Chapter 53

The room is quiet, dark—save for the soft silver light filtering through the glass door of the balcony. It pools across the floor like spilled milk, soft and cold. I’m standing in front of my closet. Not moving. Just staring.

I don’t even know why I opened it.

Maybe I needed socks. Maybe I just needed something.

But there it is.

Tucked in the corner.

Covered in a thin layer of dust, like time itself tried to bury it.

Amit’s guitar.

The one he left for me.

The one I played a hundred times for him.

The one I haven’t touched since.

My fingers hover near the neck, but I don’t reach for it. I just stand there, the ache in my chest soft and steady—like a bruise that never quite faded.

Then—

A soft knock.

I blink. Turn.

The door opens slowly, and my dad steps in. He looks… hesitant. Like he isn’t sure if he’s allowed to be here. His eyes flick to me, then to the closet, then back again.

“I–uh,” he clears his throat. “Where were you yesterday?”

I shift a little, close the closet gently. “I was at Raj’s.”

He nods, almost to himself. “I figured. I just… I was worried. You could’ve called.”

“I know,” I say, quietly. “Sorry.”

The silence stretches.

Not cold.

Not angry.

Just… awkward. Two people who don’t know how to meet in the middle.

Then he exhales, long and low.

“I’m sorry, too.”

I look up. Blink.

“What?”

He meets my eyes, and for once, he doesn’t look like a man trying to play a part. He just looks like my dad. Tired. Sad. Regret heavy in his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “For… all of it. I wasn’t there. Not the way I should’ve been.”

My breath catches. That ache in my chest twists into something sharp.

“No,” I say quickly, walking over to him. “No, Dad. You don’t have to–”

“I do,” he says softly.

And I—God.

I shake my head, words tripping over themselves. “I shouldn’t have said what I said. That night. I was too much. I—”

He cuts me off gently. “No. You were right. I wasn’t there.”

His voice cracks just a little. And I swear, something in me does too.

I look at him—really look at him.

His face older than I remember. His hands tucked awkwardly at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them. His eyes rimmed with something that might be shame.

And I know, God I know:

He’s not just the man who failed me.

He’s the man who knows he did.

And he’s trying.

Even if it’s too late for easy apologies.

Even if I don’t know how to forgive him yet.

Still—

He moves.

Not toward me.

Just… past me.

Walks slowly to the glass door, where moonlight spills across the floor like something holy. He stops there, staring out at the night like it holds answers he missed.

His back is to me.

But his voice is steady when it finally comes.

“You were six,” he says. “When we moved into that apartment with the broken water pipes and the rats in the kitchen.”

I blink. The memory hits like a dusty photograph pulled from a drawer I never meant to open.

“The reason we ended up there,” he continues, “was because I chased something that didn’t work. Your mom and I were both doing steady jobs, small salaries, but enough. And then this old friend pitched me a startup idea. Told me we’d be rich in five years. I believed him.”

He laughs, but it’s not humor. It’s the sound of someone choking on hindsight.

“I left the job. Put our savings in. Thought I was building something. It failed.”

I can see the outline of his shoulders in the moonlight. The way they rise and fall like he’s carrying it all still.

“We lost everything. The apartment. The security. Your mother took extra shifts. I told her it’d be temporary. It wasn’t.”

He exhales sharply, and the glass fogs in front of him.

“Then your grandfather got sick. Back in the village. I went to get him—promised I’d bring him to a better hospital. But the local one didn’t have beds. I watched a family—wealthy, smiling—buy the only bed left. I watched them pay to survive.”

He turns slightly, just enough for the light to catch the lines beneath his eyes.

“I put him in an ambulance. Thought I’d get him to the other hospital. Halfway there, I watched him… go. Just like that.”

The silence crackles between us. Not empty—full.

Full of every mile he ran trying to make it right. Every second he traded for a paycheck. Every missed sports day, every unopened birthday card, every night he didn’t come home until I was already asleep and angry and learning how not to need him.

“I swore,” he says, voice cracking now, “I swore I’d never be that powerless again. I stayed. When my friend walked out on the business, I stayed. I worked. I rebuilt. Changed everything. Failed again. But I stayed until I made it work. Alone.”

And then, quieter—softer—

“But in trying to be a better son… I failed as a father.”

His voice breaks.

And so does something else.

Because he’s crying.

Shoulders shaking. Hand pressed to the glass like he’s trying to steady himself. And I—

I’ve never seen my father cry.

Not at a funeral. Not when I got sick. Not when Mom used to sit at the table at night, waiting for him with cold tea and tired eyes.

