The Girl He Left Behind (11 page)

Sia sang along to the music blasting through her car as she drove back. There was nothing like a few days with her parents to relax her completely. Luckily, they lived only a couple of hours drive away. She’d spent her entire vacation having lazy conversations with her parents, eating, sleeping and going on long walks. None of it had helped with the messy emotions she grappled with but it made it more bearable. She hadn’t been able to get a moment alone with her mother to talk about what was bothering her over the last few days. They’d tried but a steady stream of visitors had put paid to any meaningful discussion. Mentally shrugging, Sia tried to forget the anxiety and unease that jostled for space instead of her. It wasn’t like her mother would be able to solve the problem for her. No one could. Warbling loudly, she turned into her driveway only to come to an abrupt halt.

Ryan sat on her stoop with his hands casually folded across his knees. Unable to read his expression thanks to the dark glasses that covered his eyes, she took in the frayed jeans and open collared white t-shirt he wore. Realising the music still blared from her car stereo; she quickly turned it off and got out. Other than a murmured ‘he’ll be fine’ she hadn’t discussed her mother’s visit with Ryan. Not knowing what to expect, Sia locked her car and walked over.

‘Hi.’ The quiet greeting rattled her more than any argument or accusation could have.

‘Hi.’ She replied suspiciously, scanning his face to gauge what he was thinking.

‘Can I help you with that?’

‘With what?’ Sia asked in confusion.

Gesturing to the bags in her back seat piled till the roof of her car, Ryan said. ‘That.’

Flushing with mortification, Sia ignored the grin tugging at his lips. Everyone knew she shopped like a maniac when she needed distraction. Retail therapy was her cure for all ills. As someone who’d lugged her bags for years, she knew exactly what was going through Ryan’s mind.

Not wanting him to discover how many more bags were wedged on the floor of the car, she muttered. ‘I’ll get to it later.’

Unlocking her front door, she asked grudgingly, ‘Would you like to come in?’

‘Considering I’ve been sitting on your front steps for over three hours waiting for you to reach, yes please.’ Following her in, Ryan watched as she dumped her car keys on the side table where they promptly slid off and wedged themselves at the back between the table and the wall. Amused, he yanked them out and settled them safely on the table.

‘Would you like something to drink?’ Sia’s voice floated back from the kitchen. ‘I should have something worth drinking in the fridge.’

‘Beer?’

‘At six in the evening on a weekday?’ Flashing him a faintly disapproving look, Sia bent to rummage through the fridge.

Eyeing the curve of her bottom very fetchingly displayed in a skin tight pair of jeans, he tried to tell his body to behave. He’d come here for a very specific reason and as enticing as the
signals his body were sending him were, they didn’t fall into line with his plans for this meeting.

‘No beer but I can make some coffee.’ Sia straightened and waited for his answer.

Sighing in relief, Ryan mumbled. ‘Coffee’s fine.’

Efficiently adding the ingredients to the coffee filter, Sia waited for it brew. Uneasy with the intent way he was eyeing her, Sia said, ‘You can wait in the drawing room if you want.’

‘No, thanks. I’d rather wait here with you.’ Noting her unease, he asked, ‘How are your parents?’

‘Fine.’ Settling a little, Sia slipped into the easy, undemanding conversation he initiated. They chatted about every random topic they could think of until the filtrate was ready. Quickly mixing the milk, sugar and decoction, Sia handed him his mug before grabbing her own.

Leading the way back into the drawing room, she sat down in one of the single chairs and faced him. Ryan took his sunglasses off and dropped them by his side on the table. Catching her breath at the fading black eye that was starting to yellow, Sia wondered whether she should ask about it now or later. Later, she decided, Ryan seemed to have an agenda on his mind.

Warming his palms with his coffee mug, he looked up and waited patiently for her to meet his eyes. When she finally locked eyes with him, he said, ‘Hi. My name is Ryan. I own an advertising agency based out of Mumbai. I love playing cricket, listening to old country music and reading books about cowboys and their battles in the western frontiers. I live alone in a penthouse in Mumbai and have a fairly active social life. I’d really like for us to spend some time getting to know each other.’

Perplexed, Sia stared at his outstretched hand. ‘Are you sick?’ Reaching over to lay a hand on his forehead, she checked for a
fever. No fever but maybe he had a concussion or something from whatever had given him that black eye. Peering into his eyes and finding them amused but clear, she ran a hand through his hair feeling for bumps or scrapes or anything that would explain his behaviour.

