Page 76 of Born in Grief

Chapter Forty-Four

AMAY

Amay stared at the door that shut behind her. He heard the low rumble of Ishaan and her voices and then nothing.

She was gone.

“Are you going to sit down?” Virat asked, as he took his seat on the couch.

Amay continued to stare at the closed door.

“Either go after her or sit the fuck down, Ams,” Virat murmured. “You’re not doing any good by hovering like a spectre from the Underworld.”

Every cell in his body screamed that he should go after her. Amay sat down instead. He needed to clear his head, allow his brain to start working and stop following his heart like a stupid, idiotic…

He stood up again. Virat eyed him, looking mildly entertained by his nonsense.

“I should go after her right?”

“You should do whatever you want to do,” Virat replied, picking up his phone which had started ringing.

Amay stayed standing in the middle of the room, like a lost idiot, while Virat took what sounded like a grim, suffused with bad news, phone call.

“They found nothing.” Virat tossed his phone aside, running his hands through his hair, frustration seeping from his every pore. “Not one damn thing.”

“They’ve gotten good at clean up. They’ve gotten better at being criminal assholes.”

“Or they’ve got another place.”

“Maybe,” Amay countered. “They have nothing to hide. We don’t even know what it is we suspect them of.”

Virat’s steady gaze met him. “And what was today? A social visit? Do you think they actually came here to condole with Dhrithi? There’s something there, Ams!”

Amay exhaled, frustration seeping through him. “I don’t know man. If they’re up to something, then they’ve covered their tracks well. All we know for sure is that Varun Gokhale was an abusive narcissist who physically, mentally and emotionally destroyed his wife.”

“I don’t know about that,” Virat murmured. “Varun abused her but I’m pretty sure the actual destroying was done by you.”

Now you could hear a pin drop in the silence that descended around them.

“To give someone hope in a hopeless situation and then take it away,” Virat continued. “That’s a dick move of epic proportions.”

“I didn’t-‘

Amay cut himself off as emotion choked him. Virat waited patiently for him to find his words.

“I can’t,” he said finally. “I just can’t.”

“Why?” Virat sounded curious more than angry or disappointed. “I don’t remember a time in our lives when you haven’t been in love with Dhrithi Sahay. And now, when you actually have a shot at a future with her, you can’t? Make it make sense, brain trust.”

“I had a shot with her back then too,” Amay grumbled.

Virat laughed, a bright, boisterous sound that had even Amay smiling a little. “I don’t know what you had back then, my friend, but I can confidently tell you that you did not have game. None of us did.”

“I had a shot with her,” Amay insisted, regressing to his inner ten year old. “She held my hand in Chemistry class and passed notes under the table with me in Kausar Sir’s class.”

Virat snorted. “Solid move, man. I bet you’re still riding that endorphin high.”

“I kissed her in the gardening patch!”

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