Dhruv's parents came to stay with him for some days, but they were of small comfort since they did so much feeling sad and crying themselves and he didn't have the energy to console them.

After that, Dhruv had spent hours crying with Arjun pressed against his side, and knew that he would spend many more hours crying for Shreya. Aditi was very supportive of what he was going through and he could talk to her anytime.

Arjun and Aditi didn't say much, they just let the silence pass between them. For the first time in a month, Dhruv felt calm. The silence was like a blanket, covering him in numbness as the light drip of water from rain blowing through the windows.

Arjun sat gingerly on the edge of the bed and wiped his younger brother's face, brushing the hair back from his forehead and Dhruv didn't try to pull away from his elder brother. Dhruv pressed his face into Arjun's arm, breathing in deep. Arjun smelled like childhood, smelled like what simple used to feel like. Back when things weren't so complicated and messy, back when Dhruv did not realize just how cruel the world truly was.

......

The job was miles away from Ditiya's home and from where was her last job but she couldn't say she didn't enjoy it. Sitting in front of a computer all day was a lot easier on her body than short skirts, black sailor hats, and tasseled boots hustled about balancing big trays of food and drinks of some four-star restaurant. She had thought that when would get another job nearby she would return to manual labor, but with a promotion looming on the horizon. She was not so sure that was a good idea. This promotion could change her life. This job had already changed her life. And if everything happens for a reason...then maybe this was what God wants for her, she thought. She didn't bother to know what was going on with so many calls coming to inform her parents and Aditi, yet she never once dared to intervene and pick up the phone. She considered the possibility of getting married and then she wanted their advice about her prospects.

Zyad Junaid walked the floor while they worked. He strolled through production with two other men in suits, taking leisurely steps and pausing every now and then to talk amongst them. They stopped at Ditiya's desk, and when she glanced over her shoulder, dark chocolate eyes are staring straight down at her. She gave her best polite smile before returning her gave to the monitor. Her checks flame unbidden as she thought again about that framed picture of his face in the hallway and realize it didn't do him justice.

She understood it now what the other women have seen all this time but she has somehow missed. Worse than that, she felt it.

She could not look at him again. Her fingers trembled slightly as she tried to concentrate on what she was doing. She took a deep breath and nodded to herself before selecting the correct address and moving on to the next.

She didn't understand what was going on. Looking at a man had never made her feel this way before, except Dhruv, which was something she didn't want to think about. There was so much power behind Zyad's eyes. In the confident way that he stood in his fitted suit with his hands tucked into the pockets. It was odd how in a fraction of a second you can commit so much to memory. His perfectly carved jawline. The five o'clock shadow of dark hair that made him looked just off-kilter of pristine.

"Wow. Just wow. He goes to the nearby orphanage every month once, such a kind soul!" one of Ditiya's female co-workers poked at her.

She did her best to ignore her, refusing to admit the truth ~that she felt something when she looked into that man's eyes. Something that she didn't want to forget about.

Even though she would be haunted for the next several hours. Every time she would close her eyes. She would see Zyad Junaid staring down at her. His deep voice was silently beckoning. She squirmed in her seat.

Her phone rang, breaking her from her thoughts. Ditiya debated letting her voicemail pick like every other time up until she saw the name on the call. She excuses herself and ducked out of the room, much to her supervisor's dismay, "Hello?" She had asked, confused by his call after so many months of mutual silence.

"Ditiya?" His voice was choked up and sounded like he had been crying. There was a pause. For a moment, Ditiya thought that the call disconnected however she could still hear his breathing on the other end.

"Shreya killed herself two months ago." She could hear him start to cry on the other end.

"What!" She yelled into the phone in disbelief. Her hand trembled she gripped the cell phone until her knuckles turned white as if she was squeezing the bad news out of it.

"She killed herself!" His sobbing increased and she could barely make out what he was saying.

"Dhruv are you okay?" Ditiya pointlessly asked she knew he was not okay. She did not know what else to ask.

"No, god I'm not!" His words came out in gasps as he caught his breath between sobs. God! How it killed her to know that her childhood best friend committed suicide and then hearing the man she cared most about, crying. Her heart ached every moment she heard him cry. Ditiya wondered if Shreya's suicide could have been the cause Shreya's misconceptions about Ditiya but quickly she quickly dismissed it.

