of you lying to everyone?"

"She doesn't know, Mom. She's sleeping in the adjacent room, please don't raise your voice and hear me out once," I beg.

"She doesn't know?" My mom said with wide eyes, "You better have a very good explanation son, orelse you're in trouble."

"Right," I agree, "I found this last week. We had a paternity test done last month, right? The reports said I was not the father, and I've been trying to connect the dots since then with Smaran and last week, we found it was Harshad. The father of the child, he raped her because he probably thought I was in love with Inaaya, and he was seeking revenge. The CCTV footage's and the bartender who drugged us confirmed it was Harshad, drunk and not in his senses, payed a big deal of money for drugging us and then raped Inaaya because he thought.." my voice slightly faded, "he thought she was Nandini."

"What?" My mom's voice was just a whisper and I could sense the goosebumps on my hand as I recalled what I knew.

"Yes," I said, helplessly, "When Harshad molested Nandini, it was in a club and he was drunk, so he didn't remember her face later. But when he saw Inaaya with me in that night club, he assumed that she was the girl, and to take revenge, he raped her."

"Manik...." my mom breathed heavily in panic, "Poor girl. Inaaya.... she, she has a right to know."

"I know Maa. Which is what I have been debating about back and forth. I and Inaaya had spoken about this once, and she told me she'd keep the child no matter who the father was. I really want to tell her, but I don't know how. How can I just go and tell her that she was raped by a criminal slash underworld goon. She's already paying for our mistakes, Maa, and the least I thought I could do was...." my voice faded.

"Was become the father of a child that's not yours?" My sentence was completed but the voice neither belonged to me nor my Mom. We both bolted up from the bed to see Inaaya standing at the door, a hand on her very slightly showing bump and tears staining her eyes.

"Inaaya...." I said, taking a step closer the second I recovered from my shock.

"A sympathy case," she laughed while tears flew down her eyes, "Is that what I am to you, Manik? A sympathy case?"

"No that's not true..." I took another step towards her.

"So what, you were not planning to tell me this ever? That I and this unwanted child are the reason the girl who love left you? What were you planning to do, suffer all your life in silence?" She screamed.

I don't think she had anything except the last part. She knew she was raped, but she didn't know why.

"Listen to me, Inaaya, nothing has changed," I said as firmly as I could, "The child will still grow up with me as the father."

"Everything has changed, Manik," she cried, "In last two months, Nandini left and Fab5 disbanded and all of it, it's all my fault. I spoiled your life, can you not see? We... we grew so close in the past few weeks that I could actually see a future for the two of us, that maybe someday, we'd be happy together... even if just as co-parents or maybe just two bestfriends raising a child... but all this while, I was nothing but a charity case to you?"