Not once.

Until now.

And I don’t know what to do.

My hands hang at my sides. Useless. My throat closes around something too big to swallow.

Because I spent years wondering if he even had feelings at all.

And now they’re here, spilling out in moonlight and regret, and I don’t know how to carry this version of him.

And all I can think is—

He broke himself trying to protect us.

And none of us were protected.

Not even him.

He doesn’t turn around right away. He just stands there, hand still pressed against the glass, like he needs something solid to keep him upright. The night outside doesn’t offer answers. Just reflections.

Of him. Of me. Of everything in between.

“I want to be better,” he says finally.

His voice is hoarse. Tired. Raw like it’s been scraped against all the years he spent swallowing it.

“I want to protect you, Dev. I just… I don’t know how.”

He turns now. Slowly. And I see it.

All of it.

The grief, the shame, the ache of a man who doesn’t know when the distance turned into a canyon.

“I see you,” he says. “I see you hurting. In this dark room. The broken mirror. The silence. The way you carry yourself like you’re waiting to collapse—”

He stops. Voice hitching.

“I can’t—”

He swallows. Tries again.

“I can’t watch you like this.”

And it’s not anger in his voice.

It’s desperation.

“I feel like I’m back in that ambulance again,” he says. “Watching someone I love fall apart and I—”

He closes his eyes. His voice drops to a whisper.

“I couldn’t save my father. And now I’m losing you too.”

The words land like stones.

Heavy. Final.

And I can’t breathe around them.

Because I’ve spent so long blaming him for what he didn’t give me, I never once thought about what it must’ve cost him to have nothing left to give.

He looks at me, and his eyes are glassy again. But this time, they hold something else.

Hope. Maybe. Or guilt twisted into something like a prayer.

“I don’t need you to forgive me,” he says. “But please, Dev… let me try. Let me at least try to be someone you don’t have to recover from.”

And I—

God.

My throat burns.

My hands ache to reach for something I don’t know how to touch.

And then—

I don’t think.

I move.

Like something inside me snaps and all that’s left is need.

I go to him fast—too fast—like if I don’t do it now I’ll never be able to.

And I throw my arms around him.

It’s clumsy. Breathless. Desperate.

My cheek presses into his shoulder and I realize I forgot how this felt.

Forgot what it’s like to bury myself in the space between his arms and mean it.

Forgot how solid he is. How warm. How human.

Forgot I was once small enough to be carried.

He doesn’t react at first.

Stiff. Startled. Like he’s afraid if he moves, I’ll disappear.

And then—

His arms wrap around me.

Tight.

Like he’s afraid I will.

He holds me the way fathers are supposed to.

And I break the way sons aren’t allowed to.

I don’t say anything.

I just cry.

Quiet, shaking sobs that pour out of me like a dam finally gave way.

Not dramatic. Not cinematic.

Just the kind of crying that comes from somewhere so deep you didn’t even know it was waiting there.

And maybe I don’t need to tell him anything.

Maybe the shattered mirror already said it all.

Maybe the guitar in my closet said the rest.

Maybe the silence was never empty.

Because he holds me tighter.

Like he’s sorry. Like he means it. Like he knows.

And I don’t know how to forgive him.

But—

Maybe I don’t have to.

***

I’m halfway through chugging juice straight from the carton when my mom yells, “You’re going to choke if you don’t slow down!”

I swallow, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and shout back, “Can’t choke! Stage crew needs me alive!”

She mutters something about “drama kids and malnutrition” from the kitchen while my dad laughs under his breath, still in his slippers.

“Just come on time tonight, okay?” I say, stuffing backup duct tape and glitter packets into a canvas bag. “Auditorium. Eight p.m. Don’t be late. If a prop falls, it’ll be your fault.”

“We’ll be there,” my dad says, amused. “Go before your ride honks the neighborhood down.”

As if on cue—

HOOOOOONK.

I freeze. The kind of long, obnoxious honk that says Raj Mehta is outside, bored, and ready to be a menace.

“Okaybye!” I yell, slinging the bag over my shoulder and sprinting toward the door.

The second I step outside, I see him. Raj is leaning against his car, sunglasses on even though it’s barely 9 a.m., blasting music like he’s in a Fast & Furious movie but also forgot he’s in a residential colony.

“You’re late,” he says, straightening up with that stupid, smug grin. “I was about to drive off and leave your dramatic ass behind.”

“Please,” I say, yanking open the passenger door. “You’d drive past my house six more times just to make sure I saw you ignoring me.”

“Guilty,” he says, tossing me a granola bar like it’s a peace offering. “Also, you owe me coffee for picking you up.”

