Now all I could do was hope that my faith in Neil had nothing to do with whatever lingering effect that night had left on me.
My phone buzzed as the plane started taxiing on the runway. A pathetic part of me hoped it’d be Neil. But of course it wasn’t. It was a screenshot from Nikita. For a second, my brain didn’t compute what I was looking at. A restaurant with dim lights. Two wine glasses. And in the centre of the frame, Neil.
It was Aarushi Garg’s Instagram story. Aarushi, Neil’s ex. There was no caption—just three red hearts.
Nikita: Why is he having dinner with her???
My stomach dropped so fast I had to grip the armrest for support. Suddenly everything made perfect, horrible sense—why he’d kept that careful distance at work, why he’d pressed pause, why he’d been so damn buttoned-up around me all week. Because he’d been planning to patch up with his ex all along. That night with me … that had probably just been a tiny suburban pit stop on his way back to his Bandra girlfriend.
I swallowed hard and typed back.
Me: Don’t know. Don’t care.
I tossed my phone and watched the twinkling city lights as our plane took off, determined to leave Neil and his stupid mixed signals behind.
‘You brought the 4x4!’ I shouted as I ran up to my brother in the airport parking lot. He was leaning against the driver’s side door of his beloved beast—his Mahindra Thar—grinning like an idiot. He tossed the keys to me as I got closer. ‘Wanna drive it?’
‘No way!’ I squealed and threw my arms around him, forgetting for a moment that we’d been tiptoeing around each other for months.
The drive from Dehradun airport to my house in Landour, upper Mussoorie, would take about an hour and a half, perhaps longer tonight because the monsoon mist had settled over the hills. I slid into the driver’s seat, still buzzing, while my brother threw my suitcase into the back and climbed in beside me.
‘I can’t believe you’re letting me drive this thing,’ I said as I eased out of the parking lot. ‘You wouldn’t let me near your car when we were younger.’
‘Well, you’re not a teenager anymore,’ he said, stretching his legs out. ‘It also helps that you can finally reach the pedals now.’
I smacked his arm as I turned a sharp corner. ‘Height jokes, how original.’
‘Hey! Hands on the steering wheel at all times,’ he instructed as he rolled down his window. Cool air rushed in immediately, bringing with it a whiff of pine, wet earth and that crisp mountain chill that I often daydreamed about on humid days in Mumbai. The Thar’s soft-top, which my brother loved rolling down on sunny winter days, was firmly shut tonight. Monsoon wasn’t open-roof season. The drizzle had turned into a thin curtain of mist and the car’s headlights sliced through it as we began the ascent.
After a few minutes of general chit-chat, Keshav bhaiya cleared his throat. ‘So, you’re here for two days, huh?’
‘Three and a half,’ I corrected. ‘I fly back on Tuesday evening.’
He let out a low whistle. ‘Wow. Generous. Thank you for taking the time out for your family.’
I groaned. ‘Please don’t start. I’ve been slammed at work.’
‘You’re always slammed at work,’ he said, not entirely unkindly. ‘Dad was actually betting you’d bail last minute.’
‘Rude.’
‘Accurate,’ he shot back. He exhaled, then continued in a softer voice, ‘You know Ma’s been worried about you.’
‘She has no reason to be.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. She thinks you were trying to avoid us. Avoid me, to be precise.’
That made me glance at him. ‘I’m not avoiding you.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded slowly, staring straight ahead. ‘Just … felt like it.’
I shifted in my seat. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a crazy year.’
He hummed, accepting the half-truth. Then, after fifteen minutes of pretending like he wasn’t going to bring it up, he couldn’t hold it in any longer. ‘So, Arjun was asking about you.’
I let out a long, pained sigh. ‘Here we go.’
‘What?’ He let out a laugh, but he wasn’t fooling me with that fake nonchalance.
