Page 87 of Born in Sin
“Endure the?” Cara asked, forcing her to put what she’d been culpable for into words.
“The whippings,” Maria whispered. “Mohan told Virat that if he allowed anyone to find out about us or about the beatings, then he would do to you what he did to him and that even I wouldn’t be able to stop him. And so, Virat kept quiet. He took it. For years.”
For years. For her.
Cara’s heart cracked, a million lines of anguish snaking through it. The tremors that filtered through her body had her struggling to stay upright.
“After the tenth-grade exams, Virat found proof that Mohan had been selling board exam papers to some of the students. He emailed it to not only to the Head of School but also all the members of the school board, ensuring Mohan was sacked. It was a release for him, and for me.”
Silence fell between them for a microsecond and then her mother sighed, sounding every day of her sixty-five years.
“Mohan wasn’t the only one who noticed the way Virat and you looked at each other. Those boys, Varun and his friends, the ones who…” Her mother’s voice failed, tears quavering in them. “They noticed too. Did you never wonder why they took you that night?”
“No, I didn’t wonder.” Cara’s voice sounded like it came from far away. “I knew. They told me, over and over again. Exactly why they took me. I knew but he never did.”
“He did,” her mother corrected her. “He knew because I told him. At the hospital, I told him.”
The roaring in her ears was deafening.
“What did you tell him?” Cara asked, her voice deathly quiet.
“I told him that he was responsible for your ruin. The only reason those boys targeted you was because of your connection to him. I told him he had killed Celina Fernandez that day because she could never survive this scandal. I told him Chandrashekhar Sir was threatening to expel you from school, to write to the board and strike your roll number from the school rolls and that the only way I could mitigate all of that was by making you disappear from there. If you didn’t exist, the scandal didn’t exist. And for you to cease existing, he had to disappear from your life. Those boys were never going to be punished. Only you and the boys who tried to save you would. And he couldn’t save himself and his friends, but he could save you.”
“You convinced him to leave me.”
“Yes, because you would never have left him. He had to leave you. And he knew it too.”
The air that filled her lungs felt too thick, too noxious to exhale as she struggled to process her mother’s words.
“The minute you were discharged, I left with you for Dubai. Your father might have hated me by then, but he loved you. He took us in and helped get you back on your feet. And when we finally came back to India, you emerged to the world as Cara Ferns. Celina Fernandez had finally ceased to exist. It was the only way, Celi. The only way to save you.”
Her mother reached for her hand tentatively. Cara flinched away from her. Maria’s hand froze on the bedspread.
“If the two of you had stayed together, Cara Ferns would never have had a chance to come alive. And look at you now. Just look at you!”
“Yes, Mom. Look at me. Look at the daughter you, along with everyone else, destroyed.”
Maria shrunk under her gaze.
“All these years,” Cara whispered. “All these years, you allowed me to live in ignorance of all that he’s sacrificed for me, for you even. How could you?”
She got to her feet, every bone in her body aching. She needed to get out of here. She needed to get out of her life. Celina Fernandez no longer existed, and she didn’t know if she could stand to be Cara Ferns anymore.
Who, then, was she? And where did she go from here?
Crestwood
“Vir.” Amay’s voice was urgent, but all Virat could focus on was Celina fleeing the cafeteria, fleeing him.
“Not now, Ams.”
“Yes now,” Amay snapped.
Virat looked at him in surprise. Out of the three of them, Amay was always the calmest, the most even keeled.
“We are this close to graduating, Vir.” Amay pinched his fingers together. “And then we never need to look back at this place again. We’re free, of this school, of the people here, of our family’s control. All of it. We get to college and we can all finally make our own way in life. You and Celina can live your life without any of this drama and bullshit.”
“I know.” Virat backed up a step, stunned by Amay’s vehemence.
