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Ram stared at her. “Are you serious? We grew up playing lock and key with him.”
“I have never played lock and key or anything else with any of you.”
Ram frowned.
“I was the annoying younger sibling whom nobody wanted around,” she reminded him helpfully.
“That’s not true,” Ram retorted, defensively.
Before she could argue with him anymore, another knock sounded on the door. The siblings shared a surprised look.
“Who is it?” Raashi called out, slipping into their mother tongue.
The door opened and her father stepped through, dropping her into the Twilight Zone.
“Hello,” he said, looking as uncomfortable as Raashi felt. Ram was staring at their father with his mouth open.
“Hello,” Raashi echoed back to him, automatically sitting up a little straighter. Neither she nor her father had interacted directly since…her mind shied away from thinking about that night.
Her father cleared his throat. “There is some chatter on the news lines about you and that younger Kodela boy. Something about you calling him a whore?”
Raashi flushed but tipped her chin up at her father, a default reaction to his presence. “Actually, I called him a manwhore,” she said defiantly, digging her heels into her mistake.
Ram groaned, a soft but audible noise.
“Yes.” Nanna ignored him, his steady gaze on Raashi and Raashi alone. “The thing is, that boy has a lot of fans.”
“I would suppose that accounts for his superstar status.” Raashi snorted, her voice reeking with disdain. “Tween girls with half a brain cell shared between the lot of them.”
“Hmm.” Nanna stepped closer to her bed. “Not only them. He’s got his share of rabid followers, a fair number, across demographics.”
“And what has this got to do with me?”
“These people now hate you,” her father said bluntly. “Or so they say online.”
Raashi stared at him for a second before she burst out laughing. “Are you serious? Because I called him a manwhore? Do these people have no life or for that matter, no brains? Of course they don’t,” she muttered to herself. “They’re his fans.”
“Raashi, they’re making some ugly threats.” Her father’s serious voice had Ram straightening from his slouch at the foot of her bed.
“What threats?” he asked, his lawyer voice coming to the fore.
“I’ll send you the file,” Nanna told him. “But for now, I don’t think it’s anything serious.”
“Turn off the comments on your social media profiles,” Ram ordered, getting to his feet and pulling out his phone.
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting? Anyway, I barely go on social media. I think twelve people follow me other than Akka and you.”
Ram didn’t bother to answer her, instead telling their father, “Send me the file. We’ll decide next steps post that.”
Next steps? Raashi watched them confer, their tense faces looking so alike that it made her stomach hurt with pain and loneliness and an eternal longing for something she’d never have again. Family, relationships, close friendships. She’d set fire to the bridge that connected her to all of it.
“You both should go now,” she said abruptly, pulling her comforter over her head. “There’s too much testosterone in this room.”
She could almost feel the weight of the looks they gave her blanket covered head.
“This evening, we’re going to Vinayak’s party,” Ram’s voice said. “I’ll come with you, and you can make a public apology. We’ll get it blasted over the media channels and it should soothe all the ruffled feathers.”
Raashi erupted out of her bed, throwing the comforter aside. “This is ridiculous! I need to make a public apology to His Assholishness because his stupid fans are upset?”
