by Zee Monodee
She needn’t have worried, for Griffin greeted her when she answered.
“Hey, Griff.”
“How are you doing, Neha?”
She tried to make a sound, but only a cough came through.
“Still not out of the woods, are you?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Well, it’s why I’m calling. You can have ’til Thursday off. Don’t worry about it, and get better.”
“Sorry? And what about Logan’s co-anchor?”
He’d said he wouldn’t let her go, so what could this mean?
“Jim and Meg will be anchoring. Logan’s not going to be here.”
“Why?”
“He’s going to India. Seems like his brother’s been hurt, and he had to go check on him.”
“Tyler? Oh, no. Is Logan there? Can I talk to him?”
He hadn’t told her anything.
Why would he? a little voice asked, and she quelled its rational echo.
“He’s already on the plane, Neha,” Griff said in a somewhat strained voice.
Taken aback by his different tone—a colder, detached one—she grabbed the phone harder. “His mobile will be on roaming, won’t it? Maybe I should call him later—”
“I’d advise you not to.”
The finality in Griff’s voice took her aback. Bracing her hand on the counter in front of her, she struggled to regain her balance. “I beg your pardon?”
“Listen, I’m not as thick as everyone thinks I am, Neha.”
What was he getting at?
“I know there’s something between you and Logan, and I also know this something isn’t going too right at the moment.” He stopped, and she hung on to his every word. “Work through your issues before you hurt him even more.”
If he’d punched her in the stomach, it wouldn’t have knocked the wind out of her any stronger. “You think I’ve got issues?”
Griff gave a small laugh. “Logan ain’t got any, Neha. This much, I know. What you see is what you get with him.”
So the blame’s got to be on your side. His unspoken words slammed into her mind.
“I have to go now. Think about it, Neha. Please.”
Then, he cut the call, and she found herself left with all her senses and her brain, heart, and soul reeling from the impact of his words.
Anger soon struck its head from the swirling mist. How dare Griff imply she had issues to get through? As if she lived with warped notions or something. This couldn’t be true, not when she’d yearned for nothing else except doing the right thing.
And what the hell is the bloody right thing?
At a loss for an answer, she forced herself to drop the phone back into its cradle. Grabbing a stool at the counter, she slumped onto it and placed her forearms on the solid wood surface.
Could it be true? Could Griffin be right?
What had Logan told him? Had he painted her as the villain in the story?
No, he wouldn’t do that. She knew him better.
Then how in Heaven’s name had Griffin come to this erroneous conclusion?
Confusion, anger, and irritation openly tore at her inner composure and at her feelings.
Blast it, no; she didn’t have issues!
A knock came at the door, and the sound pulled her out of her heated musings. Looking up, she groaned softly. Lara had just pushed the panel open to stride into the kitchen.
Little Miss Perfect, and now, Little Missus-and-Mum Perfect.
“Goodness, you look like Hell,” her sister said as she came over and settled onto the stool opposite Neha.
Go on, make yourself at home, won’t you? This house should’ve been yours, anyway.
Lara scrunched her beautiful face. “Sweetie, you okay? Shouldn’t you be resting or something? Sorry I couldn’t come see you earlier. Guess Eric must’ve told you I was in Geneva, for yet another conference. God, these get so tedious at times. Couldn’t speak with you on the phone either since you had no voice.”
Would Lara stop babbling? Especially about her ‘exciting’ life in which everything just fell into the right spot with a click of her manicured fingers?
Those same fingers closed on her hand.
“I heard about Rahul. I’m sorry.”
I bet you are. Neha didn’t stop the bitchy remark from sliding home.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Neha, he was your husband, but he was my friend, too.”
At this, she snorted. “Right. Some friend you turned out to be.”
She’d just said something irretrievable, but the words had hovered on the tip of her tongue, on the edge of her consciousness, like burning acid, and she’d had to hurl them out to get rid of the bad feeling.
“I beg your pardon?”
So she’d play the innocent fool, wouldn’t she? You are no airhead, Lara.
“Everyone knows it’s you he wanted to marry, Lara. I’ve always lived in the shadow of what you could’ve been to him.”
Her sister was frowning. “What are you talking about?”
She waved her words off with a hand. “As if you really don’t know. Rahul loved you. He never loved me.”
“Goodness, on what drugs has Dad put you? Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”
The patience in the words grated on her nerves like nails on a blackboard.
Grabbing Lara’s hand, she flung it off the table. “Don’t play dumb! I know what happened the last summer you spent here, before you married Roy. You and he became an item, always together afterward, and then, you ditched him for Roy back in London. Rahul always went on about how much of a mistake you made when you married Roy Reddy.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing her sister pale. So Saint Lara had been hiding something. Neha had known it all along.
“Don’t go there,” Lara said softly.
“And why not? Because you’d have to face an ugly truth about your perfect little existence?”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m tired of people coddling me,” she said. “Tired of people taking me for an idiot, assuming things about me. Like you. You always took me to be a dim-wit—”
“I never—”
“You did!”
