I turned on my laptop to talk to Sonia. Sonia asked, “Hey, how are you?! Happy New Year!”

“Thanks and same to you!”

“See, I hate time difference! It’s still only afternoon here.”

I laughed. “So where’s Nathan taking you today?”

“Don’t know. He won’t tell. Anyway, see you later. They too are creating havoc again!” She replied referring to Karan and Nathan. I giggled and signed off.

I laid down but couldn’t find my blanket. I figured Sharon must have taken it, and got up to go to her room. Opening the door to her room, I was surprised to find Rey there and not Sharon.

He turned hearing the noise of door opening and I asked, “Uh…what are you doing here?”

“Sharon is in the guest room with Swayam… so…”

“Hmmm.” I replied understanding what could have happened. I continued, “Well, I only came to get my blanket.”

I walked in and picked up the blanket from the bed. I didn’t realize when he walked up to me. When I turned around, I found him dangerously close. As a reflex, I stumbled a couple of steps back. “Whoa! Uh…Rey?”

But his ears where shut off. He wasn’t listening. Not at all. He took a step forward and I retraced my step backwards till I reached a dead end. I again tried, “Rey?” It was a low mumble. Again, he wasn’t listening. I tried to go around him, but he trapped me between his shoulders, forbidding me from walking away.

I breathed heavily and pushed him aside a little with all my might. But he was no less a stubborn. He pulled me back with force as I struggled to free myself. "Why do you always do this dammit?! Why? I said I'm sorry! I – I still love you. Why can't you understand that?!!"

I stopped trying to free myself as I heard the last bit of words. After a minute of staring straight into his eyes, I answered. "That's not enough!” I continued looking into his eyes and with a soft voice, I continued, “It never was…”

"Is it not?" He asked, coming dangerously close to me, if that was even possible. I couldn't inch back as I was still trapped between the wall and his hold.

With the closeness, I could smell his scent. The scent that smelled of alcohol. My eyes widened as I spoke. "You're drunk!"

Rey held my arm, preventing me from pushing him aside and asked roughly, “Why? Why do I not get a second chance?”

I stood strong and replied looking straight into his eyes. “You don’t deserve it. If you can’t trust me, you don’t deserve it. Now let me go before you regret it in morning.”

Hearing that, he loosened the grip on my hand. I took the opportunity and moved around him. But he came back to his senses fast and pulled me towards him. I stood, my back pressed against him, the only thing between us was my arm behind me being held by his. I struggled to go free and winced in pain. “Rey, please. Let me go…”

“Enough of it. I’m not holding myself back today. Try stopping me.”

I gritted from between my teeth, “Whatever you do will least affect me. So just don’t bother.”

He listened to not one word. With his free hand, he moved my hair aside, revealing my bare neck. He whispered hoarsely in my ear, “Then tell me it doesn’t affect you.” I stayed quiet and held my breath till as long as I could.

He abruptly turned me around and my hand went around his neck, the other landed on his chest. I could feel his heart beating, which intoxicated me even though I wasn’t the one drunk here! My body sent shivers down my spine at the close interaction.

He repeated, mockingly, “I have no effect on you huh?”

He ran his hand through my cheek and I responded by shivering more to it and moving my shoulder up towards the touch, bending my face towards his face, sideways. “If you don’t love me, it shouldn’t bother you anymore. Right?” He continued teasing.

I couldn’t say no to any of those questions. His actions captivated my heart, mind, soul, body and I stood there. Numb. Not able to feel any realistic things. There I was. Rooted to the floor. My heart beating as fast as possible. The air around wasn’t the same anymore. It was singing and dancing around, making the moment ever more mysterious and magnificent.

Even in his drunk state, he seemed to know the effect it was having on me. He moved stealthily behind me and stood there for a second, capturing the moment. Circling my waist with his hand, he pressed my back towards him.

I gasped silently. Involuntarily, my hands landed on top of his and I dug my nails in them, tightening his hold on my stomach. My action forced him on and he forwarded her kiss my nape. My mind cried out to me. This shouldn’t be happening. I shouldn’t be urging him on. This had to stop right then and there. But my heart fought off all the philosophical talks and reactivated me to my unconscious self, shutting off my mind and I lost myself to what was in front of me.

