Page 89 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
With another bang, the hinges gave away, and Vir finally burst in through the door. His horrified gaze scanned hers in the mirror as he stood behind her, panting.
She looked away.
Vir followed her back into the room with slow, hesitant footsteps, and she didn’t glance up to see if he was still staring at her, because he probably was. Her arms wrapped around herself as she took a seat at the edge of the bed.
There was a brief sound of water being poured into a glass before it appeared in front of her. She took it from Vir’s trembling hand while guilt tore her insides to shreds. She drank every drop, even though she felt like she might barf.
What had she done to him… her poor, soft-hearted Vir…
She should’ve never gotten close to him. It was never going to end well for either of them. She’d known that from the start. She should’ve kept her distance.
Maybe then she wouldn’t have known his love, and he wouldn’t have known her shadows. She could’ve lived with that, and he would’ve been much better for it, too.
With a resigned sigh, Nori finally turned to face Vir and found his gaze already fixed on her. The pair of the most beautiful, intense, magnetic eyes she’d ever seen were swollen and rimmed red—with grief that wasn’t his to carry. All because of her.
The realization struck her like a ringing slap.
She couldn’t have been more wrong. Vir wasn’t going to leave. He’d let her wreck him completely before he’d even think of abandoning her. Because, for whatever unfathomable reason, he did love her.
And that was exactly whyshehad to be the one to leave.
Because nothing could ever justify the suffering she kept putting him through.Nothing.
She put the empty glass away before taking Vir’s hands in hers. The way they were still trembling made her hate herself even more.
His breath hitched at her touch as she pulled him to her. And bit by bit, as his stiff body thawed, the man she loved shattered to pieces in her arms. Pieces she knew she could never put back together again.
Vir’s arms tightened around her as her fingers ran through his hair, smoothing, comforting. The way he always did to hers.
He was mumbling into her collarbone between sobs. Apologies. More apologies. Always apologizing for things that weren’t his fault.
Nori let herself breathe him in for the last time. She vowed as she filled her lungs to the brim; she was never going to watch him suffer again.
Not because of her.
Twenty Three
The Black SUV of Doom
April 2019:
National University of Science, New Delhi
Vir
Nori carried an odd sense ofresignation with her all morning and through their three-hour flight from Pondicherry to Delhi.
Vir was desperate to hear her voice. But she refused to speak to him. Or even look in his direction. Any attempts to get her to talk were met with a polite nod or a simple shake of her head. Nothing more and nothing less.
And when she did finally speak—not to Vir, but with the cab driver taking them through the university campus—the flat monotone of her sentences left a certain restlessness in the pit of his stomach. Soon, they were at the research center, passing by groups of unsuspecting students as they made their way through the faculty building.
“Vir, a word please,” Nori said, stopping abruptly in front of a familiar-looking door at the end of the corridor. Her blank expression didn’t match the chaos brewing inside her in the slightest. “In here.”
The restlessness in Vir’s stomach grew worse as he followed her inside. It was the laundry room they’d passed through while sneaking out of the building nearly half a year ago.
Nori shut the door before glancing around the room to make sure they didn’t have company. Her gaze lingered briefly on a lone dryer in the corner and some remote part in Vir’s mind recalled stealing sweatshirts from it ages ago.
“I’m heading back to Calgary once I wrap up here,” Nori said in the same flat monotone she’d used in the cab. “I’d prefer we keep any future correspondence regarding your treatment through the research center only.”
