Page 44 of Born in Grief

Chapter Twenty-Six

AMAY

Amay grabbed the edge of his towel before it started its inexorable slide towards the floor. He stepped back allowing Dhrithi to shuffle past him into his apartment, her duffle bag trailing along in her wake by the strap still tightly clenched in her fist.

He watched her take in his space, from the cream walls with nothing on them to the dark espresso coloured comfortable couch to the sturdy center table made from reclaimed wood. She walked over to the bookshelf that took up one entire wall. It was stuffed to the gills with books from every genre under the sun.

His skin prickled as she walked around his home, almost like his body didn’t want to inhabit it anymore. He knew the luxury she’d lived with. He’d been born with the same silver spoon and he knew that his flat was a million light years away from that. It had been a conscious choice. Anything his father chose, Amay didn’t.

He saw the moment she spotted it. The only photo frame in the large room, a picture of his beautiful Aai and him as a chubbytoddler. The only picture of hers he had. His father had burned everything of hers. The reason this picture had escaped Aatre Senior’s manic purge of his wife was because it had been tucked into a birthday card given to Amay by his mother when he was ten. A month before she’d been murdered.

Dhrithi picked up the plain wooden photo frame, her finger gently tracing the faces of his mother and him. Emotion slammed through him and he turned away from her, unable to handle it anymore.

“I’m going to put on some clothes,” he muttered. “Be back in a minute.”

She didn’t seem to have heard him, her gaze still stuck on the picture in her hand. He grabbed the first clothes he could find in the chaotic mess of his cupboard and dressed quickly. He was back in the room in a matter of minutes.

Dhrithi was sitting on his couch, staring out of the French doors that led out on to the balcony, her tormented gaze reliving moments he hoped she never had to actually live through again.

“You’re leaving,” he said, pointing to the duffel bag plonked near her feet like a good, little puppy.

“I was planning to. I can’t stay and bring my mess to your doorstep, Amay.”

“We’re back to that again.” He sat down on the couch opposite her, noting that the picture was back in its place.

“We are,” she replied, twisting her fingers together, a constant writhing knot of anxiety. “Amay, from what Virat says this whole mess is worse than Varun ramming his car into mine on purpose.”

The temperature in the room dipped a couple of degrees with her words. “So, you’re accepting that that’s what he was trying to do that night?”

“Yes!” She exclaimed. “But he wasn’t trying to kill me.”

Amay stared at her, his lips pressed into a thin line. “It would seem that is the most likely result of purposefully ramming your car into another person’s.”

“I was running from him. I was trying to leave him. He rammed my car to get me to stop so he could drag me home, not to kill me,” she said baldly.

Amay’s hand fisted on his thigh, familiar, helpless rage seeping into his brain. “Seems like a rational thing to do when your wife tries to leave you,” he said, fury tinged with sarcasm tainting his tone.

“Rational? He was an abusive cokehead who treated me like a piece of trash most of the time. There was nothing rational about him.”

“And yet you chose him.”

The past was a venomous viper, always poised to attack at the slightest sign of weakness.

Dhrithi held his gaze, her own clouded with tortured memories. “I did. I chose him over you.”

“Thank you,” he said with a bitter smile. “I don’t need the reminder.”

“But I do.” She leaned forward in her seat. “And that’s why I need to go.”

Amay shrugged, suddenly tired of it all. He didn’t want to try and help someone who didn’t want his help.

“Okay,” he said, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Then go.”

“What?” Her eyes widened in surprise at his easy capitulation.

“Just go, Dhrithi. Go live in your hotel. Deal with your shit on your own. Do whatever you need to do. It’s not like you spend a lot of time taking other people’s feelings into consideration. This is just typically you.”

“Typically me?” she asked, her mouth deceptively quiet.

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