Coloured Me Grey (Book Two)

Chapter 31

So with this chapter, we enter the last cycle of 10 chapters for this book.

And.

Keeping in mind the popular demand from 3 years ago (welp, it's been so long since TCB), I've decided to go for a third book. Yup, I'm totally gonna drag this out because DIVYA DESERVES HAPPINESS. There, I spilled it.

It will pick up where Coloured Me Grey leaves off but, you know the drill, from another PoV.

🤷🏻‍♀️🌈

I inspected the reddish welts taking shape on my cheek in the bathroom mirror. That region still stung like I had been bitten by a bug. The itch was getting me more riled up than the actual situation.

Because in your average Indian household, one hit was nothing. Two hits were nothing. Ten hits were nothing. Getting hit every day was nothing.

It's called being disciplined.

I splashed some more water to cool it down and sighed when I realised that I had the house to myself for the rest of the day. And since the slap has already got me out of bed, I might as well do something more productive than staring out of the window from my bed for another 48 hours.

Firstly, a text to Pramila Ma'am. Ma'am, I am really sorry I couldn’t go to campus today. I will bring you the magazine tomorrow positively.

Next, a text to Divya. How are you feeling today? I am worried but it’s okay, please take your time.

Reply to Tuhin's texts because the caveman has taken to show his concern for me through 21st century gadgets.

Then, time to feel regret welling up inside me staring at the past chat records in Yash's WhatsApp.

Finally, a text to Zara's mother. I will talk to Zara once she comes back from school and will apologize for my behaviour. I'm sorry.

And then, back to bed.

What has my life become?

I took a deep breath to gather all my courage to get off the bed again.

The least I could do for Yash was to not make him feel guilty just by looking at me. So I walked to the bathroom again, shaved all my two days' worth of prickly facial hair giving myself half a dozen bloody nicks in the process.

Time to eat. Chop chop.

I munched on a slice of white bread and washed it down with a cup of strong coffee.

Was my father always like this? What made him so bitter towards me and my mom?

I still remember the day clearly when I was first summoned to the Principal's office in middle school. I was a shivering mess of a terrified creature. Ishan and Shivam had given me similar looks of pure terror as the Principal’s office was the subject of the worst possible threats made to the most disobedient children by the teachers and attendants.

But that was the first of many such visits. I would be taken out of school at odd hours like this when my mother would have to go in for surgery, and she would want to see me before she went through it. Someone would pick me up from the Principal's office and then drop me off to school or at Shivam's place afterwards.

Since my mother was taken ill, she had to remain at the hospital for extended periods. I would go over to Shivam's almost everyday after school. His parents would let us play once we were done with all the homework for the next day. At school, the two of us and Ishan, played the best games, had the best seats in the classroom and even shared our best lunches.

I don't remember much of my father from those days. A maid servant would make us food to get through the day and send me off to school, while my father would pick me up from Shivam's place at night. Sometimes I stayed over. Sometimes Baba took both of us to visit Ma in the hospital. One day Ishan had heard about it and from then on, even he would join us on trips to the hospital. My mother would lift a frail hand to touch our faces and mess up our hairs and –

She would smile. Even after months of medication, through all the tubes linked to her, she would smile brightly. Her cracked lips, faraway eyes, discoloured skin merely stretched over her bony frame did not upset me as long as I was allowed to visit her and see her smile.

My father used to be just a stern and reserved man. Now I saw newer colours to his character. He started getting irritable. Then he began to get angry. Then he became furious. His temper would change drastically at the drop of a hat.

We got through it for one year. I could have got through it for several more years even if the only sign of life from her was just a tired smile.

We stood by and watched day after day as the life force was sucked out of her. And then one day, it was all over. I cried because I missed her, but I was also relieved that she wasn't suffering anymore.

What happens with the end of suffering? Nothing remains.

Our routine at home stayed the same, the only difference being the fact that I was spending the evenings in art classes instead of Shivam's place. I tried to earn my father's approval in every little thing I did – the best I got was a nod.

Within a year he brought a woman home, claiming that I needed a mother, they got their marriage registered and before I got to wrap my head around that, I had a little stepsister.

Was my father always like this? Perhaps not.

But the fact still remains that apathy grows faster when left on its own. And it might give way to stronger negative feelings when you have to cohabit for too long.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had picked up the call.

"Hello?"

Mistake. Big mistake.

"Riyaaz, are you there?" A click of the tongue. "Is there a network problem or what?"

Not the network, I am the problem.

"Try and call me back, okay? This is urgent." His voice was fading away, "Of all days, you had to be absent today, ugh..."

It was well into the afternoon. College would be over in another hour or so.

"I'm here. Tell me."

"Oh!" Yash's voice sounded surprised. “Uh, are you okay? You're not sick, are you?”

Depends on how you define "sick".

"No, tell me."

"Can you come to the campus now?"

"Why?"

"There is a sign up going on only for today for a short course in Santiniketan in the summer. I asked them if I could put in your name on your behalf but they’re not allowing that. You have to be here in person. I know your house is nearby. Can you make it?"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe I should have asked the hundreds of other friends you have in campus.'

Now that certainly changes things. He still considers himself a friend.

Time to liven the fuck up, boys.

"Look, just come here. We'll talk about the other things once you are done with this enrolment, okay?"

"Alright."

Whatever this was going on to be, I knew I owed it all to Ishan. If anyone could save my ass right now, it had to be him.