Enjoying the eyeful he was getting of her cleavage while she ran her fingers through his scalp, Ryan drawled, ‘I truly appreciate the view but I’m not sick and I haven’t lost my mind.’

Jumping back like she’d been scalded, Sia crossed her hands over her chest and glared at him. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’

‘You’re the one who keeps harping on and on about the fact that we’ve grown into different people and all I want is for us to get to know each other as the people we are today.’

‘I’m not sleeping with you.’ She said baldly.

‘I didn’t ask you to.’ He shot back with the exact same inflection.

Staring at him suspiciously, Sia asked, ‘So what are you asking me for?’

‘I miss you.’ Watching the truth of that simple statement swarm into his eyes had her breath catching. ‘I miss talking to you, laughing with you, spending time with you. I want another chance.’

‘Ryan.’ Shifting restlessly, Sia stood up to pace.

When she didn’t say anything for several seconds, he asked, ‘Why did you ask your mother to visit me?’

‘I thought it would do you good to have someone who loves you talk to you.’

‘And that someone couldn’t be you?’

Trying to speak past the lump in her throat, she answered as honestly as she could. ‘I don’t know if it can be me anymore.’

He could almost hear his heart crack. Keeping his face impassive, he asked, ‘Why bother with what you think I need, then?’

When she didn’t answer immediately, he stood and came closer.

Backing away, she said, ‘Please don’t. I can’t.’

‘Can’t what?’

‘I don’t want another relationship. Not with you, not with anyone else.’

‘Why?’

She couldn’t tell him. She’d spent the last four days examining her feelings and trying to find the courage to tell him the one thing that still held her back from trying again. When she thought back to all the painful, awkward and sad nights of her marriage, it was too much to bear. The violence had left her permanently flinching away from even the most innocent of touches. The thought of sharing a bed with someone again made her sick. She’d never told anyone. Not even Minty. The sense of failure had been too strong. Quelling a flare of panic, she made her choice. Ryan wouldn’t understand and she couldn’t handle the pity. Cowardly or not, she kept her voice steady as she gave him the one reason she knew he would accept and believe, ‘I don’t have it in me to watch you walk away from me again.’

‘Sia.’ Taking a ragged breath, he stood and took a step towards her. He came to a halt when he saw her take a corresponding step back.

‘Trust me.’

‘I don’t. I can’t.’ Closing her eyes against the devastated expression on his face, Sia felt a tear leak through her rigid control. Wiping it away with the back of her hand, she turned away from him. ‘I’m sorry.’

Burying his pride, Ryan walked over and turned her to face him. ‘Give me one chance to prove you wrong.’

The hoarse plea had the tears break through and stream down her face even as she shook her head in desperation. ‘I can’t.’ If she did, he would only hate her later when he realized how frigid she was.

A muscle ticking in his jaw, Ryan tightened his grip on her arms as he took in the panic, distress and despair emanating from her. Hurt and confusion swarmed through him as he tried to make sense of her wildly fluctuating emotions.

Sia pulled away from him and walked over to her mug of coffee and downed it in one swallow. Breathing heavily, she willed the tears back.

‘Okay.’ Ryan’s quiet acceptance had her waiting warily for what followed. ‘What about being friends?’

Turning slowly, she waited for the catch. When nothing seemed forthcoming, she asked, ‘Just friends?’

‘It’s what we were before anything else happened. Simpler times.’ Shrugging, Ryan reached for his own mug and took a sip. Keeping his expression blank, he watched her struggle to understand the turn the conversation had taken. If she couldn’t bring herself to love or trust him again, the least he could have of her would be her friendship. Scraps from the table for the mongrel, he thought with an ironic smile as he sipped the wine and waited.

‘Friends.’ Sia tested the idea out for a minute more before nodding cautiously. ‘We can be friends.’ Ignoring the pain that wrapped its tentacles around her heart, she reminded herself that this was what she wanted.

‘Great.’ Ryan drained his glass and walked over to the couch to scoop up his sunglasses. ‘I’m going to leave now. We’ll catch up tomorrow or so.’

Ignoring the way she stiffened when he leant forward to press a kiss to her forehead, he murmured a goodbye before heading for the door.

‘Ryan, what happened to your eye?’ The innocent question brought him to a halt with his hand on the doorknob. His mind flashing back to the viciousness of what he’d heard on the night in question, he felt his anger surge again even as a trickle of awareness wove through it. Frigid, ice queen, touch me not frost. The words and phrases swarmed through his mind as he pieced it together with Sia instinctive outburst today when they’d started talking. I won’t sleep with you had been the first thing she’d said. Not I don’t want to be in a relationship with you or I don’t trust you. Those had come once she’d had a chance to think. His mind ploughed its way through his tangle of thoughts to an inescapable conclusion that had him swallowing the bile rising in his throat.

