I swear I try sooo hard to control the urge of sharing the next chapter with you guys.
Like I have seen many wattpad creators updating their chapters at an interval of.. probably weeks.. and their stories get millions of views even with a mediocre story line (exceptions always in exists). Everytime they hit a million, I pledge I'll never post regular updates and then again, I somehow end up updating the books regularly and at times twice a day.
*Sigh*
I think I need a different hobby to keep me entertained?
Anyways, enjoy!
Urmila told him.
She told him.
That bitch.
It's bad enough she's partially responsible for the fact that I was stuck down in reference all day today. I'm down in the basement now, so nobody has to look at me. I thought about protesting, but I didn't have it in me. I just went where they told me to go. Maybe they're right—maybe it's better this way. If hundreds of people signed a petition, it's hard to argue with that.
It was depressing, but at least I'd be seeing Yash today. Looking forward to our night out was enough to keep me going. Every time I felt sad, I thought of him and my mood lifted. It was what got me through the day.
Then when I came up to the main level and saw him, my heart soared. He looked so sexy, with his tousled brown hair, the tight muscles in his chest and arms, the sexy tattoos. There was a red rose lying on te table in front of him, and I almost burst into tears when I saw it. He bought a rose. For me. For me . Nobody has ever bought me a rose before.
And then I noticed Urmila sitting with him.
I ran over just in time to hear the tail end of their conversation. Trust me, these are quite severe deformities. Yash was sitting there, looking shell-shocked. Not that I could blame him.
I should have told him the truth sooner. Urmila was right about that part. But I knew it would be over as soon as he found out about me, and I couldn't bear to let that happen. I wanted to have tonight with him. Just tonight. One night. I wanted to hold hands again. I wanted to sit across from him at a restaurant, talking about books and our lives and whatever else. It's something I've never had before, and even though I'd been telling myself I didn't care, now that I could almost touch it, I wanted it more than I'd thought possible. And I wanted it with Yash.
Now it will never happen.
I do him a favor and run out of the library before he can call off our date. He'll never come back to the library. He can order his braille books online. It will be easier for him that way.
I end up behind the library, next to the dumpster. I would have run to my car, but I left my purse with my car keys in the break room at work, so I don't have much of a choice. This seems like a safe location to hide—I doubt Yash is going to venture into a place where he smells garbage. I shift my gaze down and notice about ten million cigarette butts lying at my feet. A fitting setting for how I feel right now. Luckily, there are no juvenile delinquents hanging out back here like normal. I guess they have better things to do on a Saturday night.
I don't. Not anymore.
I lean against the brick of the building, letting the tears flow. I've been holding back tears since my talk with Kunal yesterday, but now there's nothing to stop them from coming. My goddamn burns have taken everything from me. The job I want. Any chance of love.
It's so unfair. I wasn't even the prey. I was a mere victim, for God's sake!
I dig into my pockets, searching for a tissue. A hollow ache fills my chest. I've been rejected by men before, but it's never hurt this much. Not even close. I was always able to let it roll off me, more or less. But not this time. I'm not sure I'll ever get over this one. I might never be happy ever again.
I knew I shouldn't have let myself fall for him. I knew it. Why was I so stupid?
"Sitara?"
I raise my head. It's Yash's voice.
I gulp a few times, trying desperately to get my sobs under control. What is he doing? Why is he looking back here?
"Sitara?"
Now I hear his cane scraping against the ground. Slowly he steps into view. I watch his nose crinkle at the smell of the dumpster—he definitely won't smell my shampoo back here, that's for sure.
"Sitara?" he says again. "Are you... here?"
I am less than ten feet away from him, but he has no idea. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are staring straight ahead at nothing, through those tinted lenses.
"Sitara?" He reaches out to touch the side of the building, then he stops.
"Sitara? Can you answer me if you're here?" I keep my mouth shut, but unfortunately, my foot crunches against a plastic cup that was on the ground.
His head immediately snaps to attention. "Sitara?" He's looking in my general direction.
"Please... I got mugged back here, so if that's you, can you say something?" He got mugged back here?
Wow, he never told me that. That must have been awful for him. The flood of sympathy I feel prompts me to say, "I'm here."
His shoulders sag. "Thank you."
"But I would rather be alone." I retorted.
He shakes his head. "We need to talk."
"It's okay." I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "You don't have to... listen, I get it."
"Why didn't you tell me?" he says in a heart-wrenching voice. "All this time, Sitara..."
