I hadn't texted Raul before, my finger always hovered above his number like a soothsayer with a pendulum, trying to prophesize how he would react to my message. Would he come marching to my home and reveal who I was? I knew that Lila's mother wouldn't do that if I didn't pester her for information about Lila and left her alone. Firstly, because her beloved daughter was involved with me and if she dragged me down, I would pull them with me. Secondly, because of our past, she had genuinely liked me before finding out who I was. Thirdly and most importantly, because it was India and people didn't talk about people like me, at least not out in the open.

Whispers would buzz around like mosquitoes and slowly bleed me, but nobody would dare to utter out loud for things that were feared were hushed. As if ignoring it would make it go away on its own. That just made me determined to stay back, make those whispers my own and turn them into screams till fearful people would go deaf with my courage.

My first target was confronting Raul, the archetypal villain of the distance that now separated Lila and me. It didn't take Einstein IQ to figure out who would have played the role of a dirty spy. He was family friends with Lila, they grew up together and I vividly remembered those lemon drop, acidic tears. He would have been scheming all the way home, he definitely would have! Those sharp, eagle eyes were scrutinizing every movement of ours, waiting for one revelation to bring his claws down upon and wrench us apart.

I didn't realize that I was incessantly tapping my feet against the floor of the rickshaw till the driver glanced at me for a fleeting moment. I caught the reflection of my anxious eyes in the rearview mirror. Yet I couldn't stop getting worked up. How could I? I tightened my grip on the black pole next to the meter of the rickshaw, conjuring all the possible scenarios that I would have to deal with. If he decided to parade around the entire country beating the drums about Lila and me, I didn't care. Evanescent memory would soon eradicate itself like an auto time bomb in people's minds and they would get on with the daily trivialities of their lives. After all, we were interested in other people's lives only when we needed to feel better about ourselves. Gossip was self-indulgence at its finest.

If Raul decided to barge into my house and tattle about Lila and me to my parents, I didn't care. I would find a million ways to slander him in return and protect us. Besides, hardly any parent would want to believe something like that about their child, so it wouldn't be difficult to lie to them, aligning with their beliefs and kick Raul out. Suddenly, I wanted him to confront my parents for the sheer pleasure of kicking him out.

All my surroundings had blurred into one, angry mass, so I was surprised when the rickshaw lurched forward on the speedbump and I was pushed out of my fantasies for retaliation. The massive black gates of the society where he lived opened at my arrival and in the thirty rupees rickshaw ride, I passed by the countless Mercedes and BMW's stationed outside the rows of bungalows. I was in the heart of Western Mumbai, yet it didn't feel like this city at all. The rich were quietly hidden from the sweating hustle and bustle of overcrowded streets and apartments where a family of six or eight would share a one-room kitchen.

There were chawls with running gutters right behind this society, but the walls were built so high that nobody could see, only occasionally get a whiff of a piece of thin meat marinated in spices being cooked in one of those dilapidating houses. I wondered if those people on the other side could hear the English speaking children splash water and squeal in their private swimming pools while they quarrelled in lines as to who would get water first from the public water pump. What frustrated me more was that despite haboring this resentment against these upper-class people, I was fascinated by this world they lived in. This was Lila's world too, so closed off from the rest and tucked away in safety and repose. 

When the rickshaw halted outside Raul's bungalow, I fished out the money and stood in front of the two-storey, white structure with plants and creepers hanging from the terrace. I was never invited to his house (neither did I wish to visit it), but once Lila had dragged me here after school. I kept telling her that my mother would kill me if I didn't inform her where I was while she was insistent on playfully shoving me in the pool in my uniform, thinking it would be funny as hell for me to go dripping back home. I had escaped her mischief and lurked uneasily in the backyard as Lila and Raul dipped their feet in the pool, allowing Raul to flirt with her to his heart's content. I felt like deftly catching every drop of water in my fists which he sprinkled at her and punch him squarely with those same fists on his face designed to be hit.

