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Saint Teresa High is stifling.
Abhimanyu hasn’t breathed properly ever since he stepped on campus grounds, not that he expected it to be easy, he knew that the world he was headed into wasn’t his but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. His dreams were far too big for him to ever breathe easy and he’s made his peace with that.
Perhaps, getting all up in Rohan Nanda’s face on his first day wasn’t the smartest thing to do but if he had to make his place on the campus he couldn’t back down.
Abhimanyu Singh is stubborn and he doesn’t back down. He can’t afford to. Not if he wants to make his place here. Rohan Nanda is nothing but a spoiled brat with daddy issues, he’s not even worth competing with.
-
Except it doesn’t go that way but when has anything in Abhi’s life ever gone smoothly? He weighs his options and decides to let Rohan get away with the prank. It bruises his ego a little bit not because he had been wronged but because the prank was honestly boring and tasteless. Abhi could come up with at least ten better pranks on the spot and considering the humor of the school, he would admit that he was half scared of being dubbed pissboy for the rest of his school life.
But if it honestly gets him out of Rohan Nanda’s line of sight then it’d be worth it. He isn’t worth the trouble.
-
The good thing is he doesn’t get dubbed pissboy.
The absolutely ironic and borderline hilarious thing is that Rohan Nanda decided to latch onto him.
-
Rohan is annoying to say the least but Abhi would rather have him as a friend rather than an enemy. Whatever made his life even a bit easier in this goddamned school was welcome. It wasn’t that he disliked Rohan, if he had to be honest, the boy could be a little endearing in a kicked puppy way when he wasn’t being a menace. It’s just that he was always being a menace.
Abhi rolled his eyes as he caught him leaning against a girl who was definitely not his girlfriend. Abhi couldn’t tell why Shanaya put up with him. Was it really possible to love that brat so much that you let him treat you like dirt? Guess only Shanaya knew the answer to that one.
Rohan caught his eye and smiled as he waved. Abhi couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows at him, gesturing at the girl. Rohan quickly untangled himself from the girl and jogged upto him.
“What’s up?”
“Football practice?”
“Oh, shit right, I almost forgot.”
Abhi laughs and pats his back, “Well, you’re very easily distracted.”
Rohan punches him lightly in the arm only making Abhi laugh even harder.
The football matches actually become fun when they both started playing with each other rather than against each other.
“Nice one, hero” Rohan would call out from across the field with no bite in his words and Abhi would flip him off, the sound of Rohan’s laughter blending in with the rush of adrenaline as if two were the same things.
Abhi had a hard time placing Rohan. The boy is privileged and an absolute dick to his girlfriend, he does tasteless pranks and picked a fight with Abhi on his first day at school because he’s an entitled asshole.
But Rohan also quietly brings him coffee when he knows Abhi is staying late at the library. He tries to buy Abhi expensive things but of course Abhi won’t have any of it, so he would just buy him food and alcohol instead. He would purposely ask Abhi to go out with him on a ride saying he’d had a bad day when really both of them knew it was Abhi who needed to unwind.
And Abhi isn’t oblivious, he noticed that the sneers he used to get from the rich kids for acting out had stopped, he would often catch Rohan glaring at the students who were supposedly on his side.
He had a really hard time placing Rohan. He felt like a frat boy who would kick Abhi’s ass if he ever found out that Abhi was queer but he also did nice things for Abhi, considerate things. Abhi hadn’t been sure that Rohan was even capable of being considerate but here they fucking were.
Honestly, Abhi had never cared about him being poor or blunt but he did often wonder what exactly Rohan wanted from him. More often than not he’d stay up thinking about Rohan Nanda and his eccentricities and he’d fall asleep with the taste of coffee on his tongue.
-
Something changes after the football final. Rohan becomes more vocal, louder about his presence. Somehow, he becomes more real.
He’d ask, “Do you miss you mom and dad?” when really, he wanted to know, hey do you trust me?
Abhi nodded yes to both his questions.
“I miss mine too” He’d say when he meant, I trust you too.
They start spending more nights out with each other. Rohan gets drunk on vodka and Abhi gets drunk on Rohan’s laughter.
When he picks Rohan’s drunk body up from the sidewalk, he cannot remember the Rohan Nanda he had hated the first day. He only knows Rohan, the boy who couldn’t hold his liquor to save his life and it felt kinda nice. Abhi felt himself smile despite everything, yeah, he could be friends with this trust fund brat.