Ditiya inhaled some air into her lungs, hoping to find the strength she needed to ask him the question and to hear him answer, "Why did she do it?"

"It was a note to me from Shreya—a suicide note." He was trying to talk so hard between sobbing and crying. Ditiya could only imagine. She wanted to ask him, what she in her letter, but again she didn't dare. She was afraid of the answer.

"Are you smoking?" she could hear him taking a long drag on his cigarette and blew out the smoke.

Dhruv didn't reply to Ditiya's question but said instead, "she wrote I didn't deserve to be affected by her depression."

Then she could tell that he had put his phone down because all she could do now was hear him sobbing. It was pitiful to hear a grown man sobbing like that. And the sound caused Ditiya's gut to twist. "She killed herself because of me I know it. And it's my entire fault. It's my entire fucking fault because I could never love her the way she wanted me to. The way she deserved. I just fucked it up. I fucked her up. Just like I fuck everything up."

"Dhruv, don't say that..." Ditiya said in the most sincere tone she could manage. "You don't fuck everything up. I'm sure you didn't fuck her up. If you really think she had killed herself because you couldn't love her the way she desired, that goes beyond you. There was something that was broken inside her. You tried but could not fix it."

"She wouldn't be dead, God! if I wasn't so fucking shitty at loving people."

"Dhruv, this is not because of you," She cleared her throat, and added in a firmer tone, "I know you loved her and I saw you being worried about her a lot, but you can't let this affect your own mental health and well-being, you can help yourself and not reach to the limit where she went."

"I can't. I can't forget her so quickly after everything."

"I am not saying to forget her. That's not what I'm saying. Just don't think you should stop blaming yourself."

"Shreya was my wife, Ditiya I had been with her for ten years of life. I love her."

As far as Ditiya could tell, there was nothing left to say. She felt tired, drained. She wanted to be left alone to sort it out on her own. She wanted to be able to close a door, sit down in a corner, and have a good cry. She just got to know she lost her best friend from childhood and she didn't talk with for so long and now she would never able talk to her. "Ditiya," she heard a voice say from the end of the hallway. Her supervisor, Danielle sticking out the head of the door, staring at her inquisitively. "Come on. What are you doing?" he mouthed.

Ditiya held up a finger, and mouthed back, "Hold on."

Danielle sighed in exasperation, and turned on her heel, disappearing back through the doorway.

"You were doing something," Dhruv said in realization. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have called you. You're busy with your life. You should have time for the man... a pathetic man who can never get his shit together."

"Dhruv, don't - "

"I am sorry. It was selfish of me. Please, go and finish what you were doing," he said in a now calm and firm voice. Though the shake remains, giving him away.

"I'm okay. It'll all be fine. I just overreacting thing, as per usual."

"Dhruv?" Her voice declared her inner displeasure and sadness, "don't pretend like you are okay... this is not normal."

"Look, it was a mistake. Pretend this never happened, okay?" he asked, "I got to go."

Then he hung up the phone on her and she stood in her living room shaking from the call. Ditiya started crying because now she knew why her parents and Aditi were calling her repeatedly and how she should not have ignored their calls. Ditiya was knocked back, hitting her head against the wall. She fell down ... She sat with her back to the wall. All along the way, terrible thoughts continued to play in her head.

I could not shake the guilt that he had. Tears blurred her vision. Tears of memories and regret and worry and a million other emotions.

Deep down, Ditiya wanted to talk to her friend, Shreya one last time, to tell her everything would okay, that there were no hard feelings. She also wanted to tell her to have a friend like Shreya, she could give up thousands of Dhruv. But she knew nothing was possible now.

"Dhruv" Ditiya murdered his name even though she knew he had already hung up the phone. She punched the floor beneath her, cursing under her breath. She tried to call him back but it went straight to his voice mail. Ditiya called twice more, and she was halfway through leaving a voicemail, begging him to call her back, when Danielle appeared at the door again.

Ditiya rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand; then set her two hands to push back the smooth hair from her forehead, and took a deep breath before finishing with, "Dhruv, look, please call me, okay? This is serious. Don't shut down. I want to help you. Please call me back."

...................

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