Previously On...
Riddhima talks to Tamanna. Tamanna apologizes to Armaan. Myra comes home. Armaan reveals that he is Reve.
Track 47 - Don't Wait, Dashboard Confessional
Armaan was Reve. Armaan was Reve. Armaan was Reve. No matter how many times Riddhima repeated it in her head, it still felt surreal. What were the chances that the love of your life was the world's biggest singing sensation? What was the possibility that you loved that singer, embarrassingly, a lot?
It shouldn't have been such a shock, though. Riddhima had always felt a strange connection to Reve and his music. How many times had she felt that he was singing to her? How many times had his songs reminded her of Armaan and their relationship? More times than she could count. Now, at least she knew why she’d felt that way.
But… how was she supposed to react to it? Other than being completely shocked, she hadn’t known what to say, to do. So, she’d sat there, gobsmacked as Armaan’s words had sent everyone into a frenzy. She watched as all her friends squealed disbelievingly and asked him a million questions that he patiently answered. She didn’t say a word while all of them gave Armaan big hugs and praised him. She just looked on as they all celebrated without her, a stranger amongst family.
It wasn’t that she was ecstatic or excited… because of course she was. But she didn’t know how to voice out her appreciation or her excitement. In another life, she would’ve jumped up and been the first one to give Armaan the biggest hug, to cling to his side while her other friends clawed to be a part of it all. She would have asked Armaan so many questions he’d have gone mad. If they’d been together… she’d have been the proudest at this revelation.
But, she suddenly realized… if they’d been together, she’d have already known about it from the second he decided to do it, and she’d have been at his side through everything. She’d have been there through the struggle, through the misgivings, the bad days. Through everything. And then, the pride that would shine in her eyes would be worthy of being there.
And then, unbidden, a thought crossed her mind. If they’d been together… would Reve even exist? She didn’t think so. The thought made her sad, and guilty. Because she’d rather have Armaan in her life than him being Reve. She was being so very selfish, but it was what it was. She would give a million Reves for her Armaan. Which was wrong because Armaan was incomplete without Reve. She had never seen Armaan as content as she’d seen him in the past couple weeks. Of course, part of it had to be because of Reve.
She was a huge fan of his work. So, of course, she knew how much Reve loved making music, how it was his passion, how it had been his dream since he was a child. Who he was might have been a mystery, but he’d never shied away from admitting how much he loved what he did. He had a whole blog dedicated to telling people how much he loved music. And she’d read every post he’d made about a hundred times. At least.
Shaking her head, she tried to get rid of the million thoughts racing through her head all at once. They were making her head ache. She rubbed her head furiously, trying to calm herself down, to stop thinking of all the what ifs, but it wasn’t helping. Nothing was helping.
“Riddhima…” she looked up at someone calling her name and saw Sid standing in front of her. Definitely not what she needed right now. She hadn’t spoken to Sid since that day when she’d confronted him about hiding Nikki’s letters, and she didn’t want to either. She had never imagined that he’d stoop so low, ever. But the joke was on her, wasn’t it? He’d done far worse things and she’d forgiven him for everything. Hiding someone’s mail was nothing when he could slither into bed with an unsuspecting girl while she slept and click pictures with her. None at all. It was her fault for thinking that maybe Sid had changed. But the truth was, he hadn’t. And that hurt. This man… who she thought of as a friend, who she’d given a place in her life after all the things he’d put her through, had betrayed her, and her friend so badly, and he didn’t even seem to regret it.
“Can we talk?” He asked timidly.
“Sid, please leave me alone. I already told you that I don’t want to talk to you ever again,” she replied.
“Riddhima, please,” he begged. “Just once. After that… if you don’t want to, I won’t disturb you. I promise.”
Riddhima sighed. “Just the once?”
“Yes,” he answered. “Just once.”
“Fine,” she relented. “What?”
Sid was taken aback for a second because he didn’t think she’d actually agree. But, she had and he couldn’t let go of this chance to make things right.
“Riddhima… look… what happened… shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel really bad about everything. What I did was wrong. I had no right to do that. It was stupid and selfish. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Sid. It’s Nikki who you should be saying all this to,” she replied.
“I will,” he immediately said. “But I know it hurt you, too. And I apologize for that.”
“Oh! So you’re sorry what you did hurt me. But you’re not sorry you did it?” She questioned.