-
“Do you love Shanaya?” Abhi finally asks when he realizes he’d accidentally made an actual friend. Abhi is half serious, willing to swing in whatever direction Rohan takes the conversation. He does care about him and if he genuinely loves Shanaya, he wants the relationship to work out for him.
“I’m just confused”
“About Shanaya?”
He just wants to know why Rohan kept deliberately sabotaging his own relationship. So maybe, just maybe--
“About love” he states and Abhi’s heart stutters at the very familiar sentiment.
“You’re not gay, are you?” Abhi had tried to make it sound like a joke, an off hand comment, they joked around like that all the time, so why did this one fill him with so much dread?
Rohan rolls his eyes and jokingly tries to kiss Abhi. Abhi doesn’t really know how to feel about that.
-
Abhi somehow worms his way into the Nanda family and gets invited to the older Nanda sibling’s wedding. Rohan’s face falls a little when he tells him about it and Abhi tries to laugh it up. Joking about it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth sometimes but he doesn’t really know how to comfort Rohan.
He belatedly realizes that the only person who tired to comfort him when his aunt would say something was his grandma and she did that by poking fun at his aunt. It was the only way he knew how to comfort someone because it was the only way he had been ever comforted.
-
The wedding is weird. But then again, these people had way too much money so it checked out. He just expected to have a bit of fun and get drunk. What he gets instead is a very jealous and sad girl crying her eyes out over Rohan.
Shanaya looks so incredibly young in that moment. Like a child. That is when Abhi realizes that they’re all just playing at being adults because it’s what expected of them but none of them have any clue what they’re doing.
“I don’t like breaking relationships.” She glares at Abhi when he suggests breaking up with Rohan.
If she hates her mother for re-marrying and never being able to stay in a relationship for very long but then breaks up with Rohan what does that say about her? Abhi translates in his head. Abhi will admit he had issues but boy these rich brats were really something else.
He doesn’t know why but he wanted things to work out for her, for both of them really, he truly believed they liked each other. Maybe it is because he had at least one functional adult in his life that he knew they were craving the love and attention they never received from their parents and felt like the only substitute to that was romantic love. He just wanted them to know what genuine care felt like.
He wanted them to know what it was like to have friends.
-
(That was possibly the most selfless thought Abhi had ever had. It isn’t really a surprise that it goes so incredibly wrong. But that is his curse, he cannot love without it going wrong.)
-
Shanaya’s plan goes pretty well. Abhi didn’t like being a part of it but he had to admit flirting with him had a better chance of getting to Rohan than flirting with a random guy and Abhi doesn’t dislike the look on Rohan’s face when he tells him the truth.
“I’ll punch you” Rohan threatens without an ounce of malice in his voice and Abhi feels a laugh bubble out of him.
“But I’ll hug you first” and shit as Rohan clings to Abhi, his heart does something and it’s a rude awakening. They have hugged so many times before so why was this different?
“You don’t like her right?” Rohan asks and Abhi almost wants to say yes just to fuck with him. To put him in a shit situation just as he had done.
“No, I like you” He opts for instead and the way Rohan’s face contorts into a relieved and exasperated laugh sticks with him. It’s a joke, he convinces himself, still reeling from the feeling of Rohan’s body wrapped around his.
He watches as Rohan sprints towards Shanaya. He dances with her, laughs with her and it should make Abhi happy, this was his plan. So, what was this bitter feeling brewing up in his chest? God, these rich brats really were too much trouble.
-
(Abhi will never admit that when he saw Rohan and Shanaya sitting in the mandap behind the groom and the bride, looking like they belonged with each other, something in him splintered.)
-
Everything after the wedding was too much for Abhi. He kept trying to untangle his feelings but couldn’t really figure anything out. He was sure that he’d been caught staring at the couple one too many times. So really it shouldn’t have been a surprise when Shanaya came looking for him.
“I love Rohan” she blurts out looking a little apologetic and it takes every ounce of self-control to not snap back, “Yeah, so do I, you’re not special.”
Shit.
Shit.
“Yeah, I know” Abhi smiles and says instead, feeling his heart slip in his chest.
“It really was a joke, I’m sorry if I led you on or something.”
“It’s fine, honestly.” It isn’t fine but not for the reasons Shanaya thinks and well, fuck. Fuck.
-
(In hindsight, he really should’ve seen this coming. The plan was too simple: Go to school, win the Student of The Year trophy, get into college and get fucking rich. It was Abhi’s life after all. Nothing that ever began with wanting to do something good ever ended without him having blood in his mouth)
-
The competition rolls around right around the time Abhi needed distraction from his new found and completely unwelcome realization. It is everything Abhi knew it would be. An absolute shitfest. He makes it a point to avoid the fuck out of everyone else. Well, everyone except Rohan who somehow kept finding him wherever he went and it wasn’t like Abhi could ever tell him to go away.