I lost myself in the moment.

The feeling I was experiencing… it wasn’t the first time. Still, this was different. I didn’t care anymore about the result of it and let it happen. I made myself believe that I won’t regret this. Not now. Not ever.

He slowly moved me to face him and held my right cheek, slowly, bringing my face close to his. I didn’t refuse and that cleared the doubts on unconscious Rey. I no more cared if I would regret this later on. I didn’t want to think about that at the moment. I moved back, still in his arms, and he retraced my steps. Till I reached the side of the bed and stumbled down.

It was as if the past never happened, like it was never there, like this was the first time we’d met and it just spontaneously happened. Yet, it held an important page of history. That will never leave us as long as we lived.

It could be forgiven, but it could not be forgotten.

People say ‘forgive and forget’ motto, but it is not possible to do so. Until and unless you literally had a memory loss, you cannot forget it. You can also push it back to the unconscious state of mind, but still, you cannot simply forget it to its entirety.

***

[Rey’s POV]

It was just after the sun rose, brightening the sky with its radiance. Turning the sky from pitch dark to rainbow colors. It was then that my eyes opened. The moment I opened my eyes, my head started to pound. The worst hangover I ever had. I pressed my temples trying to get rid of the pain. When I was unsuccessful in my tries, I sat up on the bed and the curtain moved due to wind, revealing the open window.

The breeze came in as I pushed aside the covers and stood by it. I groaned and pressed my fingers to my temple. How much had I drunk last night? I could only remember bits and pieces about how I got here. The more I tried to remember, the faster the fog started to lift from my memories of last night. The events rushed back to me.

I remembered how I seduced Kriya and she didn’t stop me at all. She gave in.

Despite the hangover, a smile crept up on my face. One gesture from her had cleared away all my confusion. I knew that even after this, it would be next to impossible to forget the past. The guilt will always remain. Still, how could I neglect the feeling arising inside my heart? I gazed at her calm, sleeping face and neared my hand towards her face to move the strand of hair aside to get a clear look of her face.

The soft touch of my fingers across her check shivered her unconsciously and she turned her head and slowly opened her eyes. I sat back and gave a smile to her. She smiled back, still covered by sleep. She closed her eyes again and a second later, she seemed to have realized it wasn’t a dream and it was reality.

“Hi…” I whispered.

At the realization, she eyes snapped open and before any sort of greeting, asked with concern, “Headache?”

I nodded sheepishly and explained, “I don’t know what happened to me last night.”

“Hmm.” She said looking away.

I then asked the next question I feared hearing the answer to. “Hey listen, about last night…” I hesitated but continued, “You – you don’t regret anything…?”

[Kriya’s POV]

My head turned towards him and I looked right into his eyes after he asked me that question. Did I regret it? The second I asked myself the question, I knew the answer without even giving it a second thought. The answer was no.

No.

I didn’t regret anything at all. I never regretted any of my actions when it was concerned him.  I was about to answer, when the door opened.

It was none other than Swayam. He looked apologetic and said, “Uh, sorry to disturb your moment. But we sort of have a situation here.”

Without wasting a second, I threw the covers aside and got out of bed. Rey got up as well and Swayam moved to give them the way out first. He followed behind with a worried look on.

I asked, “Sharon didn’t hurt herself. Did she?”

Swayam replied with concern, “No, she’s fine. But I don’t know about you.”

I stopped on the stair and looked at Rey with a blank face. Looking back at Swayam, I asked, “What do you mean? I’m right in front of you.”

He stayed quiet and replied with a bleak whisper, “See for yourself.”

Rey and I shared an even more confused look. We were completely blank. Coming down the last step, I stood there with Rey and Swayam behind me. Sharon turned and so did another person sitting on the couch. My expression turned to shocked surprise.

I whispered gravely, mostly to myself, “Shivam!”

The event of that horrible night in the past came back to me. It was no worse than a haunted story for me. Just when I think I will be able to forgive after all, he returns. Back in our lives. But … bringing what tornado this time? All I knew was that I wanted him to disappear forever. I had just gotten Rey back. I cannot afford to lose him again.

I thought back to the night it happened. That wretched night when I met him, and the same night that turned my life upside down.

