"Those little secrets became the story of my life." — Akanksha Singh Chauhan, His Inconvenient Bride
Mumbai, India
Something within me rattled when I saw my old bedroom. Everything was in its position, from my study table to my bed. It looked like they hadn't touched anything in my room. Not a single thing was out of its place.
Although I had shipped most of the things, there were still a few things that stayed there, just the way they had been when I had left this place, eight years ago.
Just like my old hairbrush that still stayed over the dressing table. The room looked like it was constantly cleaned and dusted, but nothing was out of place. The air felt just the same, telling me that this place was still mine.
The only change was that my room was also freshly painted and some murals were added at some places, but it was nothing since the colour was the same as before— it was blue.
I turned to my right and my eyes went up to the wall above my bed. A large photo of mine from my sixteenth birthday still hung there, the smile I was carrying in that picture made my stomach twist.
Papa wanted that birthday to be special. So, just before my birthday party, he had called in a photographer to do a one-on-one photo shoot with me.
And like Papa always said, I looked like a princess.
With flowy hair, a white dress and dewy makeup, I looked like a diva. I remember Papa being so happy with the photo that he chose to buy the biggest frame to hang in my room.
Everything here was mine. This space was mine. This was the place where I laughed, cried myself to sleep and had fallen sick. If things would have been different, I would have still stayed in this place, living my life and creating mischief with my friends.
Then all of a sudden I was reminded of why I was there. Picking up my pace, I started searching up my room. Although I had cleared most of the things, there was a hope that I may still find something.
I first started out with my closet. I opened the door that led to my closet and stepped in, taking a good look at the place. It was a walk-in closet. The hangers still hung in the small open cabinets. I quickly checked the drawers in the closet but found nothing.
From the closet to every corner of my room, even the locker, I found nothing. Tiredly dropping myself on the bed, I laid down and faced the ceiling with my feet dangling at the edge.
I let out a long sigh at the fan rotating above me. I guess I had really emptied my room. Letting my fingers run through my hair, I tried to recall something significant that I found here.
Gosh, I was really angry that day. I had taken a lot of things with me but had thrown away a lot as well.
And it was that moment when I remembered.
I forgot to check my wardrobe in the room. It could only be me who searched every corner of the room and failed to notice the large cupboard right in front of my eyes.
Smacking my head for my foolishness, I jumped off the bed and went over to my wardrobe which was just beside my dressing table.
When I opened the drawer, the first reaction that came out of me was laughter. I laughed hard as I saw my old underwear lying on the shelf of my cupboard.
I guess I had not cleared my things properly.
God, Maa and Papa went all out to keep my things in place.
Chucking it in one of the drawers before any of the guys barged in, I started checking other shelves. Nothing was really in there, except for my underwear.
But then my eyes fell over the locker. My fingers traced the outline of the locker feeling every bit of it. It was a digital lock, just like any other locker in the Agarwal House.
I had kept the most random things in my locker, nothing that valuable. Now when I think of it, I used to keep new supplies of my medicines and stationery in it.
I had never once opened my locker when I cleared the room.
My index finger hovered over a random digit as I thought of the password to my locker. I had to get this right by any means because if I get the password wrong twice, an alarm will go off and my parents will be alerted.
I don't want them to come this soon.
I paced to and fro in the room, thinking of all kinds of digits that I could have kept as the password. After Ruhi's death, my memory had become hazy. I wondered how I scored so well in my board exams during those intense times.
My birthday? No, that was too common.
Di's? Maa's? Papa's?
No, no and no. It wasn't that simple.
Not even my friends' birthdays.
And then, a familiar number popped into my head. In my heart, I was ninety per cent sure that was the one. But I had my doubts.
There were two tries so I decided to go ahead with the number that was on my mind. But before I could press the digits, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
I took out my phone and saw that it was Vihaan who was calling me.
"Yeah?"
"Come to the CCTV Surveillance room. I think I found it," he spoke and my heart took a dip.
"O-Okay," he hung up and I kept staring at my phone. I guess this was it. Taking one final look at the locker, I decided that it was better that I would take a look at his later on.
And then I marched out of the room and headed towards the surveillance room. On my way there, there was only one question on my mind, why didn't Maa and Papa tell anyone about it?
How many more secrets do I have to know?
When I entered the surveillance room I saw that my friends were already present there. They were standing behind Vihaan who was seated on the chair in front of the computer. "Did you guys get anything?" I asked them as I joined them.
"We were searching but Vihaan called us," Chirag informed.
"Okay," I mumbled, "We will do the rest of the searching together."