He does get confronted by Shanaya who thinks Abhi’s mad at her when really Abhi just didn’t want to think about her.
“I just lost focus for a second there” He clarifies for her, trying very hard not to think about her and Rohan, “but I know what I have to do now.” And he really does. He couldn’t lose sight of the reason he came to this place. He couldn’t let anything stand in the way of his dreams, not even himself.
All of his friends pass the first round. He miserably watches Shanaya and Rohan celebrate vaguely aware that things were going to get shittier, while Sudo lamented about being second.
“What does it matter who won? We’re all through anyway”
And fuck Abhi feels that awful feeling spike in his chest again when he says, “The difference is that, your dad’s fucking loaded. He can get you into any university”
“You can have my dad you know, pretty sure he already has the adoption papers ready.” Rohan bites back.
Abhi tries to smile but couldn’t and instead zoned out of the conversation, the bitterness his chest growing steadily, wondering where this would lead him. There were only so many emotions you could channel into wanting to win a competition before even that became toxic.
“So, you’ll defeat your best friend to win?” Rohan asks Shruti at one point and Abhi’s ears perk up.
“Yeah, it’s a competition.” And for once Abhi agreed with Shruti.
It could hurt his friends, yes, but Abhi didn’t care anymore. His first priority always had been the contest and now more than ever, with everything he felt for Rohan, he couldn’t afford to lose.
-
Taking Rohan home almost goes well. Abhi lets him in on his shit family dynamics, his aunt’s comments and uncle’s complacency in it all. His grandma loves him and Abhi swears the look he saw in her eyes meant that she approved of him. Of them.
He would’ve told her about him that night. He would’ve told her how much he loved Rohan, about how Rohan’s eyes lightened up when he talked about music, about his stifled laughs in the middle of the class and the way his heartbeat sounded when he hugged Abhi after the high of a match. He would tell her that even if he couldn’t have Rohan he was happy that he got to love him. That it was so much more than he had ever expected to feel for another person.
He had so much to tell her.
No wonder it all goes wrong again.
His aunt’s words hurt because he can’t help but feel that she was right. If he hadn’t wished for more than what he had, maybe—
His thoughts cut off as Rohan wraps his arms around him. Abhi is anchored.
Rohan squeezes him tightly and oh god, he feels something achingly familiar bloom in chest. A warmth he had never felt in ages and goodness it almost made him want to throw up.
Then he is in Rohan’s arms and shit, he wants to scream. He wants to tear his heart out and thrust it in Rohan’s palms, that way at least Abhi would have some peace. But he couldn’t do that. So, he sinks into the embrace and buries his head into Rohan’s shoulder and for a second he lets himself just be.
Deep down he just wanted to be heard, to be comforted. For a second, there wasn’t no reason for Abhi to prove himself worthy of compassion. Rohan had him. He knew him, everything that Abhi had worked so hard to hide behind a mask of ambition was out in the open and if it were any other person, it would’ve terrified Abhi. But this was Rohan.
Then Rohan has the gall to smile upto him and say, “You good or do I need to hug you again?”
And Abhi would’ve punched the bastard, if he hadn’t pulled him into another hug and his heart—the absolute traitor—fluttered in his chest at the gesture and Abhi let himself dream for the first time in his life.
A dream, not an ambition. A dream of a lifetime spent in this embrace. Something so far away and yet if he could just--
That peace Abhi felt lasted barely a minute and often he wondered what would’ve happened if his uncle had never called out to him. If his grandmother had never left him with this gaping void in his chest and a realization that his aunt had been right all this time.
All he did was destroy. All he did was bring misfortune.
He couldn’t destroy Rohan. That boy was a dreamer and he deserved to be able to chase his dreams. He deserved everything but all Abhi had to give was the weight of his ambitions and a love that was the promise of disaster.
-
(He doesn’t remember the funeral but he does remember the aftermath of it vividly. The way Shanaya looked and the burning sensation in his chest are still fresh in his memory. Was it grief that made him do it? Or did he just want to taste Rohan on her lips?)
-
“Rohan!”
It’s Shanaya who chases after him first while Abhi is just struck with the gravity of the situation. Rohan is volatile, lashing out and Abhi can’t think, can’t move right up until Rohan pushes Shanaya a bit too hard and Abhi steps in before he realizes he’s moving.
