* * *
Alliyah and Anitha sat nervously on the couch, disregarding their books entirely. They stared at the clock in complete rapture, watching as the time passed agonizingly slow.
Alliyah shifted in her seat as if preparing herself for the inevitable. The second she heard the familiar 'creak' sound outside the apartment door, she jumped to her feet and rushed to unlock the door.
She swung the door open revealing a surprised Kripa with keys in hand and a confused and startled look on her face.
Kripa quickly recovered and walked into the apartment leaving Alliyah to close the door behind her. Anitha waited patiently on the couch, watching Kripa as she removed her coat and set her things down on the table. Alliyah had remained next to the door in rapt silence, anticipating Kripa's inevitable outburst.
"So?" Anitha asked, unable to maintain the silence any longer. Alliyah sent her a look of warning and Anitha shrugged it off.
Kripa paused where she stood. She had hoped to act as if nothing had happened and go to bed as soon as she got home but realized that plan was lost when she found Alliyah and Anitha waiting for her return.
She sighed and turned around to face her two friends. "Well, it's over."
"What happened?" Alliyah said, grabbing a pillow and curling up on the couch.
"I don't see how I could have been so blind. It was incredibly obvious, now that I look back at it. I'm so stupid – how could I have not known?" Kripa said to herself more than to her friends who gazed at her with looks of pity.
"What do you mean, Kripa?" Anitha said in an attempt to draw the information out of Kripa.
Kripa looked at Anitha and laughed. "It was Angad Khanna. This entire time – him!" She continued to laugh bitterly while shaking her head.
Anitha and Alliyah shared a look of worry before rising and walking to Kripa. They led her to the couch and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
"Kripa, don't be upset, but we both knew. We only figured it out when you got your last letter and decided it was best for him to tell you than you hearing it from us," Anitha said carefully, unsure of how Kripa would react.
Kripa simply nodded with a look of understanding on her face. Alliyah took this as encouragement to ask more questions about the night.
"So what happened, Kripa? Are you going to be all right? What did he say?"
"He didn't say anything. Not a single word. Not that I would have let him, though."
"Are you going to talk to him about it?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"He deceived me - that's all I needed to know. I don't want to see him or talk to him ever again," Kripa said with a tone of finality.
"Kripa, you don't mean that. It must have been really hard for him to tell you," Alliyah said.
"Hard for him? Hard for him! I fell for it – for him. He strung me along like a puppet and here I was thinking I had found the man of my dreams and he was only playing me for a fool!" Kripa said, her voice rising in anger.
"What if he wasn't using you? What if he really does care about you?" Anitha suggested.
"If you cared about someone, you wouldn't lie to them like that. I don't think he knows how to care for someone," Kripa said bitterly.
"You don't mean that. You know him better than anyone, Kripa. Surely you don't believe that."
"I don't think I knew him at all." Kripa stood, dropped the blanket from her shoulders and walked to her room. Anitha and Alliyah could hear the lock click as they stared at the now closed door.
"So what do we do now?" Alliyah asked, turning to Anitha.
"I don't know," she replied. "I don't think there's anything we can do."
Alliyah sighed and picked up the book she had been reading. Anitha rubbed her temples as she thought of solutions for Kripa's predicament. She could not think of anything and hoped that Angad would do something to make up for his transgressions.
* * *
"M-master Angad! W-we weren't expecting you," a surprised maid cried as he opened the large mahogany doors that led to the foyer of the Khanna Mansion. The master of the house had not been home in over two years.
Angad did not respond as he strode determinedly through the foyer to an adjoining room. He walked straight to a magnificent fireplace and reached for a small jar upon the mantle.
He removed a key and then took out some cash from a hidden vault in that same room. Angad then caught a plane that would take him to the South of France. "The Bitter End," he said, as he got into a taxi in France a few hours later.
Angad thought about the irony of 'The Bitter End' and how appropriate it was for his mother and for himself. Since his father's death, his mother had let herself go - in the simplest of terms. She spent her days lounging around her villa in her lingerie and she spent her nights drinking herself into oblivion.
A few moments later, he emerged from the front door to the living room of Naina Khanna's resplendent French villa. The only way to Naina's home in the south of France was by means of taxi. She had carefully named her villa 'The Bitter End' in homage of her husband and his demise.
In front of him large open windows gave way to the dark night over the city of Nice and lying casually on a plush velvet sofa wearing a silk robe, sipping a martini, lay his mother.
"Angad, darling, give us a kiss," she said, rising to give her son a kiss on the cheek.
"Mother," he replied after kissing her cheek.
"Come, you must have a drink. Sit over there, I'll make it," she drawled, pointing casually to the sofa she had just occupied. Angad sat rigidly whilst his mother made him a glass of scotch.
"You know me so well," he replied icily, bringing the scotch to his lips.
"No, I know alcohol well," she replied, smiling at her son. She withdrew a small silver case from her robe and removed a cigarette and held it casually between her fingers.
Angad stood immediately took out a lighter from his pocket and lit her cigarette. His mother exhaled a small amount of smoke opposite from his face. She offered him one and he declined with a wave of his hand.
"So are you going to tell me why you're here, or do I have to guess?" Naina said, a smirk growing across her face.
"When are you going to quit smoking?" Angad asked with a look of disgust on his face as he watched the cloud of smoke grow about his mother.
