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after-school detention Koyal had to do and for that he deserves the truth.
‘You sound so much like Ma these days,’ she says.
‘Why did you hit him?’
‘He said stuff.’
‘What stuff?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What stuff?’ His voice is sterner than before.
‘I don’t remember.’
He smacks her lightly on her head, careful not to hurt her. ‘Koyal Hansini Raje!’
‘Atharv Jayakrishna!’
‘Koyal,’ he says seriously, ‘you have to strive to be the best version of yourself. You, me, everyone – we all owe that one thing to ourselves.’
Koyal pretends to yawn and he smacks her again.
‘What you did was not you being your best,’ he concludes seriously.
‘But he called us funny names,’ she says, pouting.
‘Like?’ he asks. As if that mattered!
‘The koyal and the crow. She sings like a koyal and he looks like a crow.’ Koyal selects the least offensive bit the boy had said to share with Atharv.
‘I am the crow?’ he asks, nonplussed, and then realization dawns upon him. ‘Aah, because I am dark.’
‘You are a beautiful, rich coffee colour,’ she says loyally, meaning it, and Atharv starts laughing.
She wonders idly if she should punch his face now but then she starts laughing too.
3
‘I’m home, sweetie,’ he said as he walked in through the door.
Sweetie. Something inside her gave way and a quiet kind of fear began to spread its clammy darkness in her.
‘Great, how was your day?’ she asked, putting aside the TV remote and adopting a fake happy voice.
He turned around to face her, annoyed.
‘How many times have I told you not to ask me that? If it was great, I’ll tell you on my own, and if it was not, why ask and make me feel worse?’
‘Uh … no, no.’
‘You sit at home all day, watching TV and eating chips.’ He picked up an empty packet of Lays lying on the sofa and threw it in the dustbin. ‘The least you can do is go out and make friends.’
‘Um … I don’t … I don’t want to be around other people,’ she stammered.
After all that had happened, the word ‘friends’ rang hollow to her ears. Atharv had promised to be her best friend and look where they were now, she thought ruefully.
Last week, in a fit of anger over something as trivial as a misplaced keychain, he had called her a ‘fucking useless bitch’. Someone else might have been able to shrug these words away, but to a girl like her, a girl without any achievements or degrees, the words had delivered a merciless sting. She had rushed to the living room, sobbing, feeling as though she was the biggest failure in the world. After a bit, he had come into the living room, looked at her tear-soaked face and said, ‘When you finish crying, go wash your face and then come to the bedroom. Otherwise you are welcome to sleep in the living room.’
