Always Is Not Forever (Breaking Myself - Part II)

10. The One Where I Have it Again

*Trigger Warning ahead*

[ A L I N A ' S P O V ]

You both are the same level of fucked up.

I swirled my spoon, mixing the sugar or trying to remove the impact of Dhruv's words. No matter how hard I tried, his words didn't leave me. They bit me back again and again. How did I tell Kabir about this? Should I even tell him about them? He would get hurt.

Dhruv was his best friend.

I couldn't hurt him that way.

"What you thinking, bookworm?" Kabir snapped his fingers in front of me, and I jumped slightly in my chair. As I saw him, I remembered the time I spent in his apartment the other day. How we kissed too hard, how his hands wander to my back and how much I loved it.

"Nothing." I passed him a small smile, curbing Dhruv's word within my heart. "So are you okay now? No more fuzzy mind?"

I stopped the smile arising on my face. Unlike last time, he rolled his eyes.

"You caught me off guard." His eyes diverted to my noodles. I pushed it to his side. Chinese and he couldn't be left apart. He passed me a grateful smile and took a bite. "And yes, that gift. Should I be scared my sister is lesbian and searching such stuff for you?"

I shrugged my shoulders in reply.

"You look tense."

"Nothing just slept late. Reading."

"No, you look tense," He insisted. "I know when you're tired. You yawn too much, but you look tense. Before I came, you were thinking something too hard. What is it?"

Lie. Lie. Lie. But we had promised we wouldn't lie and hide things from each other. Guilt pinched my heart. I had hidden Siddarath thing from him. I had hidden Fiza thing from him, and I knew he was waiting when I would tell him. Sudden moments when Fiza would stare at me across the hallways entered my mind. She had asked why I was leaving and I had shouted at her, shouted for having sex when I was in the room, shouted because anything could've happened that night and I wouldn't have been able to report.

She had invited him.

I couldn't bear the heart of more lies and hiding. "Dhruv." He tensed from his name. "I called him yesterday." He didn't say anything. "We got into an ugly fight."

"Well, he's a douche. I know you won't say such things to Isha."

I was about to nod when I realized I hadn't confessed to him.

"How you know? I didn't tell you why we fought."

"Huh." He looked around the canteen. "I knew. He talked to me two months ago about the same."

"You knew?" I almost yelled. "I asked you, and you lied on my face."

"I didn't!" He pushed his plate of noodles far away. "I just didn't tell you."

"So you hid it." Hurt poured through my voice. "You knew I was tense because of him. I was worried about him."

"I didn't want you to get more hurt," He defended himself. "You already take pills-"

"Don't drag my medicines into this," I hissed. "What's your problem? Why you hid it? He thinks wrong, Kabir. That girl is messing with his head."

"I didn't want him to mess up with your head!" He whispered harshly. "You were so happy that night of the club."

"Stop saying as if I'm sick and can't handle some news!"

"I was trying to act as a protective boyfriend," He argued back.