"When are you going to stop avoiding my question?" she retorted, deliberately blowing smoke in his direction.
Un-phased, Angad returned to the sofa and sat with more ease. He kicked off his shoes and stretched his legs out onto the glass table in front of him.
"So who is she?" she asked as she placed herself on the opposite side of the sofa from Angad. In one hand she held her martini and her cigarette in the other.
"Why would you assume I am here on account of a girl?" he replied, eyeing his mother's martini, knowing this was only one of many from the evening.
"Let's see, the last time you were here was over two years ago and you were in a right state if I remember correctly," she noted as she smothered the cigarette in one of the many trays strategically placed throughout the room. "A right state about a girl from school."
Angad looked at his mother in surprise. Despite his unorthodox relationship with his mother, he still gave her the respect and credit she was due. Although she had not been the conventional mom, she still knew and understood her son like no other.
"Oh," she said softly, reveling in her correct assumption. "It is about a girl. The same girl?"
"The same," he confessed.
"What did you do?"
"What do you mean, 'what did I do?'" he asked defensively.
"Obviously something is not right, as you would not be here unless you felt as if you had no where else to go. So what did you do? And don't you sit there and brood like you used to. You're a grown man, you need to own up to what you have done and make it right."
"I'm not sure how to make it right."
"Well how did you make it wrong?"
Angad hesitated to tell his mother what had happened. She was right in the fact that he only showed up at his mother's villa when he felt as if he had nowhere else to go. He recalled that his last visit was the same day he had decided to commit suicide and had seen Kripa on the grounds of their school. He scowled as his mind remembered her.
"Angad, that scowl is not very becoming of you. Now be a good boy and tell mummy everything," Naina said as she refilled her martini.
Angad swished his glass of unfinished scotch in his hand. He downed the remaining contents and gave his mother an account of his recent endeavors. He conveniently refrained from revealing Kripa's identity during his tale but gave otherwise an accurate detailing of what happened.
"You made this poor girl fall in love with you twice?" Naina chuckled. "Darling, I know you're good but I didn't think you were that good."
"If I were that good I would have managed to keep her, wouldn't I have?" he replied bitterly.
"She's smarter than that, obviously - and she's better for it. I didn't teach you to treat women like that, Angad," she said sternly.
"No, but Father certainly did." Angad glared at the empty glass in his hand. Within moments amber liquid filled the glass yet again and Angad brought it to his lips.
"Are you going to conveniently keep her identity from me as you did last time?" his mother asked as she watched her only son indulge in her favorite pastime – drowning your sorrows in drink. She laughed inside as she realized the apple did not fall far from the tree.
"Most likely."
"Shall I venture a guess then? Let's see – not that Tina is it? No, no she's married now. What about Ria? No? That's right, she ran off to the states after the war. Hmm . . . What about Neha? No – too good for you."
"Kripa Sharma," he spat, annoyed at his mother's persistence.
"Not Prithvi's little friend? The bright girl, recently on the cover of every magazine published? Wasn't she at the top of your class? Hmm . . . also too good for you."
"What?" Angad snapped.
Naina smirked. She enjoyed watching her son discover his emotions. She had spent too many years silently watching as her husband corrupted and brainwashed her son into practically believing having emotions other than hate and anger was a sign of weakness. Now, she took every opportunity to show her son that all emotions are a necessary part of being human.
She sighed at his continued resistance.
"From what you've told me, this girl has single handedly destroyed all the walls you so carefully built around your heart. She accepted you for everything you are and aren't. And you repay her by breaking her heart. You owe it to her to make things right."
"And how might I accomplish that?"
"It's going to take more than a charming smile and a wink to do it. You'll have to work for it, earn it."
"Easier said than done."
"Is your ego so fragile that you can't let your pride fall this once?"
"I've already let it fall! She rejected me!" he huffed, running his hand through his hair.
"Stop that, you're not a little boy," Naina chided.
Angad dropped his hand and looked at his mother. He looked into her sharp brown eyes and noticed a faint loving glow.
"You're going to give her a few days to cool off. During this time you are going to think of ways to make it up to her. She deserves better than you so you better make yourself something worth having."
"Careful, you're sounding like a mother," Angad smirked.
"Heaven forbid," Naina laughed.
"What if she doesn't take me back?" he asked a look of sincere worry upon his face.
"She won't," Naina confessed. She held up her hand to stop Angad from commenting. "At first she won't. She's going to wait until you prove that you're willing to do anything to get her back."
"It's not fair for Kripa, giving away her strategy. I'm going to be too prepared."
"Oh trust me, darling, you haven't the slightest notion of the power this woman still holds."
"Then why are you telling me if it won't help?"
"Because I like your face," she said, reaching over and patting him on his cheek. She rose and sauntered towards the stairs leading to her room. "Do get some sleep, dear."
"I'll sleep in death," he mumbled to himself. He refilled his glass and sat in the shadows of the room as the candle light about him began to fade.
* * *
I will not be able to continue till Thursday. I might be able to continue on Wednesday not sure. BUT i deff. will not be able to continue tommorrow! Sorry that you guys will have to wait, and i extended Angad's makeover. it is still yet to come. In the meantime learn about the new Naina 😆 😆
-natasha
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