And Rohan shoves him back. Hard. That’s not the part that hurts.
“You really showed what you’re made of today huh, Abhi” Another shove,“You’re no one’s Abhi.” Abhi wants to punch him. He wants to kiss him. He briefly wonders which would hurt him more.
Another shove, “No wonder everyone left you.”
This is the boy who stood up for you, Abhi. This the boy who picked you up when no one even knew you were broken. This is the boy who you love and the boy who you so desperately, so hopelessly want to love you back—
“Mom, Dad, Grandma. Maybe they left you for a reason” and Abhi punches him.
But he doesn’t. So how dare he trample all over your plans? How dare he break down your walls like they were glass and then have the audacity to not even acknowledge it.
So, he punches him again and again and again.
This boy loves you too and that’s why he knows how to hurt you.
And that’s how it ends. With blood in both of their mouths.
-
(Rohan needs to hate him so Abhi can keep his feet planted to the ground. With no Rohan around to promise him the sky, Abhi wouldn’t dare to escape from his chains.)
-
And nine years pass like that. The ache is chest never eases but he’s gotten used to it. Where in his heart once lived a friend is a hollow place that would never be whole again and Abhi wouldn’t have it any other way. He would hate Rohan and miss him like he was a part of his soul for the rest of his life.
He does miss him enough to occasionally do insane things. So, when he finds out that there’s a concert in Wembley the same day Abhi has to be there for some business, he perhaps buys the tickets to it. Perhaps they’re the best tickets. Perhaps he wants to go and stand as close as he could to Rohan. Would it irk Rohan? Would he even notice him?
Abhi falls asleep knowing he won’t go to the concert and yet—
Wembley is loud. It’s chanting Rohan’s name. Abhi sticks out in the crowd consisting of mainly women but he can’t bring himself to care. Rohan is right in front of him.
Rohan is just the way Abhi remembers him. Passionate, bright and charming. He looked at home on that stage. The thing is, he looked so happy and Abhi knew that if he had stuck around Rohan would’ve been miserable one way or the other.
For once he didn’t feel happy about being right. For once, he wished he had made the wrong decision.
He gets smashed that night, trying to push back the feelings clawing up his throat but all it does is make him remember things even more vividly. Rohan’s drunk laughter ringing in the empty streets, the light in Rohan’s eyes when he talked about music, Rohan’s voice breaking as he talked about his parents, Rohan’s hands on him, Rohan, Rohan, Rohan—His heart chanted the name like a prayer. Loving Rohan was the closest he’d ever get to religion.
-
(Abhi doesn’t say but some of Rohan’s lyrics haunt him. Others give him hope. He can’t tell which are worse.)
“Does my name still bring back memories
or did you bury me in the same field you dug the grave of our love?
Do you think of the coffee
or the blood on our hands?"
-
It isn’t a surprise that he lets himself dream again. Rohan had that effect on him. He dreams of a world that wouldn’t fall apart if he kissed a boy. He dreams of a world that only sees him for his talent, his hard work, his sheer fucking willpower that helped him accomplish the impossible.
And he lets himself dream of brown eyes and foulmouthed musicians. Arms that are meant to hold, fists that land a mean punch but shake as they do so and a heart that is so starved for love yet tries to convince itself that it doesn’t need it.
Rohan Nanda wasn’t poetry, not really. He wasn’t pretty. He wasn’t a misunderstood kid. He was crass at times, arrogant, he failed to cherish people who really cared for him but Abhi had loved him despite that. Perhaps that version of Rohan had died when he refused the Student of the Year cup, perhaps Abhi didn’t know the Rohan who stood at the heart of Wembley stadium but he knew he would love the bastard all the same.
And that fucking sucked.
-
“I hate him” Abhi says despairingly as he booked another ticked to Rohan’s concert.
Shanaya gives him a look of incredulousness from the bed, as if it wasn’t possible to love someone and hate them at the same time.
“You realize that this isn’t healthy, right sweetheart?” Shanaya smiles at him, her voice dripping with sass.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, love” Abhi smiles back at her cheekily.
Shanaya got up and walked upto Abhi on his desk leaning on it, “Abhi, you’re a plague upon my life and very annoying but you’re still my friend and I care about your well-being.”
“You’re not going to trick me into talking about my feelings, give it up.” Abhi says poking her forehead.
Shanaya laughs and Abhi realizes it feels good to hear her laugh like that. At least one of them had gotten over Rohan.
“It was worth a try.” She shrugs.
