The Wrong Woman

63. Dhruv

Rani was standing by the hallway mirror, fixing the watch on her wrist. The divorce papers still sat on the coffee table the way I left it; untouched and unsigned. I gritted my teeth. What the heck did she want, if she didn't want to sign the divorce papers?

As if torturing me like this wasn't enough.

I got out some milk, spinach, bananas and blueberries for a breakfast smoothie, making sure I only got out one cup. From the corner of my eye, I could see her watching me with pursed lips before eyeing Cookie who sniffed at her legs.

She shifted away and cleared her throat. "I don't understand why you got a dog."

I remained silent. She had gone from crying her eyes out and watching me with a frown to now acting like she had no idea about anything. God, I was so confused.

"None for me?" I nearly cut myself with the knife I was using to slice the banana. She was tapping her fingers against the wooden table repetitively. A nervous tic of hers I hadn't seen in a while.

"Should there be?"

"I mean...you usually make me breakfast. Or did you forget about that, already?" she joked. The woman joked. I brought my brows down and stared at her.

She was looking through the bag she took to work, not noticing the utter turmoil she was putting me through. Why was she acting like everything was okay? Like nothing last night had happened? As if she'd woken up and restarted or something.

"I didn't forget." I turned back to making my smoothie. "Did you?"

I could feel her gaze burning the back of my head. "I called Sandra and asked her and Anish to come over." What? "I want to celebrate today with all of you. A new start."

New start? I scoffed under my breath as I shoved all the ingredients into the Nutri Bullet. "Weirdly enough she said she isn't coming if he's coming. But I invited the both of them anyway."

The whirring of the machine represented the buzzing in my brain. I watched her with a gaping mouth as she waved her fingers at me briefly and headed out the front door.

What in the hell just happened?

***

Later that night, the three of us sat by the dining table. Sandra glared at her phone as she scrolled through it and Anish shifted in his chair, taking a few glances at her. Rani looked between the both of them before taking a huge gulp of her wine.

Cookie yipped before nuzzling Sandra's leg. Rani lifted her legs up and folded them under her on the chair as Sandra bent down and scratched under his chin. "I missed you too, baby," she cooed. "You're the only reason I came."

"Thanks," I joked, trying to cut through the tense atmosphere. She rolled her eyes but no one said anything afterward.

"Why're you two acting so weird?" Rani finally asked looking between Anish and Sandra. I narrowed my eyes. Why was she acting weird, was what I wanted to ask. How could she forget that they were having problems? 

Sandra seemed to think the same because she smacked her phone against the glass table. Rani jumped but Anish and I stayed rooted to the spot. "I'm really glad for you and Dhruv but please, Rani, if this is your version of a joke, I'm not up for it."

"Yeah, why'd you call us here?" Anish added.

Rani turned to me, raising her eyebrows in a 'what the hell's going on?' kind of way. I pretended I didn't notice and opened the cap of my water bottle to take a swig.

"Well," she began, "I thought it would be fun to get together and have a meal. It's been a long time since we've seen each other."

"Dhruv." Anish looked exasperated, his arms spread wide, palms facing up. "You're not serious, are you?"