Not Him

Part 11

I had seen Rahul's mother for almost six months now. And from what I knew she was a soft-hearted, loving lady. So I could not get the look of contempt in her eyes. And it was directed at me. That felt weirder. She looked at me like I did some crime.

We were dressed now. Aarohi and me. And we sat opposite her at the dining table.

Mother was staring at us as if we hurt her gravely.

"So this was happening under my nose all this time?" She finally asked.

"Not all this time," I said. Your son did not do it. I did.

"Aunty... Let me explain," Aarohi said.

"You don't have to explain, dear." Mom turned to her with sweet eyes. "You explain." She turned to me with contempt again. "Since when was this going on?"

"Since we had gone to Aarohi's parents' place for death anniversary."

"Oh...yes yes... You spend a night in a hotel, right? Why was I so blind to notice? How could I... But I trusted you... How could you two? You two are family. This is scandalous. How could you, Rahul... To your sister?"

"She is not my real sister, though," I said. "We are not related by blood."

Mom's eyes went wide. There was a madness in there.

"She is your sister." She hissed at me.

"AAROHI IS NOT RHEA MOM," I yelled.

But then I was slapped. Aarohi jumped up in shock. Mom looked horrified at the fact that she hit me.

"You killed your own sister and now you are trying to take away my other only remaining daughter as well?" Mom asked looking at me.

I got furious. I got up and walked away from the room and slammed the door of my room after me.

I had been noticing something weird with the mother ever since I came to this house. But I just assumed that she was just sad over her lost daughter and felt sympathy for her and tried to make her as happy as I could. But something more serious business was going on here.

I turned and saw my reflection in the mirror.

"You knew something?" I asked, Rahul. I could see his face in the mirror. "You ran away from it. You wanted to die." It was not a question. "Dude, why did it have to be my car which you choose to hit to kill yourself?"

I sat on the bed thinking...

There came a knock on the door. "Duggu, it's me," Aarohi said. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah," I said.

She opened the door and came in and sat by me. "How are you?" she asked. I shrugged.

"Show me your cheek," She said, placing her hand on my face turning it to her. It still pained there, but it was negligible pain.

"What did she mean?" I asked, "by saying that I... I mean, Rahul killed his sister?"

Aarohi looked sad. "It's just crazy. It's like Rahul knew it was going to happen." She said. She looked up at me with a pained expression. "There are a lot of things about the past that I have not told you."

"Tell me then," I said.

She took a deep breath, "Well, Rhea did not want to go to the amusement park that day. She wanted to stay home and play with her dolls instead. But Rahul wanted to go to the amusement park. It was Rahul's idea to go to the Amusement park." She looked down. "And the accident happened."