Somewhere Only We Go (Editing)

Chapter 34

Avinash

How do I make him understand I was not the person he thought I was? I can love him, I can try my best to treat him right because he deserves it. But I didn't even like myself let alone love to be his model. I knew he was right when he said I can't fake it. And I would never spoil the big opportunity he has; now all I needed to do was make me understand. How was I going to do that, that's what I was trying to figure out and hence I was here in this park sitting on a bench that was dedicated to my brother. Which was funny because I don't think Ishan even knew anything about this park.

It wasn't about the actual park though. It was about the location of the park. This park was on the roadside and if you climb the fence and walk 10 steps you will find the exact spot where my brother took his last breath. I don't know why anyone would want to mark the spot where he died like he was some legend and this place held any significance. This place took away my brother from me. It shouldn't exist.

I went there to clear my mind but I felt more messed up and winded. I closed my eyes and dropped my head back on the wooden plank.

"You are not real," I told the man sitting on my left.

"Of course, I am not. I died 10 years ago, Avi." He says softly like his voice could hurt me. He still looked like my 18-year-old brother and I wondered what he would have looked like if he was alive. "I am just a figment of your imagination or maybe I am your conscience."

"So this is it? I am losing my mind?" I ask.

Ishan smiles. "Maybe. Or maybe you are finally ready to let me go."

I scoffed. "I let you go when I burnt away the left pictures."

"Did you? Letting me go would mean not holding anything against me, not being angry with me. You would just remember me with the biggest smile on your face." Now he sounded sad. "But that day you started hating me."

"Is that why you started haunting me in my dreams?"

"I never haunted you, little bro, you did that yourself."

"So you are saying it's my fault. Like I already don't know that."

He sighed. "That's the opposite of what I am saying but maybe I am not saying it right. But that shouldn't be a surprise when I am you, you always struggled with pulling your feelings into words."

"What do you mean you are me?" I didn't have it in me to solve puzzles.

"Seriously you are smarter than this Avi, give yourself some credit. You deserve a happy life Avi, a life which you want to build with Kabir. A life where you are worthy of his love, because you are, a life where you can think about me without hating me even a little. But I guess it's my fault as well. I let Mom drive us apart too. I thought I was doing the right thing. I knew she loved me more than she would ever love you." His voice is barely a whisper now.

"Was it bad?" Was her love as toxic as her hate?

He doesn't answer.

"It wasn't your fault Avi."

Those five words, words that I have wanted to hear for so long. Words that everyone in my life wanted me to believe these days. "How do you know that?"

Ishan shakes his head and smiles. "Don't you get it, brother?"

"Get what?" As soon as I say that his face starts blurring like he is going away from me once again but he doesn't completely vanish. His face is still there like a smoke trail. "I am not real Avi, I am your inner voice, the voice you buried long ago. I am not the one who thought it should have been you, you did. I am not the one who ever hated you, Avi, you hated yourself. The only reason I am in front of you telling you that it wasn't your fault is because somewhere in your heart you believe it too. And if you let people in your life show you how worthy you are, you will be able to say it like you mean it. You wouldn't need me. There is someone out there who loves you with all his heart and would do anything for you, give him a chance, a fair chance like you promised him."

I opened my eyes. I was still sitting in the park, it was so quiet, there was no one else there.

"Ishan..." His name was another whisper on my lips. I got up and raced to my car. As soon as I got home I found Kabir watching TV, he was curled on the couch in a blanket. He looked at me with a frown that instantly changed to worry after one glance at me. He sat up and paused the episode of New Girl.

"Avi, what happened? Where did you go?"

I ignored his question because there was something more important I needed to ask him. "Tell me why you think I would be the perfect model for you?"

"What?"

"Tell me why you want me to do it, so that I don't question it every time."

"I want to click your portraits because, for the past few months, all of my work has been average at best." I opened my mouth to disagree but he took my hand and squeezed it gently so I kept quite understanding that he needed me to let him finish. "It has been average in my eye because my heart was not in it. I started photography because I was passionate about it, I knew I could do something good for myself in this profession but for almost a year I was so worried about paying bills and making a living that I forgot why I wanted to do it in the first place. And then that day in between the shots I saw you. You were so deeply engrossed in explaining something to your author, that I was staring at you and I didn't even realize when my hands moved and I was clicking shot after shot, thinking about how I could play with different angles and light and how I could use things around you as a prop to bring out the perfect shot."

"I know what you are thinking; I felt that way because I love you and I am not denying that but there is more to it. I once told you how I love portraits of people, for me it's about the stories a person's face can tell. Sometimes we don't realize how much our faces speak for us. And your face Avi, they have more stories to tell than you ever speak yourself. I once saw you looking with longing towards two brothers who were playing on the beach. That was the kind of picture I wanted to click." He grabbed his phone, opened it, and after scrolling for a few minutes turned it towards me.

There was a picture of mine with a distant longing in my eyes and I remembered the exact moment I felt that. What I hadn't realized was that Kabir was clicking my picture. I was watching two kids who were playing at the beach and thinking about all the times we had fun at the beach when we were kids. Sometimes Rishabh and Disha would accompany us but there were also times when it was just the two of us. The way Kabir has clicked that photo I looked as perfect a man can be. Is this how he sees me? It can't be because I don't recognize this person but I want to be that person. Not just for him but also for myself and my brother. I have let my parent's behavior rule my life for a decade now. It has to stop.

"Okay let's do this." I look at him with determination in my eyes and Kabir's eyes lit up.