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Kisha stood outside the chemistry lab, waiting for Vedan to come out when she noticed Demi – one of Anara’s batchmates – staring at her. When their eyes met, Demi came out before the rest of the class.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about Anara. I couldn’t have imagined that someone would kill her.”
Kisha was taken aback at Demi’s words. But she kept calm, her true feelings carefully locked away in an emotional fortress.
“If you need any help, just let me know, okay?”
“I will, thank you,” Kisha replied as the bell rang. As the students shuffled out of the lab, she noticed Vedan leaving the room. She made her way through the crowd, jogging behind Vedan.
“Can we please talk?” Kisha asked, as she caught up with him.
Vedan stopped and looked at Kisha quizzically, as if he wasn’t used to a girl stopping him to have a conversation. There was nothing that stood out about Vedan’s appearance. He was average, in every sense, and he knew it.
“Aren’t you Kisha Sen?” he asked.
“I am.’
“I’ve seen your lecture,” Vedan said, referring to the viral video of her lecture at the United Nations.
“Glad. By the way, can we please talk in the cafe?”
Vedan gave her a long look and said, “I see there’s something on your mind. Okay, the cafe is cool.”
They went to the cafe together and sat down at one of the tables at the back. Kisha came straight to the point.
“I’m Anara Sen’s sister,” she said.
Immediately, Vedan’s face changed. He clenched his jaws, as if holding back an emotional outburst. But he composed himself pretty quickly. “Okay. So?” he asked, his words measured.
“I just have to know …” Kisha looked around, then said in a low voice, “Did she woo you only to break your heart?”
“She did woo me. And she did break my heart. To the extent that I started taking drugs. But thanks to my parents, I’m over all that now.”
Kisha didn’t like what she just heard. Her Anara di being the reason for someone turning to drugs was horrible, even though Kisha knew it was a price her sister had to pay to get into THC, just like Kisha had to ignore certain collateral damages herself during her association with Ahaan.
“But whether she wooed me only to intentionally break my heart, I don’t know. Why are you asking me all this?”
“Can you please give me some details?”
“What details?’
“Anything you can remember. Of her wooing you maybe, or something about how it started?”
“There’s nothing exceptional to talk about. Like every other boy in school, I always found Anara hot. But I knew she was out of my league, and I never really approached her. Then, one day, I noticed her looking at me. It wasn’t just another passing look, you know? It was as if she was suddenly interested in me.”
Kisha remembered how she had begun to entice Ahaan when she was trying to woo him because of THC. She could imagine Anara doing the same thing with Vedan.
“That triggered your romance?”
“A fake romance,” Vedan said with a shrug. “But why do you ask? I heard Anara is no more. Is it related to that?”
“She was my sister. I’m just trying to collect as much information about the last few months of her life as possible. When or how did you understand that the romance was fake?”
“I didn’t understand. That was the whole problem. I was too naïve. When it was happening, it sure didn’t seem fake. But looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming.”
“See what coming?”
“The break-up.”
“Were you okay with it?”
“No! Why do you think I turned to drugs to get over it? Till this date, I don’t know why it happened. She randomly stopped all communication. She ignored me on campus and blocked my number. It was like building someone’s hunger, and then suddenly removing every scrap of food from within their reach. I went mad. I hated her.” The moment Vedan uttered those words, he knew he had said too much. There was spite in his voice. “Look, I don’t have anything to do with Anara’s death. I hope you aren’t thinking that I’m that jilted lover who ended up killing her.”
“Should I think that way, Vedan?” Kisha was simply playing with his mind, shooting in the dark, hoping she would get something concrete out of him about Anara … something that she didn’t know yet.
“It’s true that I was upset about the break-up. Who wouldn’t be, especially the way it happened. But with time I accepted it simply because I always knew I was never good enough for her. I was happy knowing that we dated for some time. That’s all.”
“When you called it a fake romance, was it only because she broke your heart without any rhyme or reason, or was there something more that happened?”
“I guess I was just a distraction for her. Timepass, as they say.”
So, he didn’t use the word “fake” because he thought she was pursuing him for THC’s black handshake, Kisha thought. “Did Tavish have a problem because Anara di was dating you?” she questioned.
Vedan took a couple of seconds to reply. “I guess not. They were done by then. Or so I got to know. Why would she date me and Tavish together, anyway?”
Because dating you wasn’t real, it was her black handshake, Kisha answered Vedan in her mind. “So, it was common knowledge that Anara di and Tavish were a couple?”
“Not really. She told me they had dated when we got together.”
So was Tavish right when he told me that Anara di was the one more inclined towards him? Kisha’s mind raced. “What do you know about THC?” Kisha asked.
“The Heartbreak Club?”
Kisha nodded.
“Just what I’ve heard on the grapevine, like any other Fairmont High student. Wait a minute, do you think THC is responsible for –?”
“Why? Is that improbable?”
“No. I guess it makes sense that if anyone would have the guts to do something so heinous, it would have to be THC,” Vedan said after a short pause. Kisha understood Vedan wasn’t going to give her anything more on the matter. It was possible he didn’t know much more either.
“Thanks, Vedan,” Kisha said and stood up.
As she left the cafe, Vedan unlocked his phone and started browsing the pictures he had of Anara from the time when they had briefly dated. After learning of her disappearance, Vedan had sent all the images to his Instagram DM and deleted them from his gallery. As he looked at the old photos, he was aroused. The intense lust he harboured for Anara remained even after she was gone.
“Still into Anara?” Vedan kept his phone away and turned around.
It was Demi. Their families were close friends.
“Nay!” Vedan said with a sly smile, as Demi caught up with him about life in London.
Excerpted with permission from No Time to Blink, Novoneel Chakraborty, Westland.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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