I look at Arjun's tensed face; he clenches his jaw, making it appear sharper than it is. The hand that he uses to steer the wheel, curls tightly around the steering wheel, his other hand clenched into a fist on his thigh.
I grimace at Arjun's countenance. "It's not what you think it is, Arjun," I tell him softly.
"I don't know what to think of it," he says blankly. "What does one think about his fiancée's best friend texting her to profess his love?" Though Arjun is clearly trying not to let his anger get the better of him, I can feel it radiating off of him.
"It's Sid, Arjun. He--" I break off, not knowing how to explain to him. Taking in a breath, I try to process my thoughts before explaining, "He probably wants me to cover for him or something."
"That's how people ask for favours now; by professing love?" he questions incredulously. "I didn't ask for an explanation anyway. Go on, text him back, you might break his heart otherwise," he mocks.
I sigh, sinking into the seat. "Arjun," I call softly, holding his free hand. I gently uncurl his long fingers, marvelling at how long they are. Intertwining his fingers with mine, I pull his warm hand closer to me, leaning my cheek against it. "Siddharth has been my best friend since we were five and six. He's just that, my best friend."
His stance relaxes ever-so-slightly, but he refuses to acknowledge it. "So I'll text him back?" I tease. "I have to say it back, or he'll feel bad."
He turns to glare at me in a warning. I try to hold myself from laughing at how cute he looks when he's jealous, but it doesn't work.
Chuckles escape my mouth, causing him to scowl. He pulls his hand back, out of my hold and keeps his eyes trained on the road like a petulant child.
"Fine, let me ask what he wants at least," I say, but he still refuses to look at me.
"Do whatever you want," he says sourly, "He's your best friend, after all."
"Arjun," I admonished lightly. "He's Siddharth. I've known the guy all my life! It's not a romantic confession, it's a plea for help."
"Why are you telling me this?" he asks off-handedly, implying he hadn't asked.
If he doesn't want to know, why should I tell him anything? Rolling my eyes, I ask Siddharth what he wants.
What do you want, you donkey?
Bad date. SOS.
Siddharth never fails to disappoint. I knew he wanted a favour. Arjun got worked up for nothing. And this donkey is sitting at a wrecked date, texting me to ruin the few minutes I got with Arjun.
Fuck off, Sid.
He'll be fine. If anything, it's the girl that's in bad company. How girls agree to go out with him is a mystery to me.
I remain silent for the rest of the ride home, hoping Arjun will see sense, but remaining silent to save the embarrassment. 'Why are you telling me?' Well, if he doesn't want to know why tell him anything?
I fold my hands over my stomach and look out the window. I feel my heart dip with every minute we get closer to home. I glance at Arjun from the corner of my eyes, but he doesn't make any effort to talk to me.
If he asked what Sid was texting about, I would tell him without another thought. It isn't a big deal.
Maybe to him, it is, a voice creeps up from the back of my mind.
What would I do if I saw the same text in his phone? From a female best friend? I wouldn't want that. But if it happened, I would demand an explanation, maybe fight with him-- using words, not silence.
When Arjun lets me leave without so much as a bye, my heart breaks. I run inside the house without looking back at him.
I suppose that means no dinner tomorrow. Oh, well, who wants to spend the last hours of their Sunday with Sir Moody? Not me.
If only he let me explain, if not ask about it.
~.~.~.~.~
The next morning, I'm woken up at eight by my best friend, demanding to know why I hadn't responded to his pleas for help.
"Are you out of your freaking mind, Siddharth?" I yell at him, throwing a pillow at his face. "It's fucking eight in the morning on a fucking Sunday. Some of us work six days a week!"
"And some of us have friends that respond to SOS texts!" he yells back, equally enraged.
I sit up in my bed, pushing the stray strands of my hair away from my face sloppily. I glare at the furious-looking Siddharth. "You should've asked someone else!"
"You should've said that last night, instead of asking me to fuck off. The fuck is wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me!" I scream back, standing to my feet on the bed. "I thought you had a fucking functional brain!" I widen my eyes dramatically, feigning a look of realisation. "Oh, wait. That is what's wrong with me, in fact, it is terribly stupid of me. I should've known you didn't have a fucking brain, never mind a functioning one."