-
Italy gets to him a bit. He almost thinks Rohan made eye-contact with him but there’s no way he could’ve been that unlucky.
“When you leave, take my love with you darling
It’s too much for me to bear alone.
When you leave, please don’t ever come knocking
on my door again.”
-
Abhi follows him country after country for no real explainable reason, except that he could. He still loved him, maybe he just needed to know that after all this time some of that love had faded. That he could still love someone else.
Then as he is struggling to find his key outside his hotel room in whatever country he’s in, he gets cornered.
“Why do you keep doing this?”
Fuck.
“What?” Abhi stares dumbly at Rohan’s face. He looked tired now that he finally got to have a good look at his face. Tired in a way Rohan shouldn’t be tired, like he was letting things drag him down. Abhi knows he has no right to anymore, but he wants to carry Rohan’s burden for him. To comfort him the way Rohan had once comforted him.
“We’re not friends anymore Abhi,” Rohan brings him back to reality, the nickname hanging off his lips like an irony, “We’re not anything so why do you keep following me around the world, huh?”
He noticed.
Rohan gets louder by each syllable and Abhi feels like they’re going to crash again.
“What’s it to you?” He shouts back despite himself.
“What’s it to me? I am happy now Abhi, so why the fuck are you here?” Rohan looks frazzled. There is a frantic look in his eye as he says those words, as if, as if—almost as if Abhi had been haunting him all these years just as Rohan had been haunting him.
“Because!” He knows why. He has the answer now.
“Because what? So you can ruin my life again?” Rohan says shoving him back into the doorframe.
“Because I love you!” The confession hangs in the air like a double-edged knife. It hurt Abhi to say it, but it hurt Rohan to hear it more. Rohan averts his gaze to the floor and takes in a deep breath, trembling as he did so.
“Love me?” The way Rohan’s voice breaks almost makes Abhi fall to his knees, “Abhi you barely trusted me! If you want to make up a lie, at least make it convincing”
Abhi clenches his jaw and stares at the tears welling up in Rohan’s eyes. This isn’t how this was supposed to happen. It isn’t supposed to happen at all. Rohan shouldn’t be crying because of him again and Abhi shouldn’t be in front of him. Abhi had given up so why was he here again?
“I’m not lying.” Abhi whispers and Rohan scoffs as his tears fall and walks away.
-
“After the dust has settled
and the bruises have faded.
All the blood wiped clean, a single truth remains:
I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you.”
Abhi walks out of the concert sobbing.
-
(He finds Rohan before Rohan finds him.)
-
“Why do you think I passed that final shot to you?” Abhi’s voice comes out shaky and Rohan just stares at him with an indecipherable look in his eyes. Abhi's voice echos in the empty hallway and he's almost scared that some camera will catch them so he grabs Rohan by his shoulders and moves him towards the service elevator.
“Rohan,” He breathes out, desperate to finally put this behind him and Rohan rolls his eyes pushing Abhi’s arm off of his shoulder.
“So, I’d make the winning shot.” Rohan spits out, “So, I’d stay in the spotlight, so my pride wouldn’t be hurt.” He laughs a hollow laugh and the quietly adds, “Because that’s how little you think of me. That’s how you’ve always thought about me.” The words cut through Abhi like glass and he wants to protest but he knows when to keep his mouth shut now.
“You’ve never trusted me.” Abhi can’t tell if he’s shaking or it’s Rohan trembling. Maybe it’s both of them. They’re both fracturing their world to build a new one.
“You never trusted me to not let things like pride come between us, you never trusted me to take care of my girlfriend,” Rohan is seething at this point and Abhi feels nauseous when he tries to fathom that this is what Rohan had thought about him all these years.
“God you saw me exactly the way my dad did.” Rohan chokes out through tears, “No wonder you two got along so well.” And that breaks Abhi. He doesn’t bother wiping away his tears, this conversation wasn’t about comforting him, it was about Rohan.
“It was instinct.” Abhi is glad his voice rings out clear. Rohan still doesn’t look at him so Abhi moves in front of him, to look him in the eye as he said, “I didn’t think before I passed it to you, I just saw you from the corner of eye and my body just moved. I passed it to you because I knew you’d make that shot. Because I trusted you.”
Rohan holds Abhi’s gaze for a moment as they both take in the weight of Abhi’s words and then Rohan averts his gaze again.
“No, you didn’t” He protests albeit weakly.
“Yes I di—” Abhi sighs, “Rohan” and it’s a request, a favor, a prayer for him to just look at him. To listen to him. To see him. Rohan turns back to look at him with a look on his face as if to say what now?