I turned my attention to Vihaan. "What did you find?" My eyes hovered over the paused video. And then it caught the date at the corner of the footage.
1st Jan, 1:09 A.M
"This," he clicked on the video and it started. The four of us watched the video with utmost concentration. I hadn't realised when I was holding onto Pranav's hand.
The video was unfolding, my heart was beating rapidly and Pranav had tightened his hold over my hand.
And then Ruhi came into sight. There was a sound of someone taking a sharp breath, probably Aditya and we knew that something was coming.
Ruhi looked visibly drunk. She stumbled in her steps as she danced around the main gate, but not going out. If she could have just passed by Aditya's maybe we could have caught her going years ago. But she didn't step out of the premises.
No one, not even a soul was present there at that time. If this had been some other neighbourhood, people would have been partying. But this neighbourhood was for the rich. Sophistication and manners ran in our veins.
We would enjoy going to sophisticated parties rather than firing crackers, dancing late at night and doing all other fun things.
Ruhi was saying something aloud while hanging over the gate, when she fell down on the road, all of a sudden. Pranav hissed and I calmly ran my thumb over the back of his palm.
She laid on the road for a while and in the next few minutes, she sat back up, rubbing her eyes. I noticed that she was taking a look at the surroundings, which meant that she was now hungover, the effects of being drunk were slowly fading away.
But I was wrong.
She rolled on the road and then she suddenly got up, making me frown. Then she walked away from our camera, but I noticed the large light of the car.
The video stopped. There was no video of the car passing by our houses. The killer must have taken the route which went behind our house, that connected to the main road. Our house was the last one in the lane, they definitely did not pass by any of the other houses.
I was still after watching it. It only meant one thing— she had accidentally approached the killer on her own and they assumed that it was me. Maybe the thought was far-fetched but the lights at the end of the video said something different.
"There's one more," Vihaan said, filling in the silence. He clicked on the next video and pressed onto play it.
My eyes flickered over the corner of the video again.
1st Jan, 2:17 A.M
A few minutes later into the video, I saw the younger version of ourselves walking out of the gate, searching up the place and calling out Ruhi's name. Then I saw myself saying something to my friends. They all nodded and I dashed back inside.
A few minutes later, I pulled up Papa's shiny new Mercedes in front of them. In a jiffy, the three of them sat in the car and then it took off to its destination.
So it was indeed me who was driving the car that night.
The video stopped again and I could feel Pranav's hand slipping out of my hand, now gradually moving up to my shoulder. I looked at him with teary eyes and he just blinked, squeezing my shoulder in reassurance.
"What do you think of it?" Vihaan asked us. "What does this mean?"
"It meant that we were telling the truth. But the police still wrote that she was with us in the car— which in reality wasn't the case," I spoke, my mind drifting over to my parents.
Why did they never tell me about this? Why did the police write the false report?
"What can this video prove?" I thought aloud.
"Two things," It was Aditya who spoke. "One, that we did not go with her and second, we did not kill her."
And as my dead mind flickered back into life, my eyes locked with my friends. All of us carried the same expressions— horrified and dazed in shock.
"Everyone, call their parents, now," Chirag barked and I watched my friends moving to different corners of the room and calling their parents. I took a spare chair and sat beside Vihaan, who looked at me worriedly. I squeezed his hand and blinked, letting him know that I was okay.
The next few minutes passed in yelling, crying and shouting. I worriedly looked at my friends who had almost gone berserk fighting their parents. And the screams ended immediately when the three of them smashed their phones, one by one.
I was expecting that. I was only surprised that they had managed to hold it in.
"Vihaan," Pranav huffed, "that day in the hospital you asked us right how our parents hadn't used their influence in the case and guess what? They did this by chucking us out of the investigation by presenting this very evidence," he pointed towards the computer where the video was previously playing.
I buried my face in my hands. Our parents really went out of their way to keep us out of the case. Everything was right in front of our eyes and we turned blind to them.
"My Mom said that they didn't want us to get deeper into the case so they persuaded the police to let us off and later on give us false details on the case so that we won't delve into it further. We had our board exams on the line and we had to decide our careers," Chirag snorted at the end and my fingers dug deep into my scalp.
"My Dad said that they had never given any sort of bribe to the police. They simply wanted to get us out of the case and would only present ourselves as witnesses when asked. They had asked the police to not bother us with the investigation," Aditya's head was down in shame. Pranav went over to him and patted his shoulder.
Someone paid that officer incharge to clear all the evidence in the case and our parents had managed to pull us out by themselves and that resulted in the case not being solved.
