(Image: Cafe before our peeps got there)
"WHAT IS GOING ON?" growled Harsh from across the table as Dev scurried out of the room to answer the call. Of course, my statement didn't help matters with Harsh at all, either. Thanks to him, an already cowering Alana and a curious Sneha had also gone awfully quiet and truth be told, I had had enough of all the drama incurred in this day.
"Harsh – I'm sick of this. The entire day has just been a strange series of events and they've all had only one theme in common. Want to guess what it is?" I enquired. My brothers face turned from hostile to guilty during this little jab of mine and I took the chance to continue with, "That's right – secrets and past hatred."
"Dee... You don't know..." he began but I had no choice but to interrupt with, "Exactly, Harsh. I don't know. You haven't LET me know. If you had, we could have completely avoided all of these stupid fights," I snapped.
A sort of awkward silence befell the group as a rather intimidated waiter walked up and placed the menus on the table and walked away without saying a word. He'd be back once the fight was over, for sure. Although I could feel the pulse hammering in my fisted palm under the table, I was adamant about not being the one to break the silence this time.
To my left, I could feel the uneasy vibes from Alana, who I was afraid, would start crying any moment now. At least, if I could read faces to save a life, this is what I would bet on.
"Guys.. You will have to start at the top," piped in Sneha, ever the peacemaker between Harsh and my rows – right from the first summer we spent together. Gravely, all of us nodded – including Alana.
"Okay – good," said Sneha, before adding, "Alana – why don't you start?"
Before Alana could say anything, Harsh interrupted and said, "No. Sneha – I'd like to begin. I hope you don't mind that, Alana." She offered a meek smile and a nod in response and he expressed his gratitude before taking a deep breath in.
"I'd like for all of you to hear me out – so please don't interrupt me," he said. After a pause, he plunged into a story I knew all too well.
"A few years ago, I'd begun a small tuck-shop kind of restaurant with a few friends of mine, outside our college. It was doing remarkably well for its size and stature and soon enough, became popular with the students of not just our college, but also those of the other colleges in the vicinity. You guys with me?" He narrated, while the three of us nodded.
"Okay great. Now, we got an offer from a couple of big investors to help our venture grow, but all of them wanted to commercialize the food which was otherwise hand-made with a lot of passion by my friend. After about 3 months of considering different offers, we finally met with an investor who didn't offer as much money as the others but understood our ideology very well. To us, idealistic as our naïve minds were, the latter was more important. Right?" He paused to take a sip of water.
"Dee already knows this – but the week before the investor was supposed to come over and finally sign the contract with us, a surprise raid by the food authorities was conducted, at the restaurant. Two days later, they sent us a notice to shut shop, on the grounds that our food had too many impurities and toxins and was – and I quote directly – deemed unfit for consumption by the customers," said Harsh, his voice growing heavier.
"Anyway, that was the end of our little dream – but the case in court still remained, where my other friend – the third in our trio, decided to take ownership as the licence was in his name. On digging further, we found that the raid had been based on an anonymous phone call and evidence suggested by the post of a popular, local food blog called AlSpeaks. Does this ring a bell, Alana?" he asked, pointedly and the seat to my left dipped further inwards as Alana sunk back.
Both Sneha and I turned to look at her and we would have been fools to assume there would be no silent streams of tears framing her eyes now. We made eye contact while Sneha laid a hand on Alana's shoulder to console her – but when Harsh continued, we had no choice but to look back up.
"Of course – I did my own research to find out all I could about you – and though not much of information about your person was available online, I did see a couple of pictures here and there. Enough to recognise you today," he added, unabashedly. "However, knowing that you were Sneha's step-sister, that too, your nonchalance when I tried hinting about the whole thing when I first spoke to you today – it was absolutely horrid. Almost made it look like you didn't care that you played a part in the ruin of our restaurant."
At this, the sniffles of Alana grew louder but between Sneha and myself, she sat with her head hung low, the white shorts she wore, now drenched in tears as the no longer silently dripped down her face.
"And – then a couple of other things got me agitated further and I lost my cool at you", confessed my brother and I hated this entire thing. The fight, the evening, the secrets, the pain. Most of all, I hated seeing Harsh – my hero – this way. Then, he went on to utter things I didn't want him to ever say to anyone, "Alana – I blamed you for what happened, for a really long time. Even if I didn't know you. I know, I was wrong. For snapping at you, for blaming the girl who ran AlSpeaks – for everything: I'm really sorry. Please – forgive me if you can?"
It was quiet for a good five minutes as Alana sobbed into Sneha's shoulder while she consoled her and I went around to Harsh's side to give him a hug and sit next to him. However, all of sudden, Alana's sobs stopped and she looked up at my brother with the most hurt expression before saying, "Harsh – You are not the one who should be apologizing here. I am. Please don't say sorry to me. It was all for money... (sob).. The story I posted on the blog, was fake."