My heart somersaulted with all the things that could go wrong with that sentence. Was he going to propose to her even after all this? Was he going to forgive her? I remembered how she had said, before walking out the door, 'I don't believe you.' Was she right? Could he do that? My mind felt like it was going to explode. I reflexively rubbed my nose and hated myself for it.

He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wordlessly dangled it toward me. I stubbornly chose to stare at the floor as hurt pinched through my stomach and went deep down to my bones. I almost wanted to get up and walk away. Instead, I forced the words out of me, "What do you want to talk about?"

There was silence. My nose itched so bad, I stifled my fingers on my lap. And then the handkerchief was in front of my nose. I looked up from the floor as he kept holding the handkerchief. My heart twisted. Maybe it was something that was going to hurt me worse. I could feel it.

I blinked through the tears that I could feel was threatening my eyes, and looked at those eyes like orange blossoms in a muddy earth, the soft cotton of the handkerchief already touching the bump of my nose. I went on and blew my nose on it.

If you are going for it, then go all the way isn't it?

He folded the handkerchief, as if it didn't have skunk, and instead of throwing it away, he kept it inside the jacket of his Tom Ford. He was buttoning up his jacket as he said the words, "I think we should get married."

"What?" I blinked down at him, was I imaging things, was I going crazy?

He finally looked up, his expressions neutral. "Let's get married."

I kept staring at him, my heartbeat going crazy, "What? Are you... are you in your right mind?" I was so angry I could barely control my voice.

He looked up at me, his eyebrows jutting in a scalding frown. Was that disapproval on his face? Was he mildly irritated just because I had said no to be his second stupid option? I wanted to bang a pillow onto his face. So I pushed him back and stood up.

He got up from the floor following me; I swirled and stopped him from the palm of my hand, taking a deep breath, needing to calm myself before I spilled venom. I didn't want to hurt him more, but I wasn't going to let him hurt me like this.

Not anymore.

"I can't-" I gasped, "I can't talk to you right now." And before he could say something else that would break me in complete shards, I turned and ran outside the room and away from him, down the stairs. 

 *************

I found myself sitting on top of the wicker green pool chair, at the back of Kiyansh's parent's house as my phone kept ringing. I put it on silent mode as my breath came out in shards and tears slipped pathetically down my face for the umpteenth time this week. My chest was suffocating on itself.

I couldn't believe his words, the way it hurt more than the time he said he was thinking to announce his and Sahana's engagement. Was I just another option for him? How could the words that I have been dreaming about since I was a kid could feel the most insulting thing ever about our friendship.

My phone ringed again, as I stared at the swimming pool and thought about the picture at his childhood bedroom hall. It was taken on the day of our pre-boards; things were simple between us then. Kiyansh hated geometry so I had come to his house early morning to help him with it. We had spent all our morning till noon, banging heads, stress eating chocolates (that was me, until Kiyansh had yanked it out of my hand and thrown it out of the window proclaiming he was going to have chocolate and geometry nightmares all his life.) We had ended up on the floor with geometry equations scattered around us. And I had sneaked into the kitchen and stolen two orange ice candies, (to tempt Kiyansh to solve an equation, since we were not allowed to eat something related with ice during our exams.) Kiyansh and I were pretty bummed up that we were doing this rebellious thing, and Kiyansh's mom had caught us when we were sticking out our tongues at each other. The reason we were so wide eyed in the photo.

I wondered of the equation of that came from Sahana cheating on Kiyansh to this. My phone stopped ringing, and then a series of ping.

Come on talk to me.

Where are you? Let me explain.

Are you at the swimming pool?

I gasped as I read the message. Picking up my stilettos from the deck floor I ran across the swimming pool to the back lane of the second gate, the tiled floor turning into lumpy ground under my bare feet.

I only stopped once I punched in the codes and the metal gates scraped open to the black asphalt under the street lights. My mind whirred in thought, Kiyansh's mom was definitely gonna freak out not seeing me back at the party, so I tap opened my phone and sent her and my dad a quick text saying that I had a meeting emergency. My phone's screen lit up in Kiyansh's picture again, as he called me once more. I screened the call and chose to decline it.

I couldn't call Ashraf Kaka that was not an option. I didn't want to go back to home and wallow in self-pity. As my phone pinged yet again, and I decided to put in on silent mode for my sanity, I saw that there was a new text, by Ayan Kapoor.

Hey I am in Delhi for a shoot, wanna hang out?

Before I could over think it, I opened the dial pad and tapped on Ayan's caller-id. The phone was picked up on the second ring. "I am going to mark this day on calendar. I was not even expecting a reply and you called?" The whistle on the other end was viscerally damaging to my ear, I regretted the moment I decided to bring this on my own head.