“Yes, I know I fucked up.” Rohan scoffs at that, “What I did was wrong and I’m going to ask you to forgive me. Shanaya kissed me and I let her and we both broke your heart.” Abhi breathes in to calm himself down somehow, “I know.” He says trying not to get caught up in the guilt and self hatred, “I know” He breathes out as he places his hands on Rohan’s shoulders.
“But I need you to know this, I am begging you to believe me when I say that I have never seen you as less than who you are.”
Rohan doesn’t move but that doesn’t stop his tears from spilling.
“I trusted you more than I trusted myself on that field because you’ve always been a better man than me. Your father is a fool to not be able to recognize that and I was an even bigger fool to idolize him.” And Abhi has never been this desperate, never sounded this vulnerable to his own ears. But he needed to get this out, needed Rohan to know that—that---
“I didn’t let you win,” Abhi pauses in realization, “I just gave up on that trophy. I gave up on being like your father.”
Rohan puts his face in between his hands and sobs quietly. Abhi doesn’t move, as much as he wants to get closer, he isn’t brave enough to push Rohan any further. When he finally looks up there is a vacant look in his eyes.
It’s a look Abhi knows really well and his heart swells a little at the realization that he does still know Rohan. It’s a small happiness. But they were past that and time doesn’t flow backwards. So Abhi steels himself, preparing to walk away from the love of his life one more time. One last time.
“All of us can have ambitions, Rohan but not all of us can dare to dream.”
-
(When he gets VIP tickets to a certain someone’s next concert and a note saying, ‘see you there, hero’, he trips and falls flat onto the floor.)
-
How Shanaya breaks into his hotel room again, Abhi doesn’t ask. Maybe he’s finally gotten used to her showing up in his life whenever he has a major emotional crisis. It is a rather obvious one this time, he has been following around a certain someone around the globe.
Shanaya first pours herself a drink and settles down on a chair opposite to the couch Abhi was sprawled across on.
“So.” She says evenly making Abhi wonder if there was still time jump out the window, “What the fuck is going on between you and my bastard ex?”
Abhi shoves his face into a cushion in response. When he peeks at Shanaya’s face, she’s looking at him with an unimpressed look on her face.
“We’re trying to be friends again” Abhi sighs out.
Shanaya raises her eyebrows, “Trying to be..”
Abhi straightens up,“It’s ten years’ worth of sadness and anger and god knows what other unresolved feelings. We’re not going to go back to being best friends in one day.”
“But you want to”
“I think I want more than I’m ready for.”
“You’ll be okay, Abhi. You always figure these things out.” Shanaya’s voice comes out a little too soft for Abhi’s liking. It reminds him of the time she comforted her when they were still in school, still with Rohan and how that screwed it all up.
“A little too late.” He says wistfully.
“Still better than me and Rohan.” The bitterness in her voice is poorly masked.
“What about Shurti?”
Shanaya falters, “What about her?”
“You guys were best friends too, no?”
“Yeah.” She nods and smiles a tight smile, “Yeah we were, I don’t know if we were as close as you and Rohan though.”
“Close,” Abhi snorts, “Rohan and I were just complicated.”
“Maybe.” Shanaya starts fiddling with her dress as she finally says, “We talk sometimes. It’s not the same obviously. What we had is gone now which feels awful but it also feels like we were all just on borrowed time and were always meant to fall out. I—uh—I don’t know.”
Shanaya shrugged flailing her arms around, trying to articulate something that couldn’t be put into words. A loss of a friend when he’s right there and you still love him but he’s not yours anymore. He’s gone and it just aches.
“Yeah.” Abhi says trying not to think about the ache in his chest that flared up, “Yeah.”
-
“Raise me up, put me down,
Make me feel high, break my heart
I’ll take all of you, all parts of you
That you show me
All parts of you that kill me”
-
And they end up in Rohan’s hotel room, a little buzzed but not drunk. If they had anymore of these conversations sober, they would run out of tears.
“Why did you kiss her?”
“She kissed me.”
“But you kissed her back.”
“Yeah.” Abhi says, throat tight.
“Why?” Rohan’s voice is so fragile, as it is during most of these conversations and it hurts to think that that’s Abhi’s fault. All Abhi did was leave Rohan with more scars.
“I—” Abhi takes a deep breath, could he even bring himself to say it? He looked at Rohan, his eyes wide and vulnerable, and realized that he did. He owed him this.
“I was jealous.”
