Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“I can’t hurt him,” I tell Biji.
“I know.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“I know that too.”
“He didn’t deserve what I did to him. How selfish I’ve been all this time. He didn’t deserve to be played with. And that’s what I did. I played with his heart. I played with his feelings. I deliberately sought him out. I deliberately went after him knowing that it will create rumors. I held his hand; I danced with him. I smiled at him, flirted with him. I did it all because I… Because I wanted his twin brother. I made him fall in love with me. So now it’s up to me to fix it. It’s up to me to grow up and stop being selfish.”
I need to face the consequences of what I’ve done.
I’ve used a man.
A good and kindhearted man.
I cannot let him suffer for that. I absolutely cannot hurt him by telling him the truth, no. Maybe one day, I will tell him. But by then, we will be firmly in a relationship, and I will be the best girlfriend he could’ve ever imagined.
Because that’s step two of my plan.
Step one is saying yes.
“But more than that,” I keep going, pain stabbing my chest. “I know.”
“What do you know?”
I look at Biji. “I know what it feels like when you want someone and they don’t want you back. I know how painful that is. How it makes you ache. How you pray and hope. How every night you ask the sky, why me; what’s wrong with me; why can’t I get lucky in love; what can I change about myself to get that; what can I do; why can’t he love me, why can’t anyone love me. Why… And when no one answers, it hurts.”
It hurts so badly.
It makes you question everything about yourself, about your life. And in my life, I know that my biji loves me, but she’s the only person. Maybe my dad loves me a little, but he loves my mother so much that I don’t think he can be disloyal to her by loving me. And we all know that what my mother feels for me is so far away from love that it’s not even funny. And while I know Shepard is loved by people, his family, going through unrequited love is something else altogether. It is arguably the worst kind of love there is. The loneliest kind of love there is and I’ll be damned if I let him go through that.
So there’s only one solution, isn’t there?
All the love that I have in me, I will give to him.
He’s the only one who deserves it anyway.
Biji keeps looking at me for a few beats. “I hate my daughter. I do.”
“Biji, that’s not—”
“I hate what she’s done to you. I hate that all your life, she’s put you down, torn you apart. Made you feel bad for being yourself. I hate that. You should be cherished,” she says fiercely. “You should be treated like the treasure you are and everyone has failed you. Every single person in your life has failed you and I…” Her beautiful dark eyes that I wish I had well up with tears. “If I could beat some sense into your mother, I would. But nothing works with that girl. She’s always been bitter for one reason or another. Nothing we did worked with her. And if I ever meet that khote da puttar, rest assured that juttiyon se maar maar ke seedha kar dena hai maine usko.”
“Biji—”
She grabs my cheeks and squeezes them. “It means: if I ever meet that asshole, I will beat him so hard that he’ll fall at your feet and promise to love you forever.”
God, I love my biji.
She’s the best grandmother in the whole wide world.
“That’ll make a good movie story,” she finishes.
I chuckle with stinging eyes and decide to focus on good things. “Will you tell me your story? With Dada ji.”
She watches me for a few moments, her thumbs still rubbing my cheeks, her eyes roving over my face. Then she reaches forward and kisses my forehead. “Of course, my love.”
With that, she moves away and settles against the pillows. I put our giant margarita glass away and put my head on the pillow in her lap, lying on my side. And she begins as she runs her fingers along the long strands of my hair, smoothening them and slowly braiding them like she used to do with her hair back in her village where she lived with my dada ji.
“I was young. I was headstrong. I wanted to travel the world. No one had done that in our village. I wanted to be in movies. I wanted to fall in love. I did fall in love with this neighbor boy. The one thing I didn’t want to do was get married. And I specifically didn’t want to get married to this stern-faced man who came to our house one day. He looked like he’d never cracked a smile in his life, let alone laughed. And he was so tall and broad. Taller than all the buildings in our village, broader than the mountains I once saw in a book. He had this really big mustache. I swear he looked like a movie villain. A handsome movie villain but a villain nonetheless. I wanted to run away on our wedding day and when I couldn’t, I ran away on the wedding night. There was no way I was going to sleep with him in the same room. Plus, I had to go find that guy I’d loved. I was going to find him and convince him to run away with me to Mumbai. It was called Bombay back then but still. Your dada ji found me, though. But I was determined. I told him I didn’t love him. That I would never love him. I hated him for ruining my life. That if he ever touched me, I’d cut off his fingers. I’d poison his food. You know what he said to me?”