Chapter 14: The Return
The jasmine on the balcony had wilted. Anjali noticed it on her way to the kitchen the next morning, the creamy petals edged with a brittle brown, the scent now just a ghost of sweetness in the humid air. She pinched off the dead blooms with mechanical fingers, her mind a blank, white screen. She had slept, somehow, a depthless, dreamless blackness. Now, in the stark morning light, the memory of the kitchen felt like something she had watched on a screen—vivid, terrible, and separate from herself.
She moved through the apartment like a visitor.Made tea.Toasted bread. The silence was a third presence.Rohan’s door remained shut.It opened just past noon. He emerged dressed for the gym, hair damp from a shower. He didn’t look at her where she sat pretending to read a magazine on the sofa.“Going out,” he muttered, lacing his shoes.
“With Sameer?” The question escaped, tinny and small.“Yeah. Probably.”
“Don’t be late.” It was the wrong thing to say.A mother’s refrain. He paused, his shoulders tensing, then left without another word. The click of the door echoed in the quiet.The gym smelled of rubber mats and disinfectant. Rohan pushed through his sets with a vicious focus, muscles burning, mind blessedly empty of everything but count and form. Spotting him on the bench press, Sameer whistled low as Rohan re-racked the bar. “What’s got into you today, bro? Trying to punish the iron?”
“Just getting a workout,” Rohan grunted, sitting up and wiping his face with his towel.
“Sure, sure.” Sameer flopped onto the bench next to him, scrolling idly through his phone. A familiar, possessive dread curled in Rohan’s gut.He knew what was coming.
“Speaking of workouts,” Sameer said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial leer.He turned his screen. It was a candid shot from Anjali’s latest campaign, the resort one. She was mid-laugh, head thrown back, the sarong a splash of color against turquoise water. The image was radiant, joyful. It felt like a violation just seeing it in Sameer’s hand.“My cousin’s interning at the agency.Sent me a preview. God, your mom is unreal.” Sameer’s thumb traced a lazy circle on the screen. “That waist, man.How does she even have a waist like that? It’s not natural.”
“Shut up, Sameer.” The words came out flat, devoid of the usual teasing annoyance.
Sameer either didn’t hear or chose to ignore the warning. “You know, I was thinking last night.We’re bros, right? Best friends.”
“What’s your point?” Rohan stood, grabbing his water bottle.“Well, you live with her. You see it all, every day. The way she moves, all that.” Sameer pocketed his phone and stood too, stretching his arms over his head. “It’s a waste, you keeping that all to yourself. We should… share, you know?”
Rohan froze, the water bottle halfway to his lips. “Share what?”
“Come on, don’t be dense.” Sameer bumped his shoulder, a grin splitting his face.“Your mom, man. We should tag-team her.Can you imagine? One night, you get her all warmed up, send her my way.Next week, I do the honors.We could keep a schedule. It’d be legendary.”
The world narrowed to a pinprick. The thud of weights, the whir of treadmills, the chatter—all of it receded into a muffled roar. Rohan saw only Sameer’s grinning, entitled face, the casual cruelty in his eyes. This wasn’t just crude fantasy. This was a blueprint, a plan to turn her into a… a thing to be passed between them.To take what was his.What was his.
The reaction was pure, unthinking instinct. His hand shot out, fingers curling into the damp fabric of Sameer’s gym shirt. He shoved him, hard, sending him stumbling back into a rack of dumbbells.The metallic clang was shockingly loud.“What the fuck, Rohan?!” Sameer yelled, righting himself, his face flushed with shock and anger.
“Don’t you ever,” Rohan hissed, the words trembling with a fury so intense it scared him, “talk about her like that again. Don’t even think it.”
Sameer held his hands up, a sarcastic smirk trying to return.“Whoa, chill out. It was a joke, you psycho.”
“It’s not a joke.” Rohan took a step forward. The other guys in the free-weight area had stopped, were watching.He didn’t care. “She’s not a fucking… toy for your dirty mind. You look at her picture one more time, you say one more word about her, and I will break your face. You understand me?”
The sincerity in his voice, the raw, untamed violence in his eyes, finally punctured Sameer’s bravado.The smirk vanished.“Jesus, man.Fine.Whatever. She’s your sacred cow.Sorry for blaspheming.”
Rohan didn’t wait. He turned, grabbed his bag, and strode out of the gym, leaving the heavy doors swinging behind him. The humid city air hit him like a wall. He leaned against the building’s cool exterior, his breath coming in ragged gasps.His knuckles throbbed. He hadn’t even thrown a punch, but his whole body was coiled, vibrating with the aftermath of the confrontation. It wasn’t just protectiveness.It was a blazing, territorial jealousy. The thought of Sameer’s hands, anyone’s hands, on her… It made his vision swim with a red haze.
He walked for blocks, aimlessly, until the adrenaline bled away, leaving a hollow, shaky exhaustion. The melted kulfi.The whispered phone calls.The kiss that tasted of salt and despair. And now this.Every boundary was not just crossed but obliterated. He was defending her honor from his best friend while harboring thoughts that were, in their own way, just as profane.
He returned home as the sun was setting, painting the living room in long, melancholy shadows. The apartment was silent, but a different silence.A held breath. He saw her then, through the open door of her bedroom. She was asleep on top of the covers, still in her day clothes—a simple cotton kurta and leggings. One arm was flung above her head, the other rested on her stomach.Her hair was a dark pool on the pillow. In sleep, the careful mask was gone.She looked exhausted, vulnerable, younger than her years.
He stood in the doorway, watching the gentle rise and fall of her breath. The fury from the gym was gone, replaced by a profound, aching tenderness.Sameer saw a body.A fantasy. Rohan saw the faint worry line between her brows, the soft curve of her cheek, the chipped polish on her toenails. He saw the woman who had sung him to sleep, who now cried in the dark, whose smile in a photo could light up a room but whose real smiles were so rare and precious.
He took a silent step into the room.Then another. He could smell her perfume, that familiar jasmine and sandalwood, mingled with the scent of her skin. He stood beside the bed, looking down at her.His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic, hopeful, terrified rhythm.
He remembered his own command from the night before.You should lock your door tonight.She hadn’t.
Slowly, hesitantly, he reached out.His fingers didn’t touch her. Instead, they hovered, trembling, just above the stray strands of hair across her forehead. He didn’t move them. He simply stood there, a sentinel in the fading light, his desire and his devotion holding him in a perfect, impossible equilibrium. The city lights began to blink on outside the window, one by one, tiny stars in the encroaching dark.He didn’t move. He just watched her sleep, knowing, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that the door between them was open wider than ever, and there was no going back.