Page 132 of Reckless Dare

He placed the piece of paper of a group of young people having a picnic on the beach. They all wore their Simha uniforms.

She looked at the picture for a long moment before she let out a squeal spotting her dad in the group. “Oh, and there is your dad.”

He pointed to one of the young women in the picture and said, “That is my aunt and…” He moved his finger to the other woman. “That’s—”

“Neela, ma’am,” she interjected, unable to contain her excitement. “You know I saw a picture of your aunt with Neela ma’am in her office the first few weeks I was here and thought they were sisters.”

Abhi nodded, a small smile on his face. “They in fact were like sisters in spite of the few years' age gap. My aunt skipped classes and became my dad and Neela madam’s classmate. Your papa’s too.”

She nodded. “Yes, papa told me recently. That’s why until recently, I never thought Vaishnavi Simha could be your aunt. I always thought of her as the young girl in the picture at the memorial.”

Abhi smiled. “That was my grandma’s favorite picture of her and they chose that for the memorial and no one at the campus knows about her being our aunt. Plus there are so many who attended the university from the Simha family, I wouldn’t have expected you to know.”

“Who is this?” she pointed to a man on the other side of his father.

“That is Dhanush Varma, Rana’s dad’s best friend.” He pointed to the man next to him, “That’s my oldest uncle, Ved’s dad, and his best friend Aravind Roy. All of them were really good friends.”

Ava looked at the adorable smiles on their faces. “They looked so happy together.”

“Thickest of friends but unfortunately their friendship fell apart too.”

“What happened?”

“That’s a long story. But strangely all the children of these men are also studying in Simha right now..”

Ava felt excited by that fact. “Oh! who are they?”

“Namita Varma and Samantha Roy.”

Ava was stunned. She suddenly remembered the time when Ved threw Samantha into the water and Rana was unnecessarily aggressive toward Nami.

“My God. Ved and Samanthahate each other and so do Rana and Nami. All because of their dads. We have to do something!”

Her tormentor laughed. She gasped when he held her hand and pulled her onto his lap.

“Let my cousins deal with their own things. You will be busy with me.”

She blushed. “Oh yeah?” she asked. “Doing what?”

His mouth twisted into a devilish smile. “Tormenting you,” he replied.

She laughed and kissed him. She didn’t mind being tormented by him forever.

He was her tormentor. And her love.

*****

Back on the campus, in one of the staff units assigned to the dean of the university, Neelima Raj looked at the pictures on her table. There were two pictures.

One was the picture of Rahul and her. Rahul was her fiancé whom she had lost right before the wedding when he was shot during crossfire at the country border. All she had of him right then were memories and the bravery medals he won as a military man.

Her eyes fell on the other picture. It was of her best friend and her during a picnic at the Simha estate gardens. Neela grew up at the Simha estate where her mother worked as the housekeeper. Vaishanvi Simha and she had been friends since childhood and always shared things.

Vaishu was always by her side when things went wrong. Even when Rahul died, Vaishu helped her stay strong even when Vaishu’s own personal life was going through an upheaval.

“Neela, how did all of this happen?” Vaishu asked, looking disappointed.

After Vaishu’s wedding alliance got cancelled because the prospective groom loved someone else, it led to a break in several friendships.

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