"You better," I said, "You are an actor, aren't you supposed to have better whistling talent?"

"Now, now, stop stereotyping me." Ayan said in a fake-hurt voice. He was a two year old child in the body of a man that was famous for winking and sticking his tongue out in the direction of Paparazzi, the only reason I could digest his personality let's say, once every six months. Other times, I gladly chose to ignore it.

"Come pick me up ASAP, I am sending you the address."

"So bossy, so uncourteous," he grumbled, as I said like a two-year old would do, "Shouldn't you be asking me how I am doing in your hometown, shouldn't you-"

"Do you want me to cut the call?" I interrupted.

He sighed dramatically, "Okay, okay, send me the address, I'll bog off my security and come pick you up."

"Okay, fast." I hissed and cut the call.

I was waiting down two streets away, when a familiar black Audi R8 revved down the street and my heart shuffled like the wheels on the asphalt, as the car stopped in front of me, the window rolling down. Kiyansh's head popped out of the window, as his brown eyes came rather testily at me, "Why are you standing here?"

I defiantly tugged my chin at the other direction as I chose to not respond to him at all.

A minute passed after I heard the car door open. My stomach squeezed but I persistently kept my eyes on the chipped pole under the street-lamp. I could hear a dog barking in the distance, and was sharply reminded of Kiyansh's only pet dog, Denver. It had been months since I had met him. It had only been two months before, Sahana had uploaded a picture of Denver on her Instagram, a snapshot of Denver's head on Kiyansh's feet. She hadn't tagged Kiyansh, she couldn't because he didn't use Instagram, but I could recognize his feet anywhere. The caption was: The love of my life.

There were comments, after comments on the post. People asking her if she was talking about Denver (which they had been calling as the pet) or the man whose feet on Denver was sleeping. Obviously she hadn't replied to the comments, and I had been so jealous. Because I had always thought, Denver was one part of Kiyansh's life that was going to be ours. We had brought him home together and he hadn't introduced her or any of his past girlfriend's to him before. He was fairly protective over Denver.

I closed my eyes as the wretched feeling tried to claw its fingers through me again. Kiyansh called out my name, when I didn't respond, I heard him sigh, "I am sorry." He said quietly, as I heard another car drive down the street. I opened my eyes and hoped it wasn't Ayan, at least not right now. Not when I wanted to ask Kiyansh what he was sorry about. Sorry about not telling me the truth, fooling me around for a month, or telling me we should get married just because I came into his mind after his girlfriend, I wasn't even sure if I could call Sahana his ex cheated on him. Kiyansh's attention however wasn't on explanation, he just said, "If you don't feel like talking, let me at least just drop you home."

And my anger surged up so high I turned and founded the car that was driving down the street, looked at the windshield, found it to be Ayan's face, and waved him over. I watched from my periphery as Kiyansh's face turned towards the approaching Black Sedan and followed the car as it stopped behind the Audi, the doors opening and Ayan bellowing, "Sharma," as he got out of the car.

He raised his eyebrows as he saw Kiyansh's face. But thankfully didn't open his mouth and say anything stupid as he made his way over. Through the two years I had known Ayan, I had made sure Kiyansh and Ayan never crossed each other's paths. A, because Ayan was an overly nosey person who was infamous for not being able to keep his mouth shut. B, because he had always insisted on meeting Kiyansh, the hearty-interloper in his words, so you can guess by now why.

Ayan steps were more of a jump and less of a walk as he looked at me from Kiyansh and back forth. "Well, I definitely will have to mark the date on the calendar now," he said, wiggling his eye-brows at me as I glared at him to shut up. He turned to Kiyansh, extending his hand, "Hello, I am Ayan Kapoor, I have heard a lot about you."

Kiyansh looked at Ayan's hand as if he would rather spit on it, and said, his voice condescending, "I haven't heard anything about you." To me he turned and barked, repugnantly, "You are coming with me."

Ayan gave me a look, and retreated his hand.

I couldn't decide between screaming in frustration vs. Giving him such a response that would make him feel regretful for talking like that. I decided to not respond to him at all, and said reproachfully to Ayan, "Let's go."

Ayan looked between me and Kiyansh, and when I glared, he swivelled and headed back in the direction of the car. Thankfully it was night, and the street was quiet, because if anyone even barely recognized Ayan, clicked a picture and uploaded it somewhere, chaos would reign down, since we didn't even have any security with us. I clutched my phone and stepped forward to follow Ayan when Kiyansh's stiff voice stopped me, rupturing through the air, "Are you dating him?"

My feet stopped as I heard his voice, his tone. I turned around, looked deep into the abyss of his hard brown eyes glittering gold under the street light, his jaw tight and said, "I will inform you next month." I left him standing on the pavement.