"What the fuck is happening here?" I hear a voice thunder from the threshold of the door that Siddharth left open.
Karthik looks beyond pissed. His gym clothes are sweaty. Were we that loud? So loud that Karthik could hear us from the gym upstairs and came down to see for himself?
I lose grip over the pillow in my hands, surprised at Karthik's outburst. Siddharth and I look at each other, sharing guilty looks.
"What are you doing, standing on the goddamned bed?" Karthik asks sternly, folding his arms over his chest.
"Sorry," I mumble, climbing down my bed.
"Why are you screaming at each other early in the morning?"
I look down at my feet, unable to say anything. What would I say? I was yelling, it was early in the morning. I could blame it on Siddharth, but knowing Karthik, I'd get looks for doing that.
"If I hear either of you yell one more time," he warns.
I nod, not meeting his eye. With that, he leaves, slamming the door shut. Someone seems to have woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Or maybe he didn't wake up on the bed.
It was a plausible conclusion, given that he was working out at 8:00 in the morning on a Sunday.
Siddharth pinches me, bringing me out of my thoughts. "Why didn't you call last night?" he demands in hushed whispers.
I hit his arm in turn. "Why are you pinching me?" I ask back in the same tone, rubbing the area he pinched.
He smacks my arm. "Answer my question first."
I scowl and shove him. "Why the fuck are you hitting me, you arse-hat?"
He smacks my other arm. "Do you kiss your husband with the same mouth?"
I gape at the accusation. Siddharth has a filthy mouth. Dettol could kill 99.9% germs, but it couldn't clean a nanometer of his mouth. "I only have one mouth!" I pat his cheek roughly in an almost slap.
"Not the face, you bitch!" he hisses, tugging at my braid.
"Don't touch my hair, jackarse!" I pull at his hair, harshly, in hopes of ripping the patch of hair out.
"Don't be--" he raises his hand to my hair again only to back off because of Karthik's voice.
"Did either of you ever grow up past the age of five? Dimwits!" He scolds.
We weren't being loud, as a matter of fact, we were whispering to each other. How did Karthik even find out?
"You didn't fight as much even when you were kids!" he reprimands, his eyebrows furrowed into a deep-set scowl. "Now you're twenty-three, twenty-four-year-olds and you're fighting like toddlers! Pulling at each other's hairs!"
"We weren't yelling," I manage to say in a low voice, my head bowed out of embarrassment.
"I came to tell you that mum and dad are gone," Karthik says, thankfully letting his strict parent disposition fall.
I shrug in acknowledgement. My mother said they'd be going to Delhi this morning, with Gayatri Aunty--no, Athayya and RK Mamayya. This feels weirder in my head.
With that, Karthik leaves, but not before taunting us. "Grow up kids," he says, with a shake of his head on his way out.
I have a feeling Karthik did not wake up on the bed, and that is the reason why he came back to talk to me, but he obviously thought otherwise about the idea. Who would ask a five-year-old for advice about their marriage anyway?
"Why didn't you call back?" Siddharth asks in a calmer tone, jumping back onto my bed.
"I was with Arjun," I answer his question, rubbing my face tiredly. When you have an overwhelmed brain as I do, you know it's near impossible to sleep after a fight (if you can call what happened between us that) with anyone.
The whole reason for that was Siddharth or my relationship with Siddharth, and now here he is, early in the morning, in my bedroom. If Arjun came walking in now, this would be it. I bet he wouldn't see my face again.
"Of course, you have a husband now, you don't care about us all anymore," Siddharth dramatises.
I rub my face tiredly. Arjun...
Sighing, I walk towards the bathroom. "Go downstairs, Lakshmi Aunty must be making breakfast for you already. I'll brush my teeth and come down."
I walk to the bathroom, tiredly. Before brushing my teeth, I take the time to look at myself in the mirror. My eyes look red and sunken; dark circles surround them. I feel a brewing headache take over me.
