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A door opened at the end of the hall and his father stepped out. He looked tired, worn down, and strangely defeated. The man who’d towered over Agastya’s entire existence, the man who’d defined and shaped that very existence, looked ready to throw in the towel.
And that Agastya would never allow to happen. The greater good, he reminded himself.
“No, Veda. This isn’t about that.”
“Then please,” she begged. “Just tell me what it’s about.”
His father came to a stop in front of him, red rimmed, exhausted eyes searching Agastya’s face. He bent at the waist, phone still to his ear, and touched his father’s feet. He brought the tips of his fingers to his eyes as his father rested his hand on the top of Agastya’s head and murmured a blessing.
“Tell me what it’s about,” she said again, her musical voice a soothing balm in the middle of the cacophony around him.
Agastya straightened, his eyes meeting his father’s questioning ones. His words, however, were directed at her.
“It’s about us.”
Six
VEDA
“It’s about us.”
Us? There was an ‘us’? Since when?
“Veda!”
She started at the sound of her brother’s irate voice. “I have to go,” she muttered into the phone, disconnecting without waiting for his response.
“I told you not to talk to him.” Ram Anna’s disappointment in her was palpable.
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly.
His sharp gaze scanned her guilty face. Ram exhaled hard, scrubbing his hands over his face. “He wasn’t lying,” he murmured. “It’s true.”
“What is?” Veda’s stomach was sinking like a pebble in the ocean.
“You’re in love with him.”
She could have sworn lightning flashed in the sky above them as they stood in the driveaway leading to their ancestral home. But when she waited to see if it would strike her so she could escape this mortifying moment, nothing happened.
“W-w-what?” she stammered.
Her brother glanced at his watch as his driver reversed around them and drove into the garage to park.
“Nanna will be home soon. We’ll talk then.” He turned away from her, apparently meaning to walk into the house without any further explanation.
“No.” Veda caught his wrist and stopped him. Her dance bag fell to the ground unheeded. “What are you talking about?”
“Agastya Kodela asked for a meeting with Nanna. I went along.”
“Because of the news story?” she asked, her tongue feeling thick and unwieldy in her mouth, anxiety making it hard to get the words out.
“That’s what we thought. But apparently not, he wanted to talk to us about you.”
“Me?” Her brother’s initial words penetrated her daze. “He told you both that I was in love with him?”
Her words were sharp with shame and embarrassment. Her father was going to kill her. He was going to…
“Is it true?” Ram’s voice was quiet and low, acutely conscious of the staff standing around and pretending not to be listening to them.
