Silent Whispers

Chapter 36: Rising Sun

Arnav stormed into his sister's room. If it was any other day, he would have waited for her permission to enter, he would have seen that she had had a long day just like him, he would have noticed the plate of food, her dinner, lying untouched on the bedside table.

But it wasn't any other day; it was a devastating day.

It was the day he mustered up the courage to visit the girl he loved after three long treacherous weeks; it was day he saw her more shattered than ever before; it was the day he understood he had wronged her perhaps as much as she was wronged by her father.

It was a day he would never forget.

Anjali looked up from the book she was reading. "What's wrong? Why are you soaking wet?"

"You knew," he breathed, stopping a foot from her bed. "You knew Khushi's mother passed away three weeks ago."

Anjali's face hardened. She set down the book and said coldly, "And?"

"And you didn't think it was important enough to tell me that the girl I loved needed me?"

She snorted. "So Khushi is the girl you love now? That was a quick transition from being your brother's girlfriend."

Arnav took a deep breath, struggling to contain his frustration. "This is not the time-"

"Oh, yes it is!" she interrupted, her delicate features contorting into rage. "It is just the time to discuss how ridiculous you have been acting for the past three weeks!"

"Anju," he warned.

"Oh, stop it Bhai!" she answered, rolling her eyes. "Stop pretending that you are the older one, that you know better than us. Because you don't."

Arnav was too livid to speak.

If truth be told, he was expecting it. He hadn't so much as looked at her for the past three weeks, preferring to pour all his time locked up in his study, absorbed in work so he could ignore the longing burning inside him. It was only when he received a call from a nearby hospital two days ago, carrying the news of her accident, that he realized just how foolish he was to ignore the only sibling who still had any sort of respect left for him.

"You could've just told me," he finally muttered, looking into her accusatory eyes.

Anjali crossed her arms. "Why should I have told you Bhai?"

Arnav was sorely reminded of his mother. She too used the same stance every time she reprimanded him for doing something wrong.

"I begged you," she continued. "I begged you not to do something stupid that day, I told you not give up because Akash is your brother, but you went ahead and did it anyway. You ignored everything you were putting at stake because you cared more for your brother than you did for the girl you love!"

He rolled his hands into fists. It was so much worse hearing what he had done said out loud.

"But I still tried anyway," Anjali said. "I waited all evening that day to tell you what had happened. But you never came home. You didn't pick up my calls and neither did you think it was important to tell me where you were."

He closed his eyes. He had spent that fateful day in his favorite nursery just outside the city limits. It was the only place that kept the suffocation of his actions at bay, that gave him the space to understand the consequences of his choice. He had returned home late, determined not to regret his decision to stay away from Khushi, to find his sister pacing the living room.

Anjali pressed on. "And when you finally did come, all I got was "it's over" before you locked yourself up in your study... for three weeks. What did you expect me to do?!"