“That’s not what I said!” He exclaimed.
“It’s exactly what you said,” Riddhima told him.
“It’s not what I meant,” he tried.
“Then what did you mean?” She asked.
“I just… I….” He fumbled, not knowing what to say.
“What? What did you mean?” Riddhima persisted.
“Can’t you just accept my apology so that we can move forward? Why do I need to do this?” He asked.
Riddhima scoffed. “Do you even hear yourself right now? After everything… I think you have to explain yourself, don’t you, Sid? And you don’t have to behave as if you’re doing me some big favour by apologizing. I did not ask for it, I don’t want it, and I’m completely fine living my life without it. You sought me out, you wanted to talk, you wanted to apologize. So, really, I’m the one doing the favour here, not you.”
Sid didn’t know what to say. Riddhima had never been this cold with him since the initial days when he’d first met her. He didn’t know how to handle her fire. The Riddhima he knew was not like this. She was mostly meek and demure. She didn’t talk much. She definitely hadn’t behaved with him like this for years now.
Fed up of his silence, Riddhima spoke again. “Sid… just leave. I think this conversation is over.”
“It’s not!” He burst out. “Not yet! You have to forgive me, Riddhima, please!”
“I don’t have to give you anything, Sid. Especially not when you’re demanding my acceptance as if it’s your right!” She replied.
“Riddhima… we’ve been such good friends for 6 years now. Don’t you think after everything, I at least deserve this?” He asked softly. “One stupid mistake that I made because I was jealous… and it’ll be the end of everything?”
And… really, what he was saying was right! They’d been through so much together. He was one of her closest friends. And yes… he had betrayed her trust, and broken Nikki’s heart, but it was just a mistake he’d made in the heat of the moment. He regretted it. Wasn’t that enough?
“It wasn’t just a stupid mistake, Sid. It was planned and deliberate. It wasn’t just one letter that you hid, was it? There were a lot… Nikki told me that Armaan wrote at least 8 letters. And you hid them all. You would have continued to hide it forever had Nikki not found out about it from Armaan. That’s not a mistake. That’s a choice. You chose to keep something so big from all of us, from Nikki. Truth is… you only regret getting caught, not what you did,” Riddhima replied.
“So what if that’s all? I regret it. And I’m apologizing! Please,” Sid pleaded.
“You know what, Sid… I’ve forgiven a lot of things when it comes to you. I forgave you for the night in my room, I forgave you for that night in the cottage, I forgave you for all the things you said and did once we were married.
You know why I did that? It was because you targeted me. But now… this time… you targeted Nikki, and you broke her heart and her trust. I don’t take kindly to people hurting the people I love… I think you know that pretty well. So, yes… I can choose to not forgive you if I want to.
And… Anyway… I don’t have any forgiveness left in me to give. Especially not to you. You already made sure of that 7 years ago,” she said.
She turned away to leave, but stopped short at a knock on the door. She was surprised to find Armaan there, looking between the two of them, trying to work out what was going on. She didn’t know how much he’d heard, but she prayed it wasn’t much. Nikki hadn’t told him about the letters yet, and he had absolutely no idea about the truth of her and Sid’s marriage. She couldn’t risk him finding out about it just yet.
“Armaan…” she murmured. “What are you doing here?”
“Umm… I…” He cleared his throat, trying to get words to come out of his mouth. “I… wanted to talk to you.”
Armaan should have known, and yet, he’d been astonished when Rahul told him that it was Riddhima who was somehow responsible for his patch up with Tamanna and her starting to call them Dada & Bhaiya respectively.
The hullabaloo surrounding his revelation (he loved that pun, he really did) had lasted an entire day and there had been lots of oh my god, what the f*ck, sh*t really and such other terms thrown around the house. Atul had downright fainted. But, things were calmer now and everyone was coming around the fact that the Armaan Mallik they knew was actually an international singing sensation.
Amidst all of that, Rahul had refrained from telling Armaan about Riddhima, but he had the very next day. And here, Armaan sat, not really knowing what to make of it. It seemed that lately, he didn’t know anything when it came to Riddhima. Everything was a walking contradiction with that woman. She’d hurt him so much by thinking that he’d give her bangles to Tamanna, but then she’d somehow made Tamanna see how much he loved her. Seeing Billy after so long had hurt him, and she’d been the one to call the man there, but she’d also done it because she thought it would make Armaan to be reunited with his father after so long.