“So, you did like her after all.” Rohan tries to sound smug about it but he just sounds sad. Abhi doesn’t know how to tell him any more of the truth without telling him The Truth. So, he just takes a deep breath and prepares for a storm.
“No, I was jealous of her, Rohan.”
“What?” and Rohan actually sounds so confused Abhi could’ve almost laughed. Almost.
“You were the one I lo—” Abhi cleared his throat, “liked.”
Abhi stared at Rohan in amusement as he opened his mouth and then closed it again over and over until he just let out a simple, “Oh.”
“Yeah” Abhi downs another glass in a single go and as silence settles between the pair, Abhi thinks he could almost fall asleep.
“So why didn’t you kiss me?” Rohan asks as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Abhi almost choked, “What?!”
“You should’ve kissed me if you liked me, right?”
“That’s your problem with this?” Abhi sounded almost distraught, his voice foreign to his own ears.
“Just answer the question!” Rohan—the bastard—actually whines.
“Well, I couldn’t kiss a guy! Much less my best friend! It would’ve ruined our friendsh--” Abhi shut up as he realized it didn’t matter. Their friendship was ruined either way. Maybe he should have kissed Rohan instead.
Rohan cleared his throat and awkwardly fiddled with his glass, “Sorry about the—uh—jokes. I was”
“You were an immature high schooler, it’s okay.”
“Still. I should’ve known better.” Rohan sounded firm and to be honest it did feel nice to finally get an apology.
“It’s cool.”
“So, you had a crush on me.” Rohan says smugly and Abhi groans, “You’re never gonna let this go, are you?”
“Nope!”
Rohan laughs and, in that laughter, Abhi finds hope and consolation for his 17-year-old self.
-
“In your hands, I trace out a map
In your sleepy sighs, I slip in my secrets
In your tears, I drown my heart
So when you’re lost, find me in you
Find your way home, darling”
-
“All those things you said that day. About my aunt being right--”
Somehow they’re on the bed this time. Limbs sprawled across carelessly, both of them staring at the ceiling. They’re not touching but there’s an intimacy there that Abhi doesn’t want to acknowledge, in fear that he might chase it away. There’s no shouting anymore. No one is crying. Abhi wants so desperately to forgive him but he needs to hear Rohan say that he’s actually sorry.
“I was mad, Abhi.” Rohan cuts him off, “I had never felt so betrayed in my life. My own father abandoned me and so yeah it just seemed right that someone who wasn’t even related to me wouldn’t have any reason to stick around.” Abhi’s heart hammers in his chest as Rohan turns to face him, “I lashed out at you but I shouldn’t have said those things to you.”
Abhi humms in acknowledgement, not really sure how to deal with the sudden onslaught of emotions, “I never meant any of it—I just wanted to—uh”
“Hurt me the way I hurt you?” Abhi completes and Rohan winces at his words but nods.
They fall asleep like that.
-
"And oh, I loved you.
more deeply than i knew how to
it almost drowned me"
-
It’s back in India that Rohan breaks his heart all over again. Rohan is completely sober this time around and it made Abhi a bit nervous. So he got a bit too drunk to ease his nerves.
“I think I was a little bit in love with you.” Rohan says like he’s ordering breakfast.
Abhi laughs and then his laugher breaks into a sob. As Abhi leans against the wall and settles down on the floor, Rohan rushes over to him from across the room.
“I’m sorry, just—give me a moment.” Abhi wheezes out somehow and Rohan immediately backs up.
“Take your time.” Rohan’s soft voice breaks through.
Abhi tries to breathe but his lungs won’t cooperation. His head is swimming and he isn’t sure his heart should be pounding this hard. Another sob breaks out of him and he covers his mouth trying to stifle them when Rohan leans over and moves his hand, holding it firmly in his own.
“Just cry.”
And cry Abhi does.
-
“I guess it should be obvious that I didn’t just like you. I was very much in love with you.” Abhi says laughing and sniffling, at the same time.
“I didn’t know.” Rohan says very quietly.
“Yeah.”
Abhi tucks his face into his knees, feeling weak.
“I didn’t realize it back then.” Rohan explains, “Too much internalized homophobia. It wasn’t until I interacted with my fans and learned more that I realized oh, I’m kinda bisexual and all those complicated feelings I had for you were, maybe romantic.”
Abhi snorts, not looking up and pats Rohan’s shoulders.
“Been there.”
-
“And I said, will you listen to my voice
will you hear the stories I have buried
will you finally be the one
to look at me, for who I am?”
-
Rohan is in a good mood despite being dead tired. He keeps skipping and whistling as they walk towards his hotel room. He then grins and turns towards Abhi.