Silence settled between them, and Neha reeled. Drat, what had that been about? What had she said? Her mind had been obliterated by a riot of emotions, and she’d let her mouth run off with whatever had come to her tongue.
Afraid now to look at her sister after her uncharacteristic outburst, she had to glance up when Lara sighed. Her gaze encountered the other woman who had her hands up, covering her face.
“Good grief, no,” Lara said, voice humming with something akin to despair.
What had she done? Hesitantly, she touched Lara’s sleeve. Her sister shrugged her hand off, and Neha recoiled into her seat. She deserved that.
“Where’s everyone?” Lara asked, the sound muffled behind her palms.
“Out.”
Lara brought her arms down, and Neha had to lower her gaze at the fury evident on her face. Her features looked taut and drawn, her lips a thin white slash in her unnaturally pale face.
“You want the bloody truth? I’ll give it to you.”
“No,” she said, but quelled the word under the glare she received.
“That summer,” Lara said, “is the worst moment of my entire life. You know why?”
Against herself, Neha shook her head.
“Because I nearly took my own life back then, Neha. That’s why.”
Her first instinct clamoured for her to reach for her sister’s hand, but Lara brushed her off again.
“You never noticed. Mum and Dad never noticed. Diya was a kid. Nobody noticed I barely ate, and the little food I did take in, I threw it back up. Nobody saw how upset and disturbed I had become.”
She didn’t want to hear this, but hear it, she had to. After all, she’d asked for it.
“I got seriously ill, and one day, I started thr
owing up blood. Mum and Dad were both abroad, Diya with them as she’d been so little back then and still clinging to mum all the time. Rahul’s parents and Auntie Zubeida were checking up on the two of us here.”
Neha nodded. Lara was speaking of their next-door neighbours.
“I was seventeen, Neha. There were no adults currently responsible for me when it happened. So guess who took the responsibility?”
Her throat closed up. She’d had it all wrong.
“Rahul’s father signed the papers for my surgery, because I had somehow managed to tear my stomach lining open. And the little escapade you’re so stuck on? That was your husband, and then one of my best friends and the closest I’d ever had to a brother, staying by my bedside at the clinic. He always stuck by my side afterward, too, because he was always the physically closest friend I had. Rahul, Salim, Sameera, and Eric took turns to look after me while I recovered, taking me to see the counsellor every other day.”
Lara spoke of her posse of friends back in those days. And wait a minute ... “Eric? You knew Eric back then?”
“It’s when we first met, yes.” Lara turned hard eyes on her. “So, still think your husband loved me? Or my life has been perfect? That summer, I also lost Eric, through my own fault. I then rushed into marriage with a man totally wrong for me, spent more than a decade being someone I wasn’t to please him, and what did I get in return? Divorce papers, Neha.”
Neha shook her head, at a loss for words. To think of the suffering her sister had gone through.
“But then, too, it never crossed your warped mind how anyone else could be human, did it, Neha?”
She reeled at the bitterness in Lara’s voice. “What … are you talking about?”
Her sister gave a small cackle. “Just like I said. Warped. Because you never paid attention. Because it was always your truth and nobody else’s.”
“Lara ...”
“Life is not a competition, little sister. Wake up and realize this.” Lara laughed, a mirthless sound. “You think I never noticed? You always tried to prove you excelled at whatever you did. Think this brings fulfilment? Think again, Neha. None of us are saints, and the one who tries to run such a race only hits a wall at some point.”
Lara then stood. “Why am I even bothering with you?”
She stalked out of the kitchen, slamming the door behind her before Neha could say anything.
And frankly, what would she have said? Twice in the same week, someone had wondered why they bothered with her. Another person had told her to get through her issues. The man she loved had decided he’d spend the rest of his life punishing her for trying to break away from him.
Talk of a mess!
How did she get out? Where did she even start? Which truth did she acknowledge first?
Neha let her head fall down on her arms. She wanted to cry, but tears would solve nothing.
A whole pillar in the foundation of her existence had just crumbled in front of her eyes. How could she have been so blind? The signs had been there. She now remembered how the only times Lara had seemed to smile in the past had been prior to that summer. The time when she would’ve been with Eric.
She’d envied her sister that life of pain and suffering? What sort of monster was she, for she truly hadn’t realized that what had looked to her like a perfect existence actually covered the scars and hurts brought on by blows dealt by life?
She had to say sorry, ask for an apology. Lifting her head, she reached for the phone, and grimaced when her arm protested against the sudden movement with a flare of pain. Punching in Lara’s mobile number, she waited with a rapidly beating heart while the phone rang at the other end.
“Where are you?” she said when Lara picked up.
“Far from your abuse. Call me when you’ve calmed down.”
“No, wait!”
Lara didn’t reply, but she didn’t hang up, either.
