Reverse Vows || AkshNav ||

Chapter 6 | Akshara

"Akshara! Your phone is ringing!" Sally shouted from the main area where she was unloading some old books I had bought from the cutest bookstore earlier that day.

"Coming!" I yelled back from the kitchen where I was unloading a huge amount of baking and sandwich-making staples. Putting down the half-empty sugar bag I was getting ready to pour into a huge glass jar, I came out of the kitchen.

"It just stopped ringing," Sally commented, her eyes still on the book in her hand. Then she resumed her humming to the soft music coming through the speakers.

Even though she wasn't looking at me from her spot on the floor in front of the bookcase, I nodded and scrounged in my bag to find my phone. Just as my hand connected with it, it started to go off again. Pulling it out, I saw his name flashing on the screen.

Abhinav Sharma.

I thought maybe I should change it to Ball and Chain sometime.

I checked the clock on the wall and hesitated. I was sure he was calling about the dinner with the partners.

My finger hovering over the green button, I made an unintelligible sound in my throat. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to answer a call from Abhinav at that moment. I clicked on the side button to silence it and put it on the counter, just staring at it as if he would magically appear on the screen and give me a scowling look.

It stopped ringing, and I sighed. I was being stupid.

After we'd headed home the night before, he had given me the keys for the apartment, and I had gone straight up to my room again. Since I was up at five AM again, I'd pulled the same disappearing act I had all the days before. It wasn't that he wouldn't guess where I'd gone if he came looking for me again, but I was starting to think maybe I was being impolite by not hanging around.

With Abhinav being proper and polite at all times, every one of my actions was...well, I was sticking out like a sore thumb. The guy had moved my bookcase, helped me with the wooden shelf, and painted my walls, for crying out loud. Men like Abhinav had people to do stuff like that for them. He had a driver. His house was perfect. He always wore expensive suits, day in and day out. He was distant with everyone. Again, men like that had other people do their dirty work. Living with the Goenkas, I had seen people like him plenty of times.

When I was a teenager, I would go out with the family when they wanted to show me off to their friends—not because they loved me like their own or anything remotely close to that, but because they wanted their rich friends to think they were generous and big-hearted people.

Look at us, we saved this girl.

I remembered going to fancy restaurants and dinner parties 'as a family' but ending up being completely ignored by everyone, including Manish, who was the only one who cared about me even a little. All I did was wear what Swarna wanted me to wear, show up, eat what was put in front of me, be quiet, and look happy.

However, my happiest memories were not born in those places with those people. They were born in the kitchen of their home where I spent most of my time when I wasn't in my room, and they were made with the housekeeper, Susan O'Donnell, who I had breakfast and dinner with every day. Some days, Manish wanted me to join them in the dining room, but they weren't like Susie, who made me laugh with her stories. They didn't have easy conversations even when it was just the four of them. They didn't laugh from the heart, didn't love from the heart.

Still, there was one fact we'd all agreed on: Manish had saved me. Reluctantly or not. I was thankful, just like they wanted me to be, and I would be for the rest of my life. However—and that is a loaded however—I couldn't say I'd forgotten about those dinners, the house parties, the get-togethers, and tonight's dinner with the partners was one of the last things I wanted to do, but I had made a deal. Playing pretend was something I wasn't so bad at. Didn't mean I enjoyed it, but I wasn't bad at it.