Somewhere Only We Go (Editing)

Chapter 43

Avinash

I don't remember the last time I left my room, and I don't even remember what day it is today or how long I have been in here. I keep waiting for the guilt to kick in, for me to feel bad about missing work for so long, but it never does.

Rishabh is taking care of the admin work on my behalf and I have a good reliable team taking care of the publishing stuff. I told Rishabh about my plans for the imprint. He told me he was proud of me and I might be prideful enough to let him see how good it felt but I thought I would cry. Rishabh and Ishan were born 4 months apart and he is the closest person to fill the void Ishan left in my life. I thought that we could have sorted it all out if we had just talked years ago and if I had known how to ask for help. If I would have been able to say I needed help and I was not okay with what my parents were doing to me. After one point in time, it wasn't even about Ishan, it was just my mother not wanting me and in the darkest moments of my life I wished she would have aborted me.

"Step away from the door, I need to talk to my son." I hear a familiar voice from the other side of my locked doors.

"And I told you he doesn't want to see anyone, especially you," Kabir replies. I love how he has never been scared of my father. Not that he had any reasons to but since the first day they met in Goa Kabir has always stood in front of him in a way that shows clearly how he is not intimidated by him or his money.

I stumble out of my bed and the tile is so cool that I wince when it connects with my bare feet. I can't let him fight every battle for me. Besides I have a feeling about what this is about. Rishabh told me he isn't going to be subtle about it like I was so there is a possibility my father would find out. I open the door and Kabir is standing right in front of me and I meet my father's eyes over my boyfriend's shoulder.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he half shouts. Does he need to be this loud?

"You need to keep your volume down if you want to talk to him like two mature professional adults," Kabir says. I bite my lips to stop myself from smiling.

"And you need to step the hell away from what is clearly not your business" My father glares at Kabir.

"And you need to start respecting my boyfriend if you want to have a conversation of any sort, Dad. You don't get to come to my house and disrespect my partner. You don't get to disrespect my partner anywhere, period."

After what felt like ages but was only a few seconds, my father backed up a little.

"Wait in the living room and I'll be out there in a minute."

As soon as my father is out of hearing distance Kabir kisses me. I feel gross and dirty since I don't remember the last time I took a shower but he doesn't care. His hands move around in my hair, his lips fight for dominance and if I didn't have an impatient father waiting for me out there I would take Kabir to bed and lose myself in him. But I can't, so I reluctantly pull away.

"You want me to come with you?" He asks. I want to say yes but I know I need to have this conversation on my own.

"No, I think I need to do this on my own." Kabir nods in understanding.

"Okay I need to get ready anyway, I have a client meeting in an hour. Let me know if you need something, I'll get it on my way back," he says as we both walk inside our room.

20 minutes later as Kabir leaves I can imagine my father fuming for making him wait for this long. But I don't care at all.

As I sit down on the couch my father is glaring at me. "Do you need something to drink, Dad?"

"Now you remember?"

"You could have helped yourself, it's your son's place after all, you're not a guest. Oh right, you wouldn't know where to find anything, would you? How many times have you come here, Dad? I have lived here ever since I started working for you."

"Seems like that is not going to be a problem anymore. Since you have decided to backstab your own family."

I roll my eyes. "Don't be so dramatic dad, no one is backstabbing you and we have not been a family in forever. This new imprint is my baby, my project, and I want full control over it. I am not leaving the company until you give me no other option. I am not interested in the CEO position and from what I know I don't think even Rishabh is, so you might want to ask Disha or start looking for prospective candidates."

"You are still using my money."

"Actually I am not. You can get your lawyers to go through the finances, this imprint is mine through and through. I am willing to keep the name attached for your sake since you loved the idea of one united family in public. But you don't get a say in this. You don't get to make any decisions, you stay away."

"So it's part of the company just on papers."

"You got it."

"What is this really about Avinash?"

"Excuse me?"

"I know you are trying to make some point about your childhood with this stunt. So what would it take? I have already sent your mother away. What else do you want?"

"Sent my mother away? You didn't send her away because of some fatherly duty, you sent her away because the other option was the truth coming out in public. Because you knew even if I kept quiet, my boyfriend wasn't going to. You saw no other way out. So do not sit here for a second telling me you did this for me. You might not be as bad as mom but you are still a terrible parent. You could have stopped all of this years ago, maybe if you had, Ishan...Ishan would be alive today. Because now I know my brother didn't want to drop out of school. She made her do it and you let her. You kept quiet, you didn't care. So cut the crap Dad, we both know what's going on here. You don't want to give up the power, you are realizing the minute you have to step down, you will lose the command and you will. Because I am not taking it up for you."

My father was ready to speak but I was still not done.

"As much as you want to make this about you, it isn't. This is about me and what I want to do with my future. I love the publishing house but I am not happy with a lot of creative decisions you have made in the past, I am not happy with what we are representing right now. I am still willing to walk halfway through for you Dad, even though I don't owe you anything, so either take it or leave it. There are not going to be any kind of negotiations on this."

After going back and forth for more than an hour my father leaves with quite possibly the first no of his life. If he thought even for a minute I was going to give in, he was wrong and now he knows it. I was kind of worried about losing it in front of him. In the past few months, my panic attacks have always been after talking to him. I didn't want to give him that advantage over me anymore.

I can't believe it's done, it's slowly hitting me, I did it. I told my father what I wanted and he had to bow down to me and there is no denying the reason why I finally decided to fight back. And I had to do something special to thank him not just for being my strength but also for the past few days. The way he had held me through it all while I was lying depressed in my room, I'll forever be grateful. He was so patient, even today he gave me space to deal with us while knowing he was just one call away.

I never understood when authors wrote about people changing for the better when they were in love until I met Kabir. He is the light in my life and I'll do everything I can do to be deserving of him. So I took a shower, cleaned the room a little, and then headed over to the kitchen because I had a date night to prepare for.

[There is going to be one more chapter and then the epilogue to wrap Avi and Kabir's story. But this isn't the last you will get of them. They will be appearing in It was (Not) a Mistake (Rishabh's story). The details for that are already up.]