That anger crept on me again and I felt like that awkward and jealous fifteen-year-old girl as I pressed the bell. Once. Twice. The third time I was about to punch it, the door opened and a lanky housekeeper with a kitchen towel thrown over his bony shoulder said in Hindi, "Saab's not at home. Nobody is."

I looked up and there Raul was, his face as shameless as a pimp's, watching me from the window of his room.

"Are you sure?" I challengingly stepped forward, but the housekeeper was quick, he slammed the door shut without any hesitation.

I felt the shame burning on my nose as I rubbed it and looked up again. He was no longer at the window. Finding no other option, I marched towards a large stone near the white pillar, picked it up and hurled it with all my strength. The glass rattled from the force, but it didn't crack and the stone plummeted right on my foot. An excruciating pain shot up my leg and I stood on one foot, holding and soothing the other throbbing foot in my hand. I cried out on top of my lungs, "Fucking coward! I won't leave you till you tell me what you have done to Lila!"

A smugly smiling face flashed at the window before the security guard came running towards me and I had to flee on one foot.

* * *

Middle road. Away from the comfort of home and away from the thrilling newness of a destination. I was stuck there, my thoughts were like a kite, no matter where it went, it was always tied to Lila.

Summer days went by with me languishing on my bed. My parents were busy dealing with the middle road that Pavitra was stuck in, forcing her to meet her husband to sort things out. She would come back home fuming or cribbing, none of those meets ever came to fruition. In fact, the opposite occurred. With each meeting, they took one step closer to filing for a divorce. One step closer to my conforming parents bolting to the mental asylum.

Amidst all this, I was sleeping all day and night, unable to get myself out of bed. Once, I didn't have a bath for three days and I wore the same hand-me-down clothes. I would have continued to live like that till my college started if it wasn't for my dear mother who noticed that my clothes were missing in the laundry while washing. That day broke into a complete hullabaloo, she let out all her worries about Pavitra on me, yelling all sorts of things that I was too exhausted to be hurt. Her shouts felt like background noise as I aimlessly scrolled through Lila's Instagram account for the hundredth time, but to my astonishment, I could see that she had uploaded a story. Just as I was about to click on it with anticipation itching my fingers, the phone disappeared from my hands and crashed hard against the wall.

My father rushed in and gingerly touched my mother who had burst out into tears. "We do so much for them and they can't even listen! I wish they weren't my daughters, neither of them is any good." For the first time in weeks, Pavitra and I looked at each other, it was as if I was staring at my reflection. My father tried to console her, but she turned on him, her frail chin quivering uncontrollably that made us all feel responsible. "It's all your fault! You married your daughter into that crooked family and look what's happening now. He's going to divorce her! After a month of marriage! What will happen to her? Who will marry her now?"

My father muttered incoherently and she began arguing with him, so he led her to their bedroom from where I could hear her helpless shouts and chokes. I clumsily got off my bed, picked up my phone and fortunately, it wasn't broken. With the lump fast forming in my throat, I checked out Lila's story. It was a screen shot of her on a video call with Raul, both of them partially covering their faces and breaking into a smile. There was a GIF of a panda blowing kisses on the screen. I closed my phone and kept it right there on the floor as if I had never touched it, climbing back on the bed and listening to the mournful weeping of my mother.

That night, nobody cooked dinner or ate and as I was about to tumble into a rocky sleep, I felt a light tap on my arm. It was my father who wordlessly left a plate next to my pillow. It had a mango brought from the mango orchards in Tarkarli, one that Lila had chosen and plucked with her own hands. My father had carved the mango intricately so that it resembled a flower with bright, blazing petals. When I was a pernickety child, he used to always slice my food into little, exciting shapes so the newness of it would induce me to eat. That was what I had to do, cherish the fun and exhilarating time that we had spent together and throw away the putrefying part before it would consume me whole.

When life gave you mangoes, you eat them and move on.

* * *

A/N :

End of Part One! Did you like this part? What are your expectations for Part Two? Which characters do you want to see more of?

(P.S- this book is divided into two parts).

There's more plot to this story which will come up in the next part. So far, we have scratched only the surface. Hope you're liking this story and if you are, please vote, comment and share ❤