He didn’t know if he should be absolutely ecstatic that she was going out of her way to do things for him, or be mad at her for messing them up. But then, it was always the thought that counted, and he could see that her heart was in the right place and all she wanted was to do something nice for him.
So, here he was. Wanting to thank her for whatever it was that she did that made Tamanna see things differently. He hadn’t expected to interrupt whatever argument she was having with Sid. But he’d heard her say she couldn’t find it in herself to forgive him anymore and had decided he didn’t want to know. There was just too much history there and if he got involved in Sid & Riddhima’s relationship again, it would only end badly for him. So, it was better that he stayed away. Which is why he had knocked on the door, letting them know they were not alone anymore.
“Of course,” Riddhima said. “Come on in. We can talk. Sid was leaving anyway.”
Sid tried to say something, but then thought better of it and left the two of them alone. Armaan stared after his retreating form for a couple minutes, lost in thought before Riddhima snapped her fingers, bringing him back.
"All okay?" She asked him. Armaan managed a small smile at her question.
"So… What did you want to talk about?" She probed further.
"Uh… Rahul told me… That you'd… You spoke to Tamanna?" He questioned.
Riddhima looked away, not knowing what to say. Would he think she was interfering in things that weren't her business? Would he be mad? Unable to meet his eye, she mumbled an affirmative.
"Riddhima," he said. "It's okay. Come on. Look up! I don't bite, you know," he joked.
She looked up at his words and shrugged. "I did," she said. "You seemed pretty torn up after the party and after what I'd just done… I wanted to make it up to you."
"Thank you," he replied fervently. "I can't even tell you how much it means to me."
"You don't have to," she said. "I know. Umar Bhai… and then Tamanna… You don't have to explain anything. I know how important she is, Armaan. I'm just sorry I didn't know before."
It was Armaan's turn to shrug. Yes, he was still hurt by her assumptions, but she'd talked to Tamanna and made things better. How was he supposed to stay mad after that?
"You know… ever since you got here… Things have been crazy. And I think we've both done things that have hurt the other, mostly unintentionally. That wasn't how I wanted this friendship to begin. So… How about we start all over again?" He asked.
"You want a do over for our do over?" Riddhima replied, shocked.
"Yeah… I guess that's what I want," he answered. "I mean, you can't deny that things have been difficult. I said stuff, you did stuff. It was a huge mess, frankly. We'd decided to be friends and really… is this the friendship we want?"
"Armaan, I agree that we've both done stupid, hurtful things in the past few weeks… But none of it has been intentional, like you said. They were all mistakes, misunderstandings. And… Which relationship doesn't have those? Yes, I'd rather not have those… But it is what it is. And I don't think we need to start over again. We're pretty good, don't you think?" She asked him.
"You think so?" He questioned.
She nodded. "I know so."
"Well… If you insist. But… I think we need to institute a new rule where we try to be more honest and open in our communication so that we don't end up misunderstanding each other again," Armaan announced.
The words were at the tip of her tongue. Sid and I are not together. 6 words. It would have been so easy to just blurt them out. To be honest and open with Armaan. To tell him the truth. To tell him everything that she'd been hiding for the past few weeks.
She didn't know why she didn't. She honestly couldn't think of a reason of hiding it from him anymore now that she knew he wasn't dating Tamanna, and yet, when she opened her mouth… the words that came out were not about her divorce. No. The words that came out were something else entirely, and Riddhima would wonder till the end of her days why she hadn't used that opportunity to tell him everything.
Later, she'd realize it was because she was afraid that he'd reject her anyway, girlfriend or no girlfriend, but in that moment, Riddhima was still oblivious and shocked when she asked him, "Why didn't you tell us about Reve sooner?"
"Okay… So, I guess we're starting with the honesty and openness, huh?" Armaan joked.
"Why?" She repeated.
"It wasn't that I didn't want to tell you, Riddhima. It's just that I had to convince my business partner first. Peyton… You remember her, right? She's my manager and I had to make her understand that I knew what I was doing and it would be okay to tell you. It took me some time to do that. And then she put forth the condition that I couldn't tell anyone till I'd made them sign an NDA, so there was that. And then all the drama started happening. First Shilpa, then Tamanna, and then Billy, and then Rahul & Muskaan, and frankly… It feels like we haven't even had time to breathe in the few weeks that you guys have been here. So I was waiting for things to settle down a little before dropping that bomb on you," Armaan explained.
