New perspective: A Retelling of D3 Dil Dosti Dance

A visit.

[Dehradun. July 2011
A month since Kriya left Mumbai]

Kriya jerked her head up, startled by the loud noise. She had dozed off on the sofa, lights on, laptop still open. She looked at the time on her screen. It was past midnight. University applications on twenty different tabs stared her in the face. "Oh no," she thought. She had so much more research to do.

The noise sounded again. Now, she grasped that someone was at the door.

Kriya's mother was sound asleep, the sounds of rain against the roof humming a constant lullaby. Nervously, she got up and unlocked the door.

"How could you?" a voice whispered angrily in the dark. "How could you?"

Kriya turned on the porch lights. "Sharon..?" Kriya stepped back, frowning. This was the last thing in the world she expected to happen.

"You cheat! Dhoka diya hai tumne." Sharon stood fuming, slightly wet from the rain.

"I-..." Kriya just shook her head confusedly. "How did you find me?"

"Of course!" She closed her eyes. "Of course, you don't care. I can't believe I'd started to like you."

Kriya couldn't believe this was actually happening. She wasn't ready to confront the situation yet. She didn't have it in her to face her friends, yet. She probably woudn't ever be. "Sharon," She reached out to touch her forearm. "Please...please don't tell the others where I am". She hadn't told anybody that she was back at her old family home in dehradun. Not even Swayam, because she didnt want him coming over and trying to reason with her mother. All she had told him was that she was being pulled away from them and from dance, and she needed time to process everything, and he had given her space, no questions asked.

Sharon jerked her arm away, the repulse clear on her face. "Oh, get over yourself! No one cares!" She raised her voice. "You know why? Because you betrayed them. Your own so-called 'best friends'. And you didn't leave mine alone, either. You double-faced-"

"Sharon!" Kriya interrupted, getting tenser by the second. "Ma is asleep, please dheere bolo". Sharon's words were getting to her, and she was trying her best to remain calm. She coudn't afford to break down now.

"Do you care, at all?" Sharon stared at the girl in front of her, not knowing which version of her to believe in. There was the Kriya she thought she knew, who wore integrity like a medal on her chest, who blurted out what she thought of you to your face, who had gotten to the top by sheer hard work, and whom she even respected, though she had never let herself admit it. Then there was the version of her that she had discovered a few hours ago, when Rey had finally told her what happened.
She had gone over to his house that morning, after finding out about the break-up the previous night(*insert episode where Rey, drunk,  tells everyone about Kriya*). She had sit through his entire story quietly, watching him- an expression on his face she had never seen before. Unable to go back home and do nothing, she had found Kriya's old address(by very reluctantly, asking her father's PI for help), gotten on a flight, and showed up at her door.
She hadn't thought about what she would do once she arrived. She let herself run on auto-pilot.

"Rey toot chuka hai. You broke him. Tumhe zara sa bhi fark padta hai?"

Kriya stepped away, a lump forming in her throat.

Sharon let herself in, and started pacing around, mindlessly. "I don't understand. Mujhe lagne laga tha ki main galat thi. I was wrong about you. But no. Main soch bhi nahi sakti thi, ki tum aisi hogi." She turned to look at her "I know what happened, Rey ne mujhe sab kuch bata diya."

Kriya sat down wordlessly, her chest tightening.

"Of course you have nothing to say. I don't know why I even came." She turned to look at Kriya, now with her head in her hands.

For a minute, no one spoke. The rain tapped softly on the window panes.

Sharon laughed once, cold. "For weeks I apologised to you, in my head. But you were fake, the whole time. You know what, I'm glad I came, because I'm satisfied. I was right to dislike you from the beginning"

There was a shuffling noise from the farthest room. "Ma!" Kriya said, standing up. "Sharon, please, I don't want Ma to listen to any of this. Aap-" She stopped, taking in the anger and dissapointment on Sharon's face.

The rain had started to get heavier, and so had Kriya's heart. She struggled to find the right words.

"I never meant for any of this to happen," she finally managed to whisper, her voice trembling. "I know mujhse galti ho gayi hai, and I wish I could undo it, but I-"

"You cant." Sharon's harsh tone was in stark contrast with Kriya's. She was feeling stupider by the minute, for having come here.

A bedlamp went on in the room.

Sharon turned to leave.

"Kriya?" Her mother called.

Looking at Kriya one last time, Sharon said "I had started to like you." Then she shook her head and walked out the door.

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soundtrack:

https://youtu.be/uo_Bb3nk3gE?si=nJuoZrYYTmql7hIK
0:00-5:20