“I owe you therapy for making me ride in this death trap every day.”

“You love it here,” he says, and he’s not wrong.

It’s been…normal between us for past few days…

Or at least, as normal as two boys-who-might-be-something could be after crying into each other’s shirts and sharing a bed like it was sacred ground.

Raj hasn’t asked what we are. I haven’t either.

And weirdly?

That’s fine.

When I’m with him, I don’t need labels.

I don’t need clarity.

I don’t need anything but this—the warm banter, the side-glances, the way he looks at me like I’m not broken.

He drives one-handed, lazily turning the wheel like he owns every street. At one point he says, “You know, if we survive this fest, I’m taking you out for celebratory ice cream.”

“Celebratory? You’re not even in the play.”

“I am in spirit. Also, I provide moral support. And this genius company.”

“You’re so full of yourself it’s physically offensive.”

“And yet here you are,” he says, grinning as we pull into the school lot, “sitting next to me.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling. I can’t not.

***

The school campus is a circus.

Booths line the courtyard like it’s a damn fairground—student-made posters flapping in the breeze, games involving water balloons and dubious-looking darts, someone blasting pop music from a stall selling chai and momo combos (unholy, but somehow profitable).

Everywhere I turn, someone’s yelling. Laughing. Running. Glitter, face paint, costumes—chaos incarnate.

And we don’t have time for any of it.

Because the play’s tonight.

And Arya is having a full-blown meltdown.

I spot her across the lawn, barking orders at three juniors who look like they’re considering legal emancipation.

“You–don’t touch the backdrop with your greasy hands–Kavya, I swear to God, that’s not your lipstick that’s stage blood—who lost the script binder?! Was it you? IT WAS YOU, WASN’T IT, RITVIK?!”

Raj leans toward me. “I give her three hours before she starts using violence.”

“She started yesterday,” I say. “You missed the water bottle she threw at Jasir’s head.”

And I don’t blame her.

Tonight is the night. The big play. And I’m on props, which means I have ten thousand tiny disasters to prevent.

“DEV.”

Arya’s voice slices through the crowd like a battle cry.

I spin just in time to see her marching across the lawn like a general who’s already seen five people die on the field.

“You were supposed to be here an hour ago. Do you know how many things have already gone wrong? I asked Jasir to paint one backdrop and he spilled red paint on himself and now he looks like he’s been stabbed. Aditya is MIA. And someone—someone—ate one of the fake cakes!”

I blink. “We had fake cakes?”

“Not anymore!”

Raj steps back slowly, hands raised. “And on that note, I’m going to drop off Dev’s stuff and then go breathe in a less homicidal environment.”

Arya glares. “If you’re not helping, you’re part of the problem, Mehra.”

He smirks. “You’ve been a problem since birth.”

I shove the prop bag into Arya’s hands and grab Raj’s arm, pulling him toward the auditorium. “Before you two declare war again, I’m getting him out of range.”

As we walk, I catch Raj looking at me—just a glance, soft and lingering.

Maybe he doesn’t need to ask what we are.

Maybe he already knows.

Maybe I do too.

Raj and I are barely five steps into the main field when Aditya appears out of thin air, clipboard in hand, sweat on his brow, and his “I will murder you if you don’t cooperate” smile locked and loaded.

“Mehra,” he says. “Badge. Now. You’re on watch duty. We’ve got volunteers disappearing, a magic show that wasn’t approved, and I think Arya’s about to beat someone with a prop sword.”

Raj groans like he’s being asked to donate a kidney. “Can’t I just smile and be decorative?”

“No,” Aditya says flatly. “You’re student council. You signed up for pain.”

Raj sighs, digs into his bag, and pulls out his blue-and-gold badge. Student Body Committee. He pins it to his chest like it’s a curse.

Then he turns to me, grin sliding back into place like it never left.

“Duty calls, Sharma,” he says, and before I can react, he ruffles my hair—genuinely ruffles it, like I’m a kid or his favorite thing or both. “Try not to burn the auditorium down while I’m gone.”

I swat his hand away, mostly because if I don’t, I’ll smile like an idiot. “Try not to incite a student riot.”

“No promises,” he says, and then he’s gone—following Aditya and a few other committee kids through the crowd like he actually knows what he’s doing. And somehow, I believe he does.

Arya appears at my side a second later, wearing a black t-shirt that says Tech Crew is God and the look of someone one mess away from setting something on fire.

“Dev. Auditorium. Now. We need to redo the stage markers, Sneha forgot the fake blood, and someone needs to physically restrain Asim from trying a British accent again.”