"I'm glad you told us," Riddhima said. "It's a very big thing to reveal, Armaan. I'm glad you trust me enough with such a huge secret."
"I trust all of you with my life, Riddhima. Of course I told you," he replied. "How could I not?"
"Why, though? Why do you need all this? Why can't you just be Armaan?" She questioned.
"That's easy. I didn't want the world scrutinizing me for breathing. It was always just about the music, Riddhima. I didn't want any of the other baggage that came attached with this. Being famous, the cameras, the paparazzi, the tabloids. I didn't want any of that. And this seemed like a good solution, so I took it," he told her.
"I feel like such a fool," she said. "I never knew you were so passionate about music."
"It's not your fault, Riddhima," Armaan replied. "Music… it's not been easy for me. You know… Bua Maa was my Guru. It was her dream that I become a singer. It was mine too. But, after she passed away… I just couldn't connect to music the same way. And then Jaanhavi left and that was the end. I didn't make music for almost 7 years after that… Till I saw her at Rahul's dining table. And once I started, I wasn't able to stop."
"Why didn't you ever share all this with us, Armaan? With me? Shalini Aunty, Jaanhavi, even your music. You never told anyone about it," Riddhima said, heartbroken. She so desperately wished she'd known. Armaan must've needed someone to support him so badly back then. And he had nobody. If she would've known, she'd have been there for him.
"It hurt just to think about everything," Armaan replied honestly. He owed her that. At least where this was concerned. "Trust me, I thought of telling you so many times but just the mere thought of reliving those memories again made me decide against it."
Riddhima nodded in understanding. "I get it. Some memories are just too painful to talk about, to even think about. We'd rather not talk about them, no matter what."
She remembered how she'd done the same for Sid. How she hadn't ever spoken about how much it hurt her that he'd clicked those pictures, that he'd ill treated and abused her for months in the beginning of their marriage, that he'd tried to remove Armaan's memories from her life. She'd never uttered a single word of any of it in front of anyone. Ever. The people who'd been around to see it all unfold knew, of course. But all these years and Riddhima hadn't even told her sister the truth of her marriage. Because she didn't want to relive those haunting memories again.
"This is a little silly," she said, desperately wanting to change the topic. To remove the memory of seeing Sid's face buried in her neck and his arms around her body, sleeping in the same bed. "But… Was it very awkward when I fangirled about Reve so much during all our drives?"
Armaan chuckled at that, thankful for the lighter topic. "It was a little, but then I got over it. It's not like it's never happened before, you know. So many people in my life fangirl about Reve in front of me. It's nothing."
"Yes, but I think I came across as borderline creepy. For that I apologize," she told him.
"Ahhh, it's okay! I'm slowly getting used to it. It didn't used to be so bad before. But then Amnesia skyrocketed out of nowhere, and things changed overnight!" Armaan told her, referring to the single he'd released that had made him a household name.
"I was a fan way before Amnesia," Riddhima told him proudly. "I've been once since Love You Like The Movies. It's definitely one of your cutest."
"Thank you," he replied sincerely. "It means a lot, coming from you." He didn't think he needed to tell her that that song was about her.
Riddhima smiled. Armaan smiled back. For a second, everything stopped. It was just them. Nothing else. No one else.
"Maani!!" Someone called from a distance, breaking their moment. Armaan shook his head and immediately got up from the bed.
"I should…" He trailed off, gesturing to the voice.
"Yeah," she agreed.
"Thank you, Riddhima. Really. It means everything to me that you spoke to Tamanna for me," he said once again.
"Armaan! Stop it. Like I said, it's the least I could do," she replied.
With one last smile, Armaan walked out of the room. Riddhima smiled as she watched him, happy that things were finally looking up for the two of them.
__________
Hope you liked this one! Lots of AR here to make up for the lack in the previous one. But, the next few chapters won't have much of them as we start gearing up for the reveal! :D
You people have waited almost 50 chapters for it and now it's in the works, so hope you can have a little more patience and then, Armaan will know! :)
(Also, songs that Armaan and Riddhima were talking about - Amnesia by 5 Seconds of Summer. Love You Like The Movies by Anthem Lights)
Love,
Prags
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