Unfazed

51. Out Comes The Story (Deeksha) - Part 2

(This is a long chapter with a lot of details - also, part 2/3 of the entire backstory. Enjoy!)

"Excuse me?!?!" I nearly shrieked and sat upright on my bed. I desperately searched for a sign that Harsh was joking – on his face and Deven's and neither, gave anything away. "Harsh!! Please say something, damnit!" I said again, my confusion and agitation threatening to overwhelm me. Trust my brother to stay mute after dropping a bomb like that.

"I'm so sorry, Dee – I really didn't know it, back then!" he said, and I could see his eyes glisten – though he tried to hide it. My hands dropped into my lap and I became very aware of my senses. For a brief moment, the room was no longer stationary – and I felt the colours of the walls and the floors and everything – become a blur as I zoned out of focus.

Before I became hysterical, though, Harsh's warm hand caught hold of mine and it almost felt like it was the only thing anchoring me to reality as the shock of what I had just heard washed over me like an amateur surfer caught in a big wave.

"Dee", said a gentle voice to my right and I realized that somewhere in this process, Harsh had moved next to me on the bed and Deven had moved his chair closer to my bed. I carefully looked up to see the considerate eyes of Dev Singhania fixed on me – his eyes as sharp as a kite's and his brow furrowed with worry.

"Dee.. It's alright. Stay with us? Please?" he said, almost like he knew exactly what I was going through. In a minute, I nodded, finally getting a grip on myself as Harsh said calming phrases like "It's okay" and "It's all in the past" and "Don't worry" to me.

"Okay... So?" I croaked, when I found my voice again – but I couldn't look at either of them just yet. "Dee.. You really don't need to know the details of the fight. It was an ongoing rivalry with another school – and through various competitions and everything, a lot of my batchmates were known to us. However, since there was no competition we had lost to them – in sports as well as cultural and academic ones – the captain of the other team had been looking for a chance to get back at us", Harsh explained.

"One of the footballers was also an actor – so we were friends back then – and I was the one who invited them to the party", confessed Dev – wanting me to smack myself for having asked Harsh what the story was. "Wait a minute... Come again, please" I said, unable to help myself.

"I was stupid – when you passed out at the party, I obviously asked who had done it – and those kids were known for their notorious behaviour anyway. When I found out that Deven had invited them, I was furious. I thought something worse happened to you," said Harsh, looked at a fixed point on the wall to our left, unable to meet my gaze.

"But why didn't you just ask him?" I asked – because since they were very close friends, that was the obvious thing to do.

"Umm.. How do I explain to you...?" droned Harsh, while Dev just sat next to us, staring at his shoes. "Just tell me, Harsh!" I dragged, already tired of the story.

"So – my lab partner in Chemistry class was this girl called Meenakshi. And I had considered asking her out after the boards. Now.." began Harsh and my jaw nearly fell to the floor. But Dev beat me to a response by filling in with his part of the story that, "She was dating my friend – the actor guy through whom I knew all the others. And when Harsh told me about his plan, I only told him not to pursue it – because I knew that Meena (that's what we called her) wasn't as simple as she seemed. I didn't want to tell him she was with someone from the other school – so I didn't. And he misunderstood that I was against him being with her – because I was interested in her."

"OH Goodness!! You are worse than Mean Girls!!" I said, smacking my forehead with the heels of my palm.

Completely ignoring me, Harsh continued the story, "Anyway, when you fainted at the party, I knew it must have been the kids from the other school who had done something because a couple of them hadn't even hidden the things they were carrying with them. And Vicky found you.. so, the two of us made you lie down in a place where I left Meenakshi with you and went to find the captain of the other team, sure that they'd done it. Vicky went to get some water too and by the time I came back five minutes later since I couldn't find that captain fellow, Vicky was standing there shocked and Meenakshi told us that Dev had called his driver and taken you away."

Slowly, the pieces started falling into place. "Actually, it was all their plan", elaborated Deven. "How?" I asked, too startled to formulate a proper question.

Dev, remorseful as a funeral, told us "They had mixed some really cheap alcohol and some very random pain-killers into a drink and somehow gotten it to you. While Vicky was called out to the place where you were, they called me in the pretext that they wanted to thank me for inviting their group. And obviously, that wasn't too hard to believe. By the time I got back, Harsh and Vicky had gone to get them or help – but Meena told me that they asked me to take you to my house instead since my dad was not in town. So, I called my driver immediately and took you home..."

"But of course, to me, the whole thing was made to look like Dev had teamed up with them and betrayed me," finished Harsh.

Taking all of this in, was a lot for me, especially because all my life, I had thought I had never been under the influence of an intoxicant. And here I was, hearing that the biggest drama to go down in possibly all of my school life, had happened and I hadn't so much as stirred.

"Of course, when I didn't get any call or message from Harsh – and mind you, we had those annoying little flip phones back then! Yeah.. so when I got no news, I called him and he screamed at me. I realized after listening for thirty seconds, that he hadn't asked Meena to tell me anything. And that she was playing a dirty game. So, I stopped the car and asked for him and Vicky to come pick you up," said Dev.

"Yeah man.. I was SO MAD – I was literally a raging bull and nothing else. It was your first proper party and Ma and Papa had let you come because of the assurance that I'd take care to ensure nothing happens to you. Of course, the worst possible scenario came true and what's worse, I thought Dev betrayed me for his other friends – especially since the disagreement about Meenakshi was so new between us back then. I was kind of stupid, in hindsight, but at that time, I didn't know better", elucidated Harsh.

"So you guys didn't speak after that?" I asked, after a long silence had passed between the three of us. Dev and Harsh looked at each other wistfully – but it was Dev who answered this time, "Of course we did – but there was an unexplainable rift. After Harsh had caught up to where we were, we moved you into his car and he was – blinded, literally, by his anger. For what seemed like no rhyme or reason, he decided to blow up at me – and at the time, I didn't know his end of the story. Though our drivers broke up the physical fight we got into, the actual fight went on for longer than you took to recover."

Harsh simply nodded here, and I continued staring at Dev, waiting for him to tell me more. Finally, he too took a deep breath and said, "Well – when he got back, I'm sure he had a scene with your parents... but Rohini Aunty and Ganesh Uncle didn't know what it was that caused you to pass out. They wanted to take you to a doctor, but somehow, Harsh managed to prevent that from happening."

"Eventually, I told them the next morning – and THAT is the only time Ma has ever hit me," Harsh told me. "Oh..." was all I could say – because in my mind, neither of our parents had ever raised a hand on either of us. A faraway look in his eyes, Harsh continued the story with, "The fortunate thing was that I had stayed up with you that whole night after Ma and Papa had thought I had also gone to bed, and before they could think it was serious, you had regained consciousness and asked me for water, around the break of dawn. Then, you'd gone back to sleep. So the entire time, I don't know if they suspected it – but no one said you were spiked with alcohol." I could simply nod, amazed to be hearing about a part of my life that I didn't have a clue about.

"Anyway – fortunately for us, the doctor who took a look at you also confirmed that there was nothing wrong with you except a viral fever induced by expired anti-biotic medicines. So it was a matter of time before the fever came down and you were okay again", finished Harsh.

Dev, who had been fiddling with the hem of my bedsheet from where he sat, chose this point to add his input. "Like I said, the same can't be said for our friendship though – The Meena thing, as well as this – left really heavy strains on our friendship and we stopped hanging out. We weren't enemies yet, but we felt like we could no longer trust each other as friends", he explained.

"But unfortunately for us, this game was far from over", stated Harsh, ominously.