I focus on the road again. “I’m fine. Did... did Kashvi say something?”
“No. I mean. She said you didn’t... you didn’t drink. Or anything. So that’s good.”
I smile faintly. “Honestly? It was hard. But as I said—high-functioning alcoholic. I wasn’t really drinking to get drunk, you know.”
She hums, but it’s not judgmental.
“So yeah... I’m fine. Your turn. You’re okay?”
“Why are you asking me that?” Her tone sharpens.
“I... I don’t know. Last night—”
“Had nothing to do with you,” she cuts in tightly.
My grip on the steering wheel tightens. I don’t even know what part of last night we’re talking about. But I know which part haunts me. Which part has been running constantly in my head—on a loop.
“I know. And you’re... you can do whatever you want. I know that. You deserve your pound of flesh—”
“Stop,” she snaps. “Me sleeping with Advik hadnothingto do with you.”
My heart just... stops.
Until now, I hadn’t let myself fully believe it. And now that it’s confirmed, I feel something split open inside me. Shedidsleep with him.
And I can’t seem to remember how to breathe.
“I... I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way,” I say.
“Lucian,” she whispers but her voice breaks.Fuck.
“Ro—Aarohi listen. You don’t have to explain anything to me, okay?”
“But Ido!” She whisper-shouts. “Because I didn’t intentionally go out of my way to fuckinghurtyou. That would beyou.”
I stay silent but that fucking guts me. Because it’s true.
“Listen...” she says. “You need to understand that Advik and I have known each other foryears.Circlingeach other for years. There’s... there’s familiarity there. There’strustthere. And Ineededthat. Ineededsomeone to look at me without disgust or anger. I needed to feel desirable because...”
She pauses. And I know she’s trying to calm herself down. I can see her shaking in my periphery, and I want so badly to stop the car and just hold her.
“I needed to feel desirable,” she sniffles. “Because for the past few months your words have come back. Your disgust is all I see. That moment in your apartment—you not calling me a woman... that plays onrepeat. I tried so hard. So fucking hard—when we started dating. I wanted to give you a proper chance, so I tried toforget. Move on. To stop hearing those words. To stop imagining that look you gave me when you walked in on me and Tim. And itworked. I got over it—” she pauses. “God! Igot fucking over itbecause I believed you actuallywantedme. But then...”
I squeeze the wheel harder, jaw locked.
She’s tearing me apart with this. Because I know what cameafter.
“But then I find out—it was all revenge. A lie. The apologies. The wooing. The sweetness. The fuckingattraction. I was questioningeverything. And then—thenyou come here... telling me that it wasall real?Well, I don’t fucking know what to believe anymore.”
She pauses to breathe, and it’s the most guttural sound I’ve ever heard from her.
“So yes. I slept with Advik because at least I knew what to believe there. Because I knew it to be real. And it hadnothingto do with you—and everything to do withme.”
I’m quiet. Because there’s nothing I can say that won’t make it worse.
She was trying to survive. And I—fuck, I was the storm she barely made it through.
After a long silence, just as we near our destination, I hear her speak.
