YOURS TRULY

Part 29

T.W: Self harm. Skip the first and the last part of this chapter if this topic is triggering for you.

Ipshita was putting on her hand lotion before going to bed her phone screamed loudly making her jump on her toe. For some reason, her eyebrows formed a frown even though it was not unnatural for her to receive calls at this hour of the night from her office colleagues or bosses with work emergencies. The humid, hot air from outside coming inside her air-conditioned room wrapped around her. The weather in the city was extremely unbearable for the last few days. The temperature was more than desert during the whole week. Mid-April Kolkata was exhaustingly succumbing under the temperature that refused to go down 40 degrees. And today was particularly uncomfortable with the 78 percentages humidity. Every day had a caution of a heatwave. Sweating city dwellers were fighting for a cool breather in the suffocating atmosphere.

Ipshita inhaled a deep breath to chase away the ominous and breathless feeling and hurriedly she walked towards the nightstand to grab the cell phone and her stiffened shoulder lightened for a heartbeat before tightening again.

"Hello, Ipshita!" Ritika's weak urgent cry came from the other end. "I am so scared Ipshita, I-I c- I can't open the door. Please help me. Amae banchiye ne Ipshita-" Ritika kept rambling in an indiscreet tone.

"Wh- where are you? What are you talking about? Where's uncle and auntie-"

"In- in the bathroom. Baba-Maa are asleep. They're not picking up my phone, Ipshita! I did something bad Ipshita-"

Ipshita needed nothing more to hear. Grabbing her purse that was sitting on the nearby ottoman beside her laid-out work clothes for tomorrow she rushed out of her room to knock on her parent's door.

With sleep in his eyes, Ipshita's father opened the door with worried eyes.

"What happened-?"

"Baba, I am going to Riti's house, I am afraid she has done something to herself. I need to go-" Holding her phone in her ears still Ipshita whispered to her father and then said to Ritika "Riti keep talking to me, tell me what happened?"

It took a few moments for Shubhro to gather what might have happened. A cold shiver spiralled down his backbone. "Ha, Ishawr!" He chanted closing his eyes momentarily in worry and shock.

"What happened?" Came his wife's voice and he turned to answer cautiously as his daughter ran for the front door.

***

"I'll be down there within 2 hours most probably and adding the luggage claim time and everything else it will take another half an hour or so-" Arun heard Akash's words from the other end of the phone call and his face beamed up with a wide smile. "Finally coming to Kolkata bro!" Akash said excitedly walking in the flight with his carrier luggage and a book in his hand.

"And the first thing you will see in Kolkata is my pretty face. I will be just outside of the terminal, inside the car though cause no way, one step out and I would get boiled in this heat. Good luck with that, really. Nonetheless, I will be waiting, only for you Akash." Arun whispered the last sentence with mock flirting. That got an "Oh!" And chuckles from his friend. He was about to quip something more but his phone suddenly beeped with another call waiting and the caller id made him frown in surprise.

Ipshita was calling her at almost 2 in the morning, which was extremely unusual as she never called anyone without purpose after 11 out of courtesy and was mocked by their group for that. Worries darkened his mind. 'Did Shubhro uncle have another stroke!'

Quickly cutting Akash's call after telling him where to wait for him he called back her. The news he got made him stand up in a whip.

***

When Ipshita reached Ritika's house her whole house had lights on making her realise that Ritika's parents were already up. A huge ambulance was outside the house shining its lights getting the attention of a few curious neighbours gathered on their balconies. Ipshita knew Rubel had already informed an ambulance and after getting the call from a high-level police officer the medical workers had rushed within minutes.

Ipshita's parents made them call again and again until she got Ritika's father and stated the situation with the fact that she and her parents were on the way.

Shubhro and Tulika did not let their only daughter handle such a situation alone.

"You are not in a stable mine Ipshita. Sit on the passenger seat I will drive." Shubhro told her daughter with a pat on her shoulder before he went around the car and got in the driver seat.
A scared-to-bone and welling Meghna Pal, Ritika's mother opened the door howling how her daughter just won't open the door and her husband, the driver of the ambulance and a helper were trying to break the door down. Ipshita quickly giving her assurance skipped upstairs to the bathroom door inside which Ritika was. She knew screaming would be meaningless cause its been a few minutes Ritika had stopped talking to her over the call and now it was just the sound of faint screaming from Ritika's father could be heard on the call.

Ritika's house was a few decades older so the doors didn't have a lock that could be undone from the outside. The driver and his helper were trying to pick the tower bolt lock from outside excitedly and Riti's father was now sitting on the floor. His gloomy face was shocked to the point of numbness, and with anxious, bewildered eyes he kept looking at the men trying to open the door. Seeing Ipshita and Shubhro the man suddenly started howling almost crumbling down on the floor screaming incomprehensible words, slapping on his forehead. Shubhro was about to move beside him but their actions hit a pause instantly as the door opened up with a reluctant metallic yearning from the years-old lock.

Ritika was found laying on a pool of blood, on the bathroom floor, face down, unconscious on the left wrist slit open...

So this was the part. I hope you liked it. So much is going to happen next. Can you guess?
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