“On it,” I say, jogging after her before she drafts me into verbal warfare.

The backstage of the auditorium is its own brand of hell.

Props are flying. Set pieces are being shoved into position by stressed-out teens who haven’t eaten anything but caffeine and panic. Someone’s screaming, “WHERE IS THE OTHER WING?” like we’re in the middle of a real war.

Actors are scattered in corners, practicing lines under their breath, pacing, gesturing wildly. It’s like everyone is high on adrenaline and fear. Which, fair.

I spot Jasir and Aditya (the other Aditya) huddled near the prop shelves, whispering like they’re in a conspiracy.

“Did you see what Meher wore today?” Jasir says, scandalized.

“She said it was vintage,” Aditya whispers. “It was her mom’s wedding lehenga. In hot pink.”

“I want to die,” Jasir says.

“I want to live just to see Arya’s reaction.”

I roll my eyes and squeeze past them, checking on the dark forest props and the fake bridge. Everything’s in its place. Barely.

I’m halfway through rearranging the fake fireplace when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I freeze.

Because I already know who it is.

Rohan. Again.

He called last night too. I didn’t pick up then either.

The name stares back at me like it wants to crawl under my skin.

I don’t block it. I never do.

Maybe because part of me still hasn’t unlearned fear.

Maybe because I can’t quite convince myself I have the right to block him.

But I don’t pick up.

I just silence the call.

Slide the phone back in my pocket.

Breathe.

This isn’t then.

This is now.

That boy doesn’t get to crawl into this moment. Not anymore.

I look up, take in the chaos again—kids running lines, lights being tested, the scent of sweat and hairspray thick in the air.

And for once, I don’t feel like I’m sinking in it.

Because I’m here.

In this story.

And the boy who tried to erase me with his fists and his hate?

He doesn’t get to rewrite anything anymore.

***

Parents have started trickling in.

There’s a kind of energy in the air now—electric and nervous and too bright.

Voices echo louder, heels clack across the entrance hall, teachers are trying to look organized, and students are darting around like caffeinated ants.

The play starts in half an hour.

Backstage? Total chaos.

People are yelling about missing props, someone’s wig has gone rogue, and Arya is having her makeup done while simultaneously threatening to decapitate Aditya for misplacing the angel wings she personally hand-glued with glitter and rage.

She looks borderline ethereal—white robe, gold accents, a full-on halo.

The irony is not lost on me.

“Do not smudge this eyeliner, or so help me—” she’s hissing at someone as I duck past her with a crate of fake logs.

I drop the last set piece downstage and finally—finally—let myself sag into a corner. My shoulders ache. My shirt’s clinging to me. I haven’t eaten since that glass of juice nine hours ago that barely qualified as food.

I unzip my backpack and pull out the emergency snack box my mom had shoved into my hands this morning, right after telling me I’d forget to eat.

She was right, of course.

I pop the lid open—thank God, there are two stuffed parathas, a small packet of ketchup, and a brownie wrapped in foil like a love letter from home.

But something else catches my eye.

A clipboard.

It must’ve gotten shoved in there with the last load-in. The props list Aman had made a few days ago—neatly typed, color-coded, labeled with terrifying precision.

The columns are so clean it looks like a spreadsheet was hugged by a perfectionist.

It’s so Aman it makes my chest ache.

I haven’t seen him since that night at Raj’s.

He didn’t come today.

Raj hasn’t said anything about it either.

But I see it—every time someone mentions Aman’s name or their house,

there’s a flicker behind Raj’s eyes. A short silence. A subject shift. A tension he doesn’t know where to put.

Because how do you process something like that?

Finding out your father had another life before you were even born.

Another child.

Another everything.

I tuck the clipboard back into my bag and grab a paratha, heading for the side exit.

The backstage air is thick with hairspray and panic, and I need to breathe something that isn’t powdered makeup or stress.

The backdoor opens with a soft creak, and I step out into another world.

The fest is still alive—maybe even more so at night.

Fairy lights are strung across every tree like constellations. Booths glow under paper lanterns. Laughter echoes down the walkway. The scent of popcorn and fried food hangs in the air like something holy.

I walk past the art stalls, past the game booths where a kid is dramatically losing at ring toss. A balloon vendor’s arguing with a parent about whether their kid really won enough points for the giant panda.

It’s peaceful in a way that feels undeserved.

Too beautiful for how heavy I feel inside.

But the lights keep twinkling.

The music keeps playing.

And somehow—my feet keep moving.

And for a moment—

just a moment—

I let myself exist.

Just exist.