Beautiful Girl

Part Twenty Seven

He switches off the phone when it starts to ring once again. He is deep into the proposal that he needs to approve by the end of the day, and he simply doesn't have any time for Khushi's on repeat apologies that she doesn't even mean.
He spent last night awake in his study. She didn't come after him though he had hoped that she would.
By the time he had left for the office in the morning, she hadn't come down.
He had left her breakfast on the counter sans any note.
He had been pretty pissed off to write anything.
He still kind of is.
It feels like needles beneath his skin, hundreds upon hundreds of those.
He has always put her first.
Why doesn't she do the same?
He tries closing his eyes and concentrating on his breathing to get rid of the images.
He still has a lot of work left for the day.
But those memories, the look of that boy around her, her arms around him - it seems to be on a repeat loop inside his head.
He has-
There is a knock on his door, Distracted, he calls for the visitor to enter, trying to concentrate on his papers once again.
"Surprise!" He is startled out of his thoughts and an unbidden smile takes over his face.
"Lavanya." He pushes out of his chair before he has registered doing so.
"Arnav," She shouts before taking a leaping jump at him and his arms go around her, like they always do.
He catches her against his chest and then promptly let's go.
"Still go it, I see," She grumbles as she takes his proffered hand and gets up, rubbing her rump with the other in an exaggerated fashion.
"What're you doing here, brat?" He settles into his chair again and she settle on the edge of his desk.
"Can't I come and visit my favorite Raizada?" She pouts for the effect and he finds himself smiling at her antics.
He has known her since she dragged NK home after beating up some boys at school.
"Buttering me up for some nefarious reason, brat?" He returns casually, closing the files that he knows he will have no time to look at now.
Lavanya likes taking her time and it has been ages since he humored her.
She grows serious as if a button has been flipped.
"You don't live at RM anymore?"
Ah! So the news has made its way to her. "And you're married now?" She says this as if she has swallowed a whole lemon.
"Yup," He sighs out, a little resigned. "I am off the market, brat. You can't drool over me any more."
"Who says?" She counters defiantly, and Arnav can't help but smile.
In the past, Lavanya has been the kind of distraction he has indulged himself in when he felt like it.
Today, that indulgence doesn't feel like indulgence.
He knows she's attracted to him. Has been since she rushed to puberty like a freight train going off rails. Maybe, it's his vanity, but he likes her awestruck gaze, likes that her eyes stay on him. He likes the salve of her adoration and let's it fill over the wounds of Khushi's ambivalent rejection.
So, he let's his eyes stare a moment too long. Likes when she lowers her gaze and fiddles with her thumbs.
It's a game after all.
And he has always been it's undisputed king.
"You up for dinner, brat?" He asks her even as a part of him screams in his head at his own stupidity.
She nods like she can't assent fast enough.
"Go bother someone else and come find me after five," He tells her as he pulls the file he has been putting off...

*

Whatever shape or size of his guilt, he compresses it into a ball small enough that he can bury into the darkest part of his heart.
He walks leisurely towards the house that was-days before-home in his head.
He knows he is late.
It's eleven.
He refused to pick up her calls all day long, didn't reply to her messages.
He's punishing her.
The part of him that has always been the bloodthirsty ASR, the part that only knows how to survive at the expense of others, the part of him that he knows is probably all of him has been jubilant.
She deserves it. She deserves it for not loving him. She's a traitor and she deserves his silence.
She-
She's curled on the sofa in the darkness clutching his shirt like an abandoned spouse.
He is quiet when he walks to her, steps kept soft so as to not rouse her.
The light from the stairs casts a pale glow over her face.
There are dried tracks of salt over her cheeks.
Does he feel like a victor?
He should, shouldn't he?
"Arnav..." She calls out, still hazy from sleep. He moves away, turns his back to her. If he sees her wake up, sees the misery on her face, he will give in.
And he can't give in.
He is ASR and she's the girl who doesn't love him.
"When did you come in? You should've woken me up," She says as she gets up and the sound of her feet pushing into sleepers, the scratch of her fingers over her head as she pulls her errant locks for a pony tail... They are all sounds he is intimately aware of.
"Let me heat up the dinner."
Why isn't she asking why he was late? Why isn't she demanding explanations for how he ignored her?
Does his indifference not matter?
Is she not hurt?
Why isn't she beating her fists against his chest and cursing him out?
Rage slowly starts simmering inside him.
Was she... with the boy? Is that why she wants no answers?
Did that boy touch her, kiss her?
He isn't even aware that he has moved until he is pushing her against the kitchen counter, fingers digging into the flesh of her arms, mouth smashing over her lips.
He bites her mouth like she's his last meal, tastes blood and feels a hollowed sense of gratification.
When he leaves her mouth and steps away, she's dazed and her unfocused eyes try to follow him.
"I've had dinner already," He imparts over his shoulder as he makes his way to the bedroom.

*

He doesn't let himself think if she ate or not, doesn't let himself  answer when she knocks tentatively on his door, doesn't let himself feel when he hears her soft steps walking away...

*

Morning comes far too late for his taste. He has tossed and turned in his bed, walked out of his room to stand in front of her door and then retraced his steps back to his.
Why doesn't she love him?
There is something wrong with him. There has to be.
There-
The shrill sound of the smoke alarm jolts him out of his bed, and when he pulls open his door, the smell of burned onions sharply assails his nose. He is bounding down the stairs, two at a time and there is Khushi amidst the chaos, cursing up a streak.
She freezes like a deer caught in headlights when she catches the sight of him.
"I wanted to cook you breakfast," She mutters before depositing the burnt up pan in the sink.
He should say something.
He should tease her that she's hopeless in the kitchen before she has had at least a gallon of coffee first thing in the morning. He should draw her into his arms, hold her close.
But he does none of those things.
He turns around and walks off...