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Hema saw Koyal shake her head listlessly and wondered where the smiling girl from the party had vanished. Had someone said anything to upset her, she wondered.
A storm, an angry, violent, destructive storm, was gaining strength inside of Koyal.
Every bit of her had erupted, evaporated, reappeared and re-erupted repeatedly in the last half an hour since she had come face to face with Atharv.
Now, sitting at the dining table opposite each other, they hadn’t yet spoken a word to each other.
Every bit of her wanted to run away. Run away and never come back.
Yet something in her made her stay.
A curiosity, perhaps? A sadistic kind of pleasure in putting herself through such misery, perhaps? Koyal didn’t know or care.
‘Atharv,’ boomed Akki’s voice from the other end of the table and again the hair on Koyal’s arms stood up – the mere name held so much power over her, ‘how is your daughter?’
Daughter?
Koyal stared at her plate, thinking. She had heard that he’d had a baby but had not known the gender of the child. She wondered how the girl looked. Did they have a close relationship? How was Atharv as a father?
Atharv was staring at his plate, lost in thought, and he looked up, startled, when Akki spoke to him.
‘She is okay, um … doing good.’
‘Such a charming girl,’ Akki said with a smile. ‘My favourite little girl in the world.’
Charming girl. Did she look like Atharv? Or like…
Koyal felt goosebumps. Nili. How hard she had tried to forget all about her. And now, just when Koyal thought she was getting her life back, God was throwing it all in her face.
‘Surya?’ Akki continued.
Surya Aunty!
‘She is doing well and is with little Mansha.’ Atharv gave a half smile.
Mansha … what a beautiful, beautiful name. For some reason it brought to mind an angelic-looking girl dressed in white, as resplendent as the moon.
Did Atharv think of the name? Possibly not, it must have been her choice, a voice in her head said.
Her choice.
Koyal felt an acidic searing in her chest and, suddenly, just like that, the little girl in the white dress vanished and the name ceased to be beautiful.
Koyal spent the rest of the evening trying hard to not let the tsunami of emotions in her head show. Consumed by the presence of that one man, she tried hard to ignore Atharv, but failed miserably each time.
It was as though he was tied to her with a rope of emotions that hurt every time it grazed her raw wounds.
The Chandras insisted Koyal join them for a game of cards to be played in pairs.
No, no, no, her mind screamed silently in her head – all she wanted to do was to run away from this place, this place that had Atharv in it.
‘Koyal … you’ve been so quiet today. And Atharv, so have you! Akki, let’s pair Atharv and Koyal – maybe that way they’ll start talking,’ Hema said and broke into peals of laughter.
Koyal stared at Hema, her brain frozen.
‘I am sorry,’ came Atharv’s voice and for one mad, scary moment, Koyal wondered if Atharv was speaking to her. His face was clouded, his brow furrowed. ‘I need to leave,’ he was saying now.
Hema’s face fell.
