a/n: one free chapter as a bonus! for the remaining chapters you will have to subscribe to my latest tier, Something, Everything! updates will be weekly once until i have more prewritten chapters (i'm a full-time working adult, so it's a bit hard to find time to write 🥲)
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CHAPTER 1 — BACK TO HOME
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Aarnav, my second eldest brother ever so eloquently welcomes me into the house.
I push past him and step inside, “Nice to see you too,”
“Don't you have classes still?”
“No. We have a short break,” I lie.
“Another break? So soon? And whose car even is that?”
“Yes. And it’s my friend’s,” I roll my eyes, “Where's ma and pa?”
“Amma's in the kitchen and I think appa is in his room,”
“Okay,” I nod, and start towards the kitchen, “I am going to go say hi to them,”
I couldn't go back. Not after what happened. I know I have to go back sometime soon. But just not now. I can't. I need some time and space. I cannot believe I allowed myself to be so stupid and reckless. What was I even thinking?
There was nothing ever going to happen between me and Ken. And I even enlisted a stranger's help just for that, and there I was, completely obliterating every single of my efforts.
I am way beyond hopeless now.
“Hi, amma,” I greet my mother who is very intently listening to the radio that she doesn’t even sense me stepping in.
“Aarvin,” she is surprised to see me and rushes over to me, cupping my face, “When did you come?”
“Just now. Aarnav opened the door for me,”
“Di-”
My father steps into the kitchen and I turn to him, “Appa,”
He barely nods at me and turns to my mom, “You called him over already? I thought I told you we can tell him to come after everything is confirmed,”
“I didn’t call him. He came on his own,” my mother turns to me, “Or did I forget that you were coming over?”
I shake my head, trying to put on the smallest smile that I can muster, “No. There was an unplanned break, and I wanted to come home,” I shrug lightly.
My mom smiles at me, and pats my shoulder. I think Aarnav must have ventured to the kitchen as well. He snorts from behind us, standing at the entrance.
“You? Wanted to come home?” he shakes his head, still laughing derisively.
“Aarnav,” my mother shakes her head at him.
“What? I am just saying. He is-,”
“Go start the car, Aarnav. It’s getting late,” my father interrupts him mid-sentence.
“Sari, appa,” he immediately shuts his mouth and walks away.
(Sari = Okay, in Tamil)
“We’re leaving,” my father says, and goes as well.
She sighs, “That kid still hasn’t grown up,” my mom says, mostly referring to my second elder brother.
I don’t say anything in response to that, because really as much as he likes to tease me since I’m the youngest one, it has to come to a stop some time.
“Saaptiya?” my mother asks me.
(Saaptiya = Have you eaten, in Tamil)
“Hmm, no. But it’s okay. I am not hungry,”
She just looks at me for a moment, and then raises her hand to feel my forehead, “You okay, kanna? You don’t look well,”
And as soon as she asks me that, my throat wells up, and my eyes stings.There is nothing more than I want to hug her right then and just cry my eyes out.
It is just not the regret that I saw in Ken’s eyes after we kissed, but it’s also everything. No one in my family knows about my sexuality. And I can never know what they will do if they were ever to find out — can I possibly risk it? So, I cannot even tell them anything.
I cannot tell them why I am back suddenly without any prior announcement.
I cannot tell them how even though I have a loving family and a good house, I still feel so lonely.
I cannot tell them how heavy my heart has become since the past year that I don’t even remember how it was to breathe freely in the first place.
I glance away from my mother, and shake my head, swallowing away the lump in my throat. “No, I am okay. Maybe I am just tired,”
“Alright, go sleep,” she doesn’t ask anything after that — am I that easily believable? “I will wake you up after I have cooked lunch,”
“Okay. thanks,”
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I wake to an incessant buzzing at my thigh. I realise I forgot to take out my phone from my pocket and fell asleep like that. It is Jomar calling me. I don’t have the energy to talk to him but I know he is only going to keep calling me if I ignored his call.
“Hello,”
“What the fuck is going on over there?”
I sit up rubbing my face and check the time on the digital clock I have on my bedside table. It’s close to 1pm.
“What?”
“Ken’s sister’s marriage got cancelled? Sunny say it on his sister’s Instagram story. And she is freaking out now. She called Ken but he didn’t pick up and I’ve been trying to call you for so many times. Where are you guys? What is happening? Is everyone okay? Should we come over too?” he doesn’t give me a break to answer and so I wait until he has finished.
Too absorbed in my own little world, I forgot for a moment there regarding Ken’s sister.
“Ken punched the groom,”
“What?” Sun Ling shrieks — he has to have the call on speaker phone, “What is wrong with him?”
“He had a good reason,” I don’t want to be talking about him for any reason — at least not for a while, but I don't have a choice here. They would know something else was up if I was unwilling to talk about what happened. “Ken saw him hitting his sister. And he just flipped out I guess,” I sit up, rubbing my face.
“I would like to correct my previous statement,” Sun Ling claims, “Ken should have hit him more. Ho-,”
Her voice muffles out, and becomes distant, but I can still her distant yelling. I figure Jomar must have turned off the speaker phone and moved away a little, giving her some space, “She’s going to try calling him again. Seriously, is everything okay? Should we come over too?”
“No, I think all is okay. Ken should be still at home,”
“What do you mean should be?”
I scratch the back of my neck — there is no fucking way I am telling Jomar what went down the night before — at least not now.
“Umm, I came back to my house,”
“Your house? Where?”
“Swettenham?”
“You’re serious. Why?”
“I just felt like coming back home,”
“What about Ken?”
“What about him?”
He sighs, “Where is he? Is he with you?”
“No, he’s at his house, I think,”
“You think? What the-,”
“He is the one who asked me to go, okay, so I don’t know,” I blurt out in a whim.
He is asking too many questions and I just need him to get off my back. I just hope he doesn’t catch on to my bluff.
“Okay,” he sighs, “But you guys are okay, right?”
I abruptly start coughing at that, “What? Of course, we’re okay. Why wouldn’t we be okay? I am okay. He’s okay. We’r-,”
“Okay, okay,” thankfully he cuts me off my rambling and doesn’t think much of it, “I was just checking on you guys. I think Ken picked up Sunny’s call. I am going to go talk to him. Bye. See you soon,”
“Bye,” and finally the call ends.
I’m wearied to the bones. I want nothing more than to go back to sleep.
But still I force myself up and go to the bathroom and take a bath. And then I go downstairs and find my mother. She smiles widely, seeing me.
“You’re up. I was about to come to your room and wake you up,”
I simply smile in return.
“Come, eat,”
“What about you? Have you eaten?”
“No, I was about to eat too,”
We sit at the table and my mother serves me the food. She has cooked beans and sambar.
(Sambar = it’s a south indian vegetable curry, quite nice to be eaten with rice)
“If you had called me before coming, I would have asked your brothers to buy chicken,”
“It’s okay. I am just glad to be eating your cooking,” this is true and from the bottom of my heart — I love my mother’s cooking.
“So, how long is your break?”
I shrug, “I think I will go back in two days. I still have some assignment to do and I didn’t bring my laptop with me,”
“You can use your brother’s,” she says without missing a beat, “Stay. We were going to call you to come home anyway this week,”
That’s when I remember the exchange between my parents this morning. My father thought I came back because my mother had asked me to.
“Why? Anything special?”
“Yes, actually,” and there is no mistaking the pure glee and pride on her face, “Your brother is getting married,”
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a/n: in the first book we got to see Ken’s sister’s wedding and in this one we will get to see how Aarvin’s brother’s goes hahahahaaaa. it’s wedding seasonnnnnnn
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