“Tell me where you are. I’ll come meet you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please let me tell you that to your face.”
Lara sighed. “I’m coming over. You’re still too weak to be out.”
Neha put the phone down and waited.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, the door swung open, and Lara walked back into the kitchen.
Her sister stopped by the counter. Neha couldn’t lift her head and peer at her for the shame running through her. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, so I heard.” Lara sighed again. “Are you over your little hissy fit?”
She should be indignant at the tone her elder sister addressed her in, but she also deserved it.
“You look like you’ll pass out without a cup of tea,” her sister continued.
At this, she shot her head up.
“You know how to make tea now?”
Lara’s lack of domestic skills was legendary.
“I know how to reheat a cuppa,” the other woman replied as she went to the teapot on the opposite counter, poured a mug, and then placed it in the microwave.
“There,” she said as she placed the steaming mug in front of Neha a few minutes later.
“Thanks,” Neha said. “I don’t deserve it.”
Lara sat down in the seat she had vacated. “You definitely don’t. You know it. I know it. And now, we move on.”
Neha took a sip of the scalding brew, more to give herself something to do than because she wanted to drink the tea.
“I … I was out of bounds back there. I said things I shouldn’t have said.”
“You got it off your chest, innit?”
She nodded. “I completely screwed up.”
To her surprise, Lara laughed. “Join the club. It happens to all of us sometime.”
She frowned, the full impact of what had taken place recently in her life hitting her full on. “I mean, I’ve been screwing up all my life.”
“Your boyfriend?” her sister asked in a gentle tone. “We’re not just talking about Rahul here, are we?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
At the heartfelt concern in the words, she couldn’t keep it together any longer, and she burst into tears. Lithe arms closed around her in a hug, and the supportive gesture only made her cry harder.
“It can’t be so bad,” Lara said in a cajoling voice.
“It is.”
The sobs receded. Her sister released her and pulled up a stool to sit down right next to her.
“Logan, innit?”
Nod.
“You two broke up?”
Another nod.
“And you think you screwed up?”
Nod again.
“Could this be temporary?”
Neha shook her head. “I all but pushed him away.”
“Then say sorry and reel him back in. It’s what Dad told me to do when I messed up with Eric.” She paused. “A second time.”
“It doesn’t work like that. Eric is a darling, and Logan is a—” Beast, she stopped herself from saying.
“Sweetie, he can’t be so much of a monster if you fell in love with him.”
“I’m not—”
“Bollocks. It’s written all over your sad face. All over your tears, too. I’d figure it takes only a man you love to make so much of a mess out of you.”
The way her sister said the last few words, Neha cringed. Did she really try to appear as such a paragon of perfection?
“Swallow your pride, Neha, and go talk to him.”
“I can’t.”
“And you say you love him,” came Lara’s tart reply.
“I mean, he’s not here. Won’t be back before Thursday.”
“Then take the time to think about what I just told you and to pick your words carefully. I have a feeling you’ll need all the composure you can muster to pass through this trial.”
You don’t know the half of it. She and Logan together lately equalled either making hot love or hurting the other. What would they end up doing when they next met?
Both, maybe?
***
The trip turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Through delays and other such airport mishaps, Logan had to rush to make it to both planes he had to catch. Getting into India, from the plane to the doors opening onto the city, proved to be another expedition through Hell.
The hour struck late into the night when the taxi dropped him in front of a high-rise tower in an area of Mumbai called Bandra. An affluent and posh suburb, judging from the wide and clean streets along with the many modern-looking houses and buildings. A far cry from the overall aura of pollution and misery permeating the metropolis.
Pulling his suitcase, he went in through the glass doors. A security man greeted him behind a wide reception desk and directed him to the lifts, since Tyler lived on the top floors.
As he slid into the carriage, Logan took a deep breath. When had he last seen his brother? Over a year ago. Busy with the station and his move to Mauritius, their paths hadn’t crossed.
To think it had taken Ty nearly being killed to bring them together again.
Don’t think of this. Tyler was alive—that’s what mattered.
The doors of the lift opened, and he stepped out into a luxurious, marbled hallway. Glancing at the numbers on the doors, he stopped by the one his brother had given him in his address. After pressing the doorbell, he waited.
The wooden panel opened slowly, and he smiled at the sight of the other man across the threshold.
Big and brawny, with tanned skin and a tough-guy face, Tyler Warrington’s eyes however held a mischievous gleam that softened his whole countenance. His mouth also often broke into smiles and grins, further giving him an approachable air.
Logan’s gaze caught on the shaggy dark hair brushing Ty’s shoulders. “You look like a skux.”
This handsome dude would have no trouble picking up women anywhere.
Tyler grinned. “It’s how the missus likes it.”
Logan stepped forward, opening his arms to his baby brother. “How are you, bro?”
Tyler hugged him back. “A box of birds.”
“All shit and feathers,” he said, falling back into their usual Kiwi style of address.