Page 99 of Dream On, Liar

She stopped me. “It’s okay. You’ve earned this one.”

I stared at her.

The words caught somewhere deep.

“Yeah.” My voice came out small. “I had earned the other ones.”

For a moment, she said nothing. Like maybe she finally understood what I meant, or maybe she didn’t agree.

I didn’t say anything, just reached into the drawer and pulled out the letter I’d kept in.

The room felt strangely quiet.

Just quiet enough that I could hear my own breathing. “Can I tell you a secret?”

She paused, confusion flickering in her expressions. “I’m not sure. You’re a chatty drunk tonight and I don’t want you waking up with more regret.”

“I want to. You told me yours,” I pointed at her belly…or somewhere around it. “So I won’t regret it. Also, I’m fairly sure I’m not gonna remember most of tonight anyway.”

“Now, that? I believe.”

“Here,” Oliver entered the room, and placed a some meds on the bed side table near him and offered me the giant glass of water.

“I’ll drink it later. I feel like if I drink anything right now, I might just puke.”

He offered his palm then, a sprinkle of salt in it.

Raina grinned. “It helps with the nausea, trust me.”

Offering him my palm, he dumped the contents on it and I licked it all in one go. My eyes cringed at the weird taste before I drained the entire glass of water.

“Feel better?” Oliver asked and I gave him a short nod, not in the mood to test my dizziness. “Good. C’mon, Gorgeous. We have an early flight tomorrow.”

“I’ll just be a minute.” Oliver nodded, and left us to it.

“What were you going to tell me?”

I swallowed, my eyes flicking back to the letter in my hand.

“Did you know no one even told me Ma had passed away?”

She paused, her brows furrowing. “What?”

I released a staggered breath. “Yeah…Dev came to pick me up at the boarding school and he told me that we were going to check in on Ma. That she wasn’t doing well. I had an exam that day, and I remember being so exhausted—because I’d spent the entire night before studying for my exam—that once I got on the plane…I just went to the back room and knocked out on the bed before I realised Vedant and Dad joined us too. The next thing I remember was we had landed, and driving to Mehar Villa. I’d been so drowsy from the travel and exams that I didn’t even ask, and then suddenly, we were outside the house with everyone looking at us…and then I saw her body.”

She bit her lip, like she was trying to keep it together but a hot tear ran down her face. “I—I don’t even know what to say,” she shook her head then. “I’m so sorry.”

I nodded, feeling like there was a red ball stuck inside my throat.

She looked away then, tears still streaming down her face. “She told me about your call from the day before.”

I stiffened.

“Not all of it…obviously. I don’t even remember much of what she told me know. I just remember it was one of the rare times you’d actually talked to her without fighting each other in four years, and how happy it made her. I’ve tried repeating that memory so many times in my head, but every time she flashes across my mind, it just goes so quiet.”

She looked at me expectantly, like she waiting for me to fill in the blanks. It was at that moment, I didn’t see her as Raina. All grown up. Someone who had built her own life without me, and our brothers, away from us. I saw her as my little sister. My baby sister who I’d taught the one trick Ma had left me with.

Just like Ma had left a different way for each of us to memorise our own moments with her. Vedant and Dev journalled, just like her. Raina vlogged her life, capturing her memories in photographs, just like they had most of the time in Delhi. And me, her most overactive child that needed a way to relax before bed, she made me pick a memory each night from the day and repeat it. She’d tell me that it would be a great way for me to relax, and also keep a memory box. It was what she used to do as a kid.