Till The Count Of Five ✓

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

A hand is all that I can offer, a hand and a few nice words. It rests upon you to pull yourself together and get up instead of curving into a ball to be thrown around. Getting up doesn't mean smiling. That is simply throwing yourself high up in the air. And anything that falls is bound to hit the ground. That's reality.

Nolan

15th May 2019, Wednesday
10:30

I wiped my hands and looked up at Kiara sitting in the coordinator's office with her head hung low.

"Are you going to go there?" Pankaj asked.

I didn't know. Maybe, maybe not. We hadn't talked since Monday and that was okay. She had been silent since the news. I wanted to tell her that I understood, I really understood, not just metaphorically as a condolence but as a pain inducer. I deduced Vicky knew just as much and that made me shiver for a moment, until I knew I had to trust her.

"You should go and talk to her."

I nodded as she removed her glasses and turned to look outside the office where the trees swayed with the breeze. Maybe it was the fact that I knew or maybe because she blinked her eyes so many times to stop a tear from falling, I began to walk to her.

"Hey," I said, entering the office. The coordinator was nowhere in sight.

Her eyes snapped up, filled with surprise that sent a lone tear back. "Hey."

"Are you okay?"

She nodded. "What could go wrong? Nothing, if you don't count Vee."

I frowned. "What's wrong with him?" I had seen him five minutes ago in the rush of the recess walking with Hardik with his usual impassive face and slow gait.

"He found out about Shay," she said. "Not the note thing, no. Everything before that."

"Everything?" I couldn't help but ask.

She flinched. "Mostly. He found that they fought, Ash copied and I offered Shay the form in exchange for an interview."

That meant he still had no idea about Rishab.

"I think he'll figure the rest, not the Rishab part but still," she mumbled and played with her fingers. "And you wanted me to give him the note. He'll have me killed."

My eyes narrowed at the ghost of a smile on her lips. "That's a bad joke."

"He doesn't have to kill me to stop me from living."

Of course. It explained the dead walker she had been in the beginning of April, even before eleventh April. "Why did you guys fight before? I get that sudden upheaval and disruption in your lives pushed you both together but why scatter in the first place?"

"Upheaval and disruption? You could simply say Ash's death."

I shook my head. "That was just a catalyst."

A corner of her lip lifted. "He knew about the death and Nidhi Mukherjee's involvement."

I felt there was more but the words she had spoken were hard enough to say out loud. My mouth fell open as I processed her words. Involvement. "Does that mean–"

"It means exactly what you're thinking."

"Well, shit."

Her small smile transferred to a full grin. "You look more mind blown than shocked."