It was the night of the day when we had won the footloose competition for the third year in a row. Unbeatable for three years was our D3 team. We had decided to celebrate our victory again at the club. The same way we used to since the past years.

With our fans, came many proposals from famous people as well, asking us to work for them. But this was us. Performing only for themselves. We weren’t the one who would go around being sold to anyone. We performed only when we wanted to and only for the people we wanted to perform for.

Everything was going just perfect. Sometimes, it all seemed too good to be true. We always kept our friendship and personal relationships closely bonded that there was no danger to us from anyone or anything.

But it wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was our love itself that became our biggest hurdle of all. It was love that had bonded us together, and it was the same thing that broke us apart. Usually, hatred is the reason for such break-ups. But just like everything we did, this happened uniquely too.

Rey asked as we entered the party room, “Do we have to pretend to fight?”

I stopped and explained again, “Yes! We have to make Sharon realize her love towards Swayam. We’ll be graduating in no less than a month. It’s high time we do that! To do that, we have to show her hate. Now come on!”

After putting up a good act for them, we hid behind a pillar, away from Sharon and Swayam’s sight. We high five’ed each other at our success on first part of the plan.

                              “Nice acting!” I complimented. “You should’ve been an actor, not a dancer.”

“You weren’t bad yourself.” He replied with a grin.

I saw Sharon spotting us and thought quickly. I quickly changed my thank you sentence to, “How dare you say I can’t dance ‘good’?! I’m much better than you alright?”

I moved my eyes from him to the area Sharon was standing at, trying to tell him about Sharon spotting us. But he wasn’t understanding and remarked back, “I never said that! And even if I did, what’s wrong with it?  It is true. I am better. No arguments.”

As soon as the words escaped his mouth, he bit his lower lip.

I figured that he didn’t understand what I was trying to say, so to stop it from getting worse, I said, “You know what? It’s pointless to talk to you!” Saying so, I turned and left, leaving Rey fuming. I had realized that since he didn’t know about Sharon, he wasn’t lying. What he had said had come out naturally.

Rey gritted, “What do you want now? Haven’t you done enough!” I gently held his hand, pulling him back softly. He turned his head slightly to look at me as I blinked at him, asked him to calm down. He calmed down a bit. But still, the memories came back to him, just as it did to me.

He watched as I stood by the bar drinking a soft drink. I wasn’t looking at him, but knew he was watching me.  A guy forwarded towards me. I agreed to dance with him for two reasons. One, Sharon was nearby, and to prove to her that Rey and I were really fighting, I couldn’t say no. Second, he had said he liked this girl and wanted to make her jealous. What seemed so harmless, turned into the horror of my life.

If only Rey had went along with it, instead of thinking otherwise. The only thing he chose to see was me forwarding my hand and accepting a dance proposal.

The whole night, I had to stay away from Rey. By the end of the night, it wasn’t Sharon who made a realization. It was me who was hurt and Rey who was interpreting things. He came out to see, something worse. Shivam had his face dangerously close to me. He saw that, but he didn’t see me trying to push him away.

His temper rose to the highest possible point as he perilously walked towards him and pulled him away from me. Before anyone had any chance to let a thought pass, a punching sound filled the place. Blood oozed out of Shivam’s lower lip when he looked up. I was scared to see the angry look of Rey but also happy that he was there to save me. I was close to crying but the next thing I heard froze my heart. “Go home.” Rey had said.

He misunderstood.

I didn’t have the strength to go on. Just a few minutes ago, I was this close to getting raped and Rey, my boyfriend, my love, didn’t care to even look at me once? See the truth? How could he believe I would cheat on him? How could he have not seen that this man over here was forcing himself on me? Is this the love he had for me? Millions of questions rose up in my eyes as I watched him walk away from me. I traced her steps back till I stumbled upon a person.

I turned to see Sharon and Swayam coming out, laughing.

***

 A/N: As old readers know, this book has three volumes. I'm changing that into three parts. And, part 1 ends in the next chapter! It seems too soon, doesn't it? :O Well, just wanted to inform (=

Oh, and the update schedule might change slightly from next week as I'll be wrapping up Stepping Out too. Finals will also be the week of 8th December.. a little over a month, so keep all that in mind... Whatever I decide, it'll be posted on my profile by end of Thursday. Don't forget to check it :D