Every one of us felt equally ashamed and triggered by the fact that our parents literally kicked us out of the case as if we were nothing. I felt angered and upset over the fact that we left her without justice. Due to their selfish actions, her justice got delayed and the case remained cold just after fifteen days into the investigation.
But then again, they were just looking out for us. They just became selfish parents to their children and conveniently forget about the other family who had just lost their daughter. But in that process they did not realise that we were deeply scarred and no matter how many years had passed since that day, the pain was still there, burning our hearts and souls.
"Get this on a pendrive, Vihaan," I tiredly told him. He quietly obliged and I turned to my friends. "Let's search things together."
After Vihaan was done, we all marched towards Maa and Papa's bedroom. On our way, Pranav informed me that he did not find anything in his study and apparently the locker in the study was not there anymore.
"Did you guys find anything in the room?" I asked Aditya and Chirag on the way.
"Well, we were about to open the locker in the closet after we had Ahad crack the password for us," Chirag answered. "We were just about to open it when Vihaan had called us."
I pushed the door and entered their room. Everything in the room had changed. From the furniture to the colors of the room, everything was different.
It looked pretty aesthetic and modern with the time. Of course, everything in the room felt like Maa had chosen all of these things in a detailed way.
Maa had a taste in art and music. We sisters sucked in each of the mentioned things.
It looked pretty. I would give them that.
"Let's get over this," I marched directly towards the first cupboard that came in my view. It was one of the new additions that I noticed in the bedroom. It was quite smaller than the average size of the cupboard in our house which made me even more curious.
And when I opened it, I was stunned. The cupboard was filled with gifts, all neatly lined up on different shelves. When I counted them there were sixteen of them and two names and different numbers written on each gift.
Anika and Akanksha.
I picked up one gift, a long one wrapped in a silver shiny paper. I read the sticker over the gift.
Anika- 30
Keeping the gift back on its shelf, I picked up a small squared shaped gift. I read the sticker again.
Akanksha- 26
It did not take me too much time to guess that Maa and Papa had been keeping these gifts ever since I left the house. These were mine and Di's birthday gifts from all these years for it had our names and ages after we had left the house.
If they were so loving, then why did they act like they were the worst parents in the world? Why did they make me feel that I did not matter to them anymore?
I looked over at the gift I was holding. The number only said that it was my birthday gift for this year.
"Akanksha, come here!" Aditya called from inside the dressing room and I quickly shoved the box in the pocket of my shirt and went over to him.
When I entered the dressing room, Aditya, Pranav and Chirag stood there, holding a paper. They were looking at each other solemnly.
"What is it?" I asked them as I approached. I could feel Vihaan stepping in by my side. The three of them again looked at each other as if they were communicating through telepathy. They only did this at times when they were about to say something big, something that would throw the person off the edge.
I slightly tilted my head to the side and noticed the locker opened. My eyes fell on the paper that Chirag had held.
"What is it?" I gritted out, bringing them back into their senses. Chirag passed a fleeting glance at the other two as he slowly approached me.
"Do you know about this?" He held the paper up.
"About what?" I snatched the paper from him and opened it to get a closer look. And when I did get a closer look, the paper slipped out of my hands and I stumbled back on my step. Vihaan immediately held onto me and prevented my fall but there was no way I could feel it because I was in daze from the shock.
Vihaan helped me sit down on the floor while I picked up the papers that I had dropped on the ground. I read the contents over and over again.
Holding the paper closer to my chest I cried, pouring my heart out. I cried over everything, my past, my sufferings, my family and my lost years. My friends kneeled in front of me while Vihaan held me, before I fell flat from shock.
Out of all the things that I had expected to find in this house, this was the last thing I had expected. Never in my wildest dreams I had imagined finding these. But I could bet with my life that everyone in my family knew about this, including Anika Di.
Continuous tears slipped down my eyes and my shirt was turning wet. I did not know what I was crying for. It was just the tears that slipped out of my eyes.
I stared at those papers again and again as I slowly came to terms with them.
I could feel Vihaan taking the paper from my hand. And when he read it, his mouth fell open in shock.
And the next words that he had uttered were the ones that I dreaded to hear now.
"Adoption papers."
Holaa! Here it is me, down with another chapter. The story took a dramatic turn. Were you guys expecting this twist? Let me know in the comments below.
Also, don't forget to VOTE AND COMMENT. I would really appreciate it if you could drop a heart letting me know that you loved the chapter.
Who has tasted Mangoes this season?
With Love,
Akii.