I clutch the edge of the sink and close my eyes, taking a deep breath in, I tell myself it will be alright. I open my eyes and force myself to smile, hoping it will convince me that everything is okay, but it doesn't.
Shaking my head, I tie my hair in a low, loose bun to avoid intensifying the headache and brush my teeth before washing my face.
I wipe my hands and face clean, drying away the water before pulling my hair into a loose braid and going downstairs. Arjun's straight face remains imprinted on the back of my mind. He looked different, like never before.
I walk to the dining table to see Siddharth munching on dosa and telling Lakshmi Aunty how he wants his dosa. Lakshmi Aunty plays along, attentively listening to him.
I pull a chair to sit opposite him and watch him eat like a starved animal. "How long has it been since you had food, Siddharth? We don't have enough food to feed your stomach."
He rolls his eyes and sticks his tongue out at me. "Arvi, don't be rude," Lakshmi Aunty says lightly.
"I was just saying," I mumble, checking my phone for notifications.
Someone places a glass of health drink in front of me. I gulp the drink down and push the empty glass away from me.
"Arvi, it's good for you," Lakshmi Aunty says in a convincing tone, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of dosa.
"What is?" I ask, taking the plate from her.
"You drank your juice?" she asks, looking at me in surprise.
"What juice?" My eyes land on the empty glass of juice I just gulped down. When did I finish that?
I look up at Lakshmi Aunty, who looks between me and the glass with surprise. "I've been giving you the same juice for ten years now. You never drink it voluntarily," she says, picking up the glass from the table to examine it.
I don't respond to the remark, choosing to eat my dosa instead. Lakshmi Aunty doesn't mind my silence much, she goes inside with the empty glass.
"Iron still bad?" Siddharth asks about the iron deficiency.
I shrug with a half-smile. "Same as ever." They simply force me to drink juices and eat healthy for the heck of it, I swear. Iron deficiency is not half as bad as they make it out to be. Apart from the occasional head rushes and feeling dizzy at times, it's quite alright.
Siddharth takes that answer and continues eating. I clear my throat. "How was your date last night?" I ask sheepishly.
He looks at me with raised eyebrows. "Why do you want to know? Go suck--"
My glare cuts him off. I swear the guy has no filter. Zero filters. Zero. I don't know what God was thinking when he created this clown.
"So? How was it?"
This time, he doesn't look up from his plate. I could have thought he was offended by my glare, but he's used to them.
"You slept with her, didn't you?" I ask without beating around the bush.
He stuffs his mouth with dosa, refusing to answer my question. When I give him a sharp look, he grins at me with his dosa-filled mouth.
"You pig!" I accuse, twisting my lips. "You said 'bad date! SOS.' Why would you sleep with a bad date?"
Sid chews the food in his mouth, excitedly, getting ready for the storytelling. "Well, the girl kept talking about her ex-boyfriend," he says, "And that's a big turn-off, you know?"
No, I don't know.
"You didn't respond, and I didn't have the time to text anyone else. I had to text you secretly, under the table," Sid explains.
That must've been a challenge.
"And then she started crying and all that." Super weird. "I didn't know what to do, so I hugged her, and I was awkwardly trying to console her. Apparently, that was a turn-on, she kissed me!"
Where Dumb meets Dumber. Why did this girl who was not over her ex go on a date with Siddharth? Why would Siddharth hug a stranger? Why would the stranger kiss a guy like Siddharth? What is wrong with girls' tastes these days?!
"And then..." he trails off, shrugging with a satisfied half-smile on his face. That look on his face gave me more details than I would want to know. Ew. I think I puked in my mouth a little.
"Chalu. I don't want no more details. Please." [Chalu (Telugu): That's enough] I fold my hands in a namaste, begging him to stop.
"You're jealous of me," he challenges.
I give him a blank look. Jealous because he slept with a girl that wasn't over her ex? I don't do girls. "Why? Because you have an empty space in your head?"
He smirks. "Because I got some, and you didn't get any last night."