“I still can’t imagine that you were in love with me.”
Abhi snorts, “Good to know that you’re self-aware”
Rohan shoved him lightly. They don’t really talk about anything that evening. It just passes in silence when it suddenly hits Abhi that this was Rohan’s last concert of the tour. There was nowhere left to follow him to. Abhi turns towards Rohan and finds him asleep, snoring lightly and his heart warms at the sight. Then something in him splinters again. This is going to end again and he’ll never even be able to let Rohan know--, “I love you” he whispers into the silence.
“I never stopped. I don’t think I know how to.” Abhi doesn’t feel any lighter as he says so. So, he closes his eyes and hopes to wake up with a heart that didn’t love so deeply.
“Do you want to stop?” And oh, how unfair that a quietly whispered sentence could make Abhi’s world come crashing down. Abhi stills and takes a deep breath, the consequences of it all be damned.
“No.”
And then walks out.
-
Abhi fucked up.
He didn’t know what the worst part was, being careless around Rohan when he took a whole year to build that friendship back up or actually having hope that this time around it could actually work out.
They didn’t have each other’s numbers but he’s sure Rohan could track him down if he wanted to talk to him. But it was more likely that he wouldn’t want to talk to him. Shanaya doesn’t say anything. Just shakes her head, letting him know she disapproves but she isn’t the kind to waste her time on hopeless endeavors so she doesn’t make him do anything.
Shanaya says she stayed friends with him because he was the only one who saw her as an actual person, not an award to be won. Abhi had disagreed, said he’d only used her. She’d glared at him saying that she had had enough of other people telling her how to feel about them and Abhi was better than that. So, Abhi let her in.
But when it came to Rohan, it wasn’t easy believing her words. He couldn’t see past his self-hatred and being aware of that fact only made it worse.
Rohan will track him down if he wants to talk, he tells himself, and if he doesn’t then he simply doesn’t want to talk to him.
Then he gets the call.
Shanaya agrees to go with him but says she won’t support him in anything stupid. Abhi rolls his eyes at the lie, not only would she support him in everything stupid, she would also cover things up for him.
-
Shanaya hugs Rohan. Abhi avoids eye contact. Everyone looks so different and yet they’re all the same. It hurts to think about school when he’s at odds with Rohan once again. Abhi’s body keeps tract of every move Rohan makes, every word he says and it almost makes him keel over. How is it that his body belonged more to Rohan than it did to him?
-
(Everyone says it has been ten years, just talk to each other except it hasn’t. It’s been 3 months and no sign that Rohan wanted to talk to him. He’d take the ten years over this new wound.)
-
“Can you at least say hi?” Shanaya says rather softly.
“He doesn’t know how to do that.” Rohan cuts in and Abhi rolls his eyes, “All he knows is to walk away.”
Abhi glares,“I chased after you around the world for a year”
God, you bastard, we’re not doing this again, no please.
“And when you actually had to stay you got up and left” Rohan scoffs back getting closer to Abhi and Abhi feels the urge to do something—to push him away, to kiss him senseless, to punch him—rising.
“What you couldn’t be the one to call first for once? Or were you too disgusted” and only now does Abhi realize that he was hurt. It wasn’t like he’d asked for something from Rohan and yet he—yet he broke his walls all over again and once again refused to acknowledge his feelings.
Rohan throws the first punch this time and oh, Abhi has no intention of backing down. No one intervenes. They brawl and beat each other up until Abhi has blood in his mouth again but Rohan is grinning at him and Abhi feels so goddamn light in that moment.
Rohan’s hands find Abhi’s collar again and Abhi braces for another punch but instead is greeted with a rough kiss. Rohan pulls away and Abhi gazes at him with utter confusion.
“Fuckin kiss me back, you bastard.” Rohan murmurs against his ear.
Abhi laughs louder than he has ever in his entire life, because god they’re both idiots and pulls Rohan down kissing him the way he deserves to be kissed, as harshly as the sun shines the earth, as passionately as the moon tugs on the oceans and as painfully as Abhi loves him.
Shanaya is standing looking proud, a genuine smile on her face while the rest of their classmates looked on in disbelief and Abhi feels euphoric.
“You just love drama, don’t you?” Rohan quips when he sees Abhi’s stupid smile.
“Well, no wonder I fell for you” Abhi bites back grinning like an absolute fool.
Rohan elbows him in the gut and then kisses him again.
(And Abhi realizes that perhaps it’s okay to destroy things as long he has the strength to build them back up.)