After All This Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

ceiling. The bumpy texture had always bothered Deepti. Maybe it wasn’t as bad in Avik’s room; he had never noticed. Never thought he would find himself looking up at the texture of his ceiling and comparing it to his roommate’s to see what his ex-girlfriend thought of each of them. Her rejection did weird things to him. He found himself comparing himself to Avik all the time, as if it were a competition.
    Ever since he had found out about Deepti and Avik, he had begun to look at Avik in a different light. Wondering what Deepti saw in him. Shourya and Avik were the same height, had gone to the same school, and lived in the same apartment. But Avik was a killer drummer. He had even been a part of the school band. There was an air of coolness about him, as if he didn’t care for whatever was going on.
    Shourya hadn’t expected Avik to be as possessive of a girl as he was of Deepti. Maybe that was what Deepti liked about him. Perhaps Shourya had not been obsessive enough for her.
    The cab arrived just then. In one swift motion, he got up and dragged his luggage out of the house. He was glad to be going away for a while. He desperately needed some time away from all of the messiness. Once in the cab, he sat back and closed his eyes. Maybe when he came back after his trip, things would be different. Maybe he would have forgotten some of the things he had been trying so hard to forget. Maybe he would be able to move on, to sleep at night. Maybe his hands wouldn’t tremble every time he thought of the days and the nights he had spent with Deepti, of loving someone so deeply and so fiercely that he had felt handicapped by it. Maybe when he returned, his life would no longer be as fucked up.



3
    Lavanya walked down the narrow aisle and out of the airplane. Her legs shook and she felt the sweat bead down her spine, making her top stick to her back. She felt strangely cold and hot at the same time. While waiting to collect her luggage, she had half a mind to run back to New York. She undid her messy high bun and let her hair fall around her face, hiding as much of her pain as she could.
    It was very early in the morning in India, but Lavanya was already feeling sleepy, thanks to the jet lag. Once she got her bags and heaved them on to a trolley, she decided to get a coffee. She convinced herself that she was not trying to delay meeting her parents, and that she really did need caffeine in her system in order to function.
    But no matter how long she wandered around the airport, she could not put off leaving it indefinitely. She felt like she had nowhere else to go. After years, she had wanted to come home—the apartments she had rented over the years in a foreign country had never felt like home to her. She supposed she could go back, but she did not know what she would do there any more. It felt like she had nothing left there to go back to. She had practically destroyed her future at PSM, so her career, the one thing she had cared about, was lying on the floor in pieces. Besides, who in their right mind would go to an office to work for someone else and help them grow and make money when their days were numbered?
    Get it together.
She finally pushed her luggage cart out through the gate, slowly but determinedly, and looked around. It was not hard to spot them. Her mother was smiling widely and waving at her in glee. When Lavanya waved back hesitantly, her mother covered her mouth with her hand, the crinkles around her eyes turning slightly downwards, just like her lips, Lavanya imagined, under the hand hiding them. Lavanya did not look at her father’s face, but she could see that he was standing right next to her mother, his arm resting lightly around her shoulder. She noticed the arm.
    She pushed her cart around the barriers and reached them. Her mother had almost broken down by then. She shrieked, ‘Lavi!’ and rushed towards Lavanya, pulling her into a tight hug. Lavanya hugged her back, and could feel the sobs shake