I would've gotten a kiss at least if it weren't for his text. But you don't tell your best friend things like that. Not when he defended you when given a choice between his first love and his best friend. Not when he's Siddharth, and you're Arvi.
I snort at the accusation but don't retort.
"Did you get into a fight with your husband?" he asks casually after a few moments' silence.
"He's not my husband," I tell him, raising my eyes to look at him.
"Why would you fight with Arjun, Arvi?" he asks reprovingly.
"I didn't fight with Arjun, Siddharth," I tell him.
"So you fought with Arjun?" he stresses on fought with a different tone, suggesting it was one of the two types: physical or verbal.
"No, I don't think so— I don't know!"
He sighs. "If it was your fault, apologise," he suggests.
"It wasn't my fault," I defend, "Why would you just assume that it was my fault?"
"If it was Arjun's fault, be forgiving."
"It wasn't Arjun's fault either."
"So you didn't fight?"
I bite the inside of my bottom lip, contemplating the question. Did we fight? It would take words, hands, legs, something to fight? All I got was a straight face. "We didn't fight," I say, not knowing how to explain it.
"A misunderstanding?" he suggests.
"I don't know!" I exclaim exasperatedly. "I don't know anything anymore!"
"Arvu," he stretches. "Call and talk to him. You'll know then."
"Siddhu," I mimic his tone. "Why should I call?"
"Because you can't let your ego ruin your relationship," he explains calmly.
"For someone that hasn't been in any relationships since God knows how long, you sure know a shitload about all of this," I commend, standing up with my plate to leave it in the kitchen sink.
"People outside the relationship will know more about the people involved in the relationship than the people in the relationship."
I furrow my eyebrows, feigning confusion. "Sorry, what?" I ask politely.
"Arvi, just call him, na?" Sid whines, not falling into the trap that I was elaborately trying to layout for him.
"Siddharth, he's angry at me," I try to make him understand.
"More reason to call him!" Sid insists.
I put my plate in the sink with a loud clang and turn to look at him. "What if he doesn't pick up?" I ask, folding my hands over my chest.
"Then, at least you tried!"
"No."
"Arvi—"
"No."
"Arvi—"
"No!"
"Listen to someone else for once in your goddamned life, will you?" he yells at me, making me jump back in surprise. All activity in the kitchen stops.
He seems to realise that he'd just yelled at me. I eye the house-help, making them scurry back into work.
"Arvi," Sid starts to explain.
I cut him off, "Okay. Fine. I'll call. It's not like he can break-up with me if—" I stop short when he looks at me sharply.
"Okay," I concede.
So, I call him.
He doesn't pick up.
A/N
*nervous looks* Hello! Okay, before you pick up the most rotten tomatoes in the house, let me tell you, I only updated today because I left all of you on a cliffhanger and I felt bad. Extremely bad. Please, please, please be nice and considerate. No eggs and/or rotten tomatoes.
All of you got worked up for no reason. Okay, maybe not 'no reason', but Sid doesn't love Arvi. He just loves her-- as a friend. And Arjun's pissed at Arvi *hiding under my bed* please, please, please spare me. I promise it'll get better. Right now, as an author, I'm especially scared of spilltheteas_ she's scaring the fuck out of me. She's a part of this 'Protect Arvi' squad, she basically protects Arvi from anyone and anything. I thought it was very sweet. Until the last chapter. Turns out, anyone includes ME!-- The author.
And, this chapter is dedicated to silverfeels for all her support and feedback! She's not only about the compliments. Please, please criticize and help me grow! Also, Hazel (silverfeels) writes stories of her own, that I'm a fan of. Do head out and read them if you'd like!
My exams are coming up, so there's only going to be a maximum of one update per week (I don't think I've ever done more than one). I'm going to try and write as much as I can between classes and be equipped with updates for the coming weeks up until my exams are over, but please understand if I can't update at times. I'll try to update on Mondays, mostly. So, you can expect the next update on next Monday-- it's already underway, so don't worry, you'll definitely get that one.
I promise it'll get better. Please, please, I'm begging you, put the tomatoes and eggs away. It's too cold for a shower these days.
With love,
Until next time,
A.