"I think it's pretty obvious why I didn't tell you." I blurt out.
"Not entirely." I glare at him, even though I know he can't see it.
"At the hardrock cafe, you told your friend you would never go out with a girl who was 'deformed.'" I reminded him.
His mouth falls open. "You heard that?"
"Yes. I did. I was there."
"Well, I'm sorry I said that," he says. But he doesn't sound entirely sorry. He sounds angry.
"But even before that... I mean, we knew each other a long time and you never said a word."
"What was I supposed to say?" I practically threw the words at him.
"Hey, by the way, my face looks a little like a Picasso painting. And then you would start treating me like..." The tears rise up in my eyes again. "Like the way you're treating me now."
"What are you talking about, Sitara?" He shakes his head. "I'm treating you the same as I always do."
"No," I say. "It's different."
And it is. There's something different about the way he's talking to me. He doesn't have the same infatuation with me that he had only fifteen minutes earlier. I can hear it in his voice. Everything is different now.
"You took advantage of the fact that I can't see." There's that anger again. It's in his voice and all over his face—he's pissed off. "I feel like a fucking idiot." He hissed.
"I asked you the other night on the phone if you wanted to know anything else about how I look. You said no." I, lamely, justify.
"Are you fucking kidding me, Sitara?" He's nearly yelling now.
"I meant, like, a gap between your front teeth, or... I don't know, a little mole on your chin. There's a pretty big difference between that and being..." He obviously paused.
"Deformed?" I finish for him.
Yash stares in the distance, not contradicting me. A lump rises in my throat. Even after the way he reacted to Dev's question at cafe, I didn't expect this from him.
He's a genuinely good guy. A disabled war hero, who, in spite of everything he lost, is still proud of his service. Someone who loves books as much as I do. And here he is, treating me exactly the same as everyone else.
"You should have told me," he finally says.
"Well, I didn't," I say. "Can't change that now. So..." Leave, Yash. Get out of here. I know you want to.
"Listen..." He rubs at the back of his neck. "Can we talk about this over dinner? The smell is getting to me."
I snort. "So you still want to go out with me tonight?"
"I want to talk to you more about this."
"Well, I don't." I shut my eyes, blacking out the world the way Yash does every hour of every day. "There's nothing to talk about. I get the message."
"The message?" He questions.
"You don't want to date a girl whose face is deformed." I declare.
"No, I don't want to date a girl who would lie to my fucking face." His free hand balls into a fist. "I don't want to date someone who would take advantage of my disability."
His words are like being stabbed in the chest. He's right. I never really thought about how humiliated he'd feel when he found out the truth. I knew it wouldn't be good , but I didn't realize he'd feel this way. I took advantage of him. I used the fact that he can't see to feed him lies so he'd like me. I'm a terrible person. But I only did it because I was falling in love with him.
"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "I wish I had told you."
He nods and lets out a long sigh. He rubs his hand over his short brown hair. He's so sexy—in spite of everything, I feel that deep tug of my attraction to him. I wish things could have gone differently tonight.
"I'm going to go," I say quietly.
"No, Sitara," he says quickly. "Look, I told you, I want to talk about this."
"We just talked."
"That's not what I mean." He retorts.
I shake my head, even though he can't see it. It's so hard to let go of expressing thoughts with gestures.
"It wouldn't be a date anymore though, would it?" I ask in a whisper.
He hesitates. I don't know how Urmila described my face exactly, but I have a feeling she didn't spare any graphic details. He's imagining kissing lips that don't really exist. He's imagining my mangled face close to his. And I can see on his own face that he doesn't find the idea quite so appealing anymore.
"I don't know," he finally admits.
I can't reply to him, because if I do, I'll burst into tears again.
"Look, you gotta give me some time to... absorb this," he says. "I only just found out five minutes ago."
"Right," I mumble.
"I don't know what you want from me," he says, the anger growing in his voice again. "I literally just walked through a garbage dump to find you."
I snort. "How gallant of you."
"Come on, Sitara..." He resigned.
"Listen, let me make this easy for you," I say. "I don't think it's a good idea we go out. Not as friends, not as anything. We had some good times together, and let's just leave it at that. You're a nice guy—I'm sure you'll meet someone else who will make you happy."
I hesitate a moment after my little speech. I'm waiting for him to say something like, No, Sitara! Don't go! I love you!
But of course, he doesn't. He wouldn't. If he did, it would be a lie.
So I walk away.
You guys screaming 'No! No, Sitara! Don't!'?
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