Birds of a Feather Completed G

Chapter 26: Low-Key

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Chapter Twenty-Six

Low-Key

Khushi dragged her feet across the lobby of her apartment building, looking forward to a good night’s sleep. She had just finished a twelve-hour review session with Ved and some of her other classmates in preparation for her intern exam scheduled for the very next day. While she definitely felt confident about her performance tomorrow, she also felt nervous. What would keep her mind occupied once she was done with her exam?

One of the few things Khushi prized about herself, was her ability to handle a crisis. It was what had gotten her through twenty-five years of her father’s regime, and it was what helped her now, when it had been more than ten days since Arnav left for London, and he neither called nor left a message about his whereabouts. For reasons best known to him, he was delaying his return.

Khushi couldn’t care less. Or so she told herself.

After Lavanya’s sudden visit last week, she had renewed her promise to not get involved in the internal dynamics of the Raizada family. If they all knew her marriage was a sham, then why bother holding up a pretense anymore? She would rather save her energy for the hospital, which housed real people with real problems and most importantly needed her, not her ancestry.

It was that newfound resolution that had pushed all semblances of Arnav out of her thought these past few days. If he wanted to space from her, then so be it.

Yawning to herself, Khushi entered the darkened penthouse and unmindfully went about her works. She had just sat down, serving herself dinner, made freshly by Lata =another problem she still didn’t have a solution for– when she froze, staring at the den. The lights were turned on.

He was back.

Leaving her plate of food untouched, Khushi hesitantly crept to the open doorway, wondering if she really did want to see him. Her doubts vanished, however, when she finally managed to get a glimpse of him. Absorbed in a file, Arnav was seated at his desk, still in his work clothes. The suitcases lined up beside the door told her that he had arrived only a few minutes ago.

Khushi didn’t know how long she stood there watching him. She yearned to just walk inside and envelope him in a hug, and at the same time, she felt like turning around and walking away to the living room. Why did she want to stay with a man who had married her for money?

Without a warning, Arnav suddenly glanced up, catching her leaning on the door. His eyes widened subtly in surprise.

“Hey…” was all he said.

Khushi didn’t answer. What could she say?

“How was work?” he continued cautiously. “All set for your exam tomorrow?”

She just blinked.

“Are you nervous? You look like you haven’t slept in days… if you are freaking out about the exam, then don’t bother. You can always just take it next year if you are not feeling confident. I will talk to Awasti personally-”

“You didn’t send me a message,” Khushi finally said, her eyes not betraying the anguish she underwent in the last ten days.

Arnav sighed, and closed the file he was reviewing. “I was busy-”

“Too busy to even tell me that you landed safely?” she asked. “Too busy to tell me that you were extending your trip?”

He stood up from his chair. “The London office was a mess, I don’t know why nobody ever bothered to sort it out before. I had to stay for the extra-”

“I am not asking why you stayed there Arnav, I am asking you why you didn’t tell me about it.”

For that he had no answer.

But Khushi understood everything anyway: she wasn’t important enough to be informed. So all she said was, “I see.”

Then turning away from him, she was about to go back to the living room, when she heard him speak:

“So you are still angry then.”

She paused, but didn’t face him.

“I thought you wanted to be alone,” he said softly. “Especially since our discussion that night didn’t end very well… Plus, you had your intern exam coming up, I figured you wanted to concentrate on that.”

She was outraged. So, it was all her fault now?

“But Lavu said you had some questions for me. What do you want to know?”

Khushi closed her eyes and took a deep breath, wishing for all the calm in the world to soothe the storm raging inside her. She wanted to shout at him, scream out her lungs. She wanted to ask him how stupid he was to think she wanted to be left alone, how ignorant to think she would not care about his safety, how inconsiderate to not know after so many months of living with her what she was? Most of all, she wanted to ask him why he had chosen to marry her only to reject her afterwards? Was she not fit to even be given a chance as his wife?

But she did none of that. Donning the expressionless face she so often used with her father, she turned to face Arnav once again.

“Nothing,” she said quietly. “I got my answers.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them.”

Arnav watched her carefully, before saying, “So are we good then?”

She snorted. Were they ever good? “Sure, if you say so.”

“If you are going to be passive aggressive about this, then-”

“Then what?”

“Khushi, I am sorry for not messaging you-”

“No, you are not.”

“You don’t know that-”

“You don’t want me to be passive aggressive, then fine I won’t be. I will be upfront instead – you are not sorry about not leaving me a message. You are not sorry about not thinking about me when you realized you had to extend your trip. You are not sorry about conveniently blaming everything on my exam just to avoid getting into this confrontation. You are not sorry.”

Arnav pressed his lips, but didn’t refute anything, a million conflicted emotions dancing in his eyes.

“And that’s okay,” Khushi said, still very composed. “We don’t owe each other anything. We never tell each other where we go in a day or what we do, so it’s unfair for me to demand an explanation now. It’s your life, do whatever pleases you.”

A few minutes passed before Arnav could finally process everything she said. Then clearing his throat, he said, “Do you want to know where I go in a day or what I do?”

Khushi bit her lip. “Yes.”

He nodded. “Okay, I will tell you from now. All you had to do was ask, or send me message… I didn’t leave the planet.”

Khushi found that a little condescending but ignored it. It was none of her business what he thought about her.

“So should I even ask what you and Lavu talked about?” Arnav queried. “Or will you continue to be upfront and just tell me?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Khushi-”

“I spoke to your sister as my friend, so it’s honestly none of your business what we talked about.”

He smirked. “And how do I know you weren’t gossiping about me?”

“We were gossiping about you, which is why I am not going to tell you. If you want, you can badger Lavanya and then we will know who she is more: your sister or my friend.”

“You aren’t going to forgive me anytime soon are you?” he asked, his face joking, but his eyes very serious.

“Probably not. But that shouldn’t matter to you.”

Then turning away, Khushi went back to the kitchen to reclaim her dinner. He followed her, sitting down at the table and watching her eat.

“I saw that you are sleeping on the bed,” he said casually. “What changed your mind?”

“Is Lata spying for you now?”

“Not at all. The sheets weren’t made when I came.”

“Maybe Lata forgot to make your bed.”

“Lata never makes my bed. She is not supposed to go into my room, not even for cleaning.”

Khushi calmly continued eating, undecided about how to answer.

“So,” he pushed. “What changed your mind?”

“I thought it was my bed too?” she finally said.

“It is. I just want to know what else happened while I was gone.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have been gone for so long.”

“That sounds like you low-key missed me.”

“Did you?”

Arnav simply gazed at her, as though trying to decipher something from her poker face. Feigning ignorance to his looks, Khushi calmly finished her dinner and stood up to call it a night. She had almost made it to the bedroom when she heard his voice carry across the room, loud and clear:

“I missed you Khushi. And it wasn’t low-key.”

She paused for a milli-second, unable to believe that she really did hear him confess so blatantly, before walking into the bedroom and curling up under the sheets, hiding the wide smile on her face. She heard him quietly walk into the room a few minutes later, change into his night clothes and lie down on the bed beside her.

It wasn’t that she forgave him. How could she when he didn’t even know what he did wrong, forget being sorry about it. She knew their life was not simple. A million wrong decisions led to their situation now and holding him accountable for all those decisions was probably stupid on her part, given that even a million right decisions may not be able to reverse it.

But none of that mattered, because at that moment, all Khushi cared about was that he had missed her. And though it may not be as much as she missed him, it definitely wasn’t low-key.

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