#EXPOSED

CHAPTER - 19

'Requisite face.' 

Aagnay

2020

My gaze drifted to towards the window and its view of South Mumbai beyond it. I always looked at the city to encapsulate my world. I was aware of the sense of belonging—a place to call mine but the city that thrived on thrumming energy always failed to interlace with my senses.

A tangle of emotions rocked me deeply and held me back. I could give her the whole Mumbai, I could give her the world—I couldn't love her more than I did; it consumed me. I loved her when I wasn't capable of love—I loved her when I didn't know how to and none of it mattered because she didn't love me back.

"Did you finish working on those files?" Dad's voice drew me out of my reverie and I slid my gaze towards the threshold of the study. He sauntered inside as I stood and closed the files on my laptop.

"I have made a list of addendums," I told him evenly as I fetched my jacket from the seatback. "The numbers seem promising. We might have to check into the index, just in case." I handed him the tablet.

"There are a couple of spreadsheets I drafted earlier. That should be all."

He examined the deck while I shrugged into my suit jacket. "You did well," he told me and I passed a cursory nod. "Alright, I'll run this by the company's board later."

"Is that all?" I rounded the desk and held my laptop. I watched him take his seat behind the desk and my fingers curled into a fist. My father was elegant and he made a point to exude power—authority came easy to him and control was his second nature.

My mother approached, looking slim and classic, wrapped in her ethnic attire. She had her hair bound in a neat bun that revealed her flawless face. People in our community adored her—I did too; now I just had a hard time looking at her face.

And since we both looked so alike, I loathed looking at my face in the mirror too.

I hated her gray eyes—so much like mine. "Are you planning to win the international tournament you signed up last month?"

I forced myself to remain facing her. "I plan to give my best." The little joy I felt for seeing my mother desecrated instantaneously.

"I don't need your version of best." Her nude lipstick-coated lips tightened. "Your streak of victory has to outgrow the rest of the people in the city."

I headed towards the exit briskly. "I'll bear that in mind when I do return with victory." I was furious at her for bringing up her obsession and pinning it on me while I was working. She had never evolved and neither did she let me. "Enjoy your evening." I left the door closed when I headed to my bedroom.

*

"Dude you are always on a roll," Rashid drawled as I finished solving a differential calculus equation. "How did you even do that? I was halfway lost with the variables."

"The derivatives must have confused you," I told him as I tossed the marker on the desk. "Work on that, I can't afford to lose the next tournament."

"You think we'd lose with you on our side?"

Hearing his words had surged the memories I wished I could erase from my mind. I loathed that perfectionism. People often appreciated the sparkling beauty on the surface level without attempting to know what ran under the surface. Diamonds were once coals after all.

"Don't be mistaken," I snapped at him, enraged that I had to endure every second of the mask that suffocated me. "You have to know your craft if you wish to continue with my team."