‘Ryan?’ His unnerving stare had her feeling unaccountably warm. ‘Your eye?’ Pointing at her own when he only continued to stare at her, Sia waited. When no answer was forthcoming, she waved her hand in exasperation. ‘Fine. Don’t tell me. You’d think I was asking you to tell me national level secrets or something.’

His hand tightening on the door knob, Ryan struggled against the urge to wrench it off its hinges before answering slowly. ‘It’s nothing important. I’ll tell you all about it when we meet next. I have to go now.’

Wondering at the ineffable emotions chasing across his face, Sia frowned. ‘Are you okay?’

Nodding once, he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Sia watched him stride down the driveway like the hounds from hell were at his heels. Whatever he was thinking couldn’t be good for either one of them. Feeling a chill touch the nape of her neck, she shrugged the fanciful thoughts off and moved forward to shut the door. They were friends. ‘Friends’ was good.

Didn’t the man have to get back to his life and work in Mumbai? Over the next few days, Sia sat back and watched as Ryan morphed back into the boy she’d known. If she didn’t know for a fact that he was burning both ends of the candle to balance all the aspects of his life, she could have imagined they were back in college and he was still living a few streets away. They slipped back into the old rhythm of their friendship as easily as if the years in between didn’t exist at all. After the time he’d come over to her house to talk, they had only been out as part of a group with Minty and Adarsh. He’d kept to his word and hadn’t made a single comment or gesture which could have been misconstrued in any way. Things were great. Life couldn’t have been better. Absolutely perfect! So why did she feel like kicking something?

Sia considered it for a moment and then kicked her trash can really hard. It spun and hit the opposite wall with a satisfying thump. She stared at it for a minute before deciding it hadn’t really calmed her down at all. She was just giving the chair next to her a long assessing glance when her doorbell rang, saving her from damaging any body parts. Opening the door, she found Ryan and Minty standing on the other side deep in conversation over the merits of cricket over hockey. Pasting a bright smile on
her face, she gestured them in. Shutting the door and following them in, she found the two of them surveying the trash sprayed around her drawing room with varying degrees of confusion and amusement. Flushing a little, she stuffed as much as she could back in and straightened.

‘Would you guys like something to drink?’ She worked at keeping her voice casual and unruffled. When they continued to smirk at her, she clutched her trash can closer and said ‘What?’ Wincing a bit at the defensive note in her voice, she put the trash can aside and moved towards the kitchen before they answered.

‘We’ve got a couple of DVD’s to choose from for tonight’s entertainment.’ Ryan’s voice floated in after her.

‘You guys go ahead and choose.’ She called back ‘I’m okay with pretty much anything.’

She went in to find Minty on the phone ordering the pizza and Ryan sifting through the DVD’s. Setting the tray with the drinks down on the coffee table, she peered over Ryan’s shoulder to see what was in store for the evening.

‘Are you in the mood for a nice horror movie?’ He managed his best sinister leer looking up at her.

Swatting the finger he tried to creepily walk up her forearm, Sia shrugged. ‘I’m good. Minty might not be in the mood for it though.’

Taking a closer look at her expression, Ryan put the DVD’s aside and turned towards her. Pulling her closer to him, he draped a companionable arm around her shoulders and thought about how to best approach his prickly little cactus.

‘Want to talk about it?’ He said finally, figuring that right now direct was best.

‘No.’

Ryan sighed. So much for hoping that approach would work. Putting it aside, he pulled out the first horror DVD on the pile
and popped it into the player gesturing to Minty to wrap up torturing the guy taking her intricately detailed pizza order.

They settled into comfortable positions and turned the lights off for an appropriate horror movie setting with Ryan in the centre so either Minty or Sia could grab hold of him if the movie lived up to its promise. Watching Sia lean against the opposite arm of the couch away from him, he was pretty sure Minty would be the only one looking to him for comfort.

Ten minutes into the movie and the first person to die had been possessed and subsequently decapitated quite satisfactorily. Well, at least it had been the woman who spoke incessantly, Ryan thought philosophically. It certainly was a violent and gory way to get her to stop talking. Minty already had her hands covering her eyes and was watching through her fingers like that would make the scenes being played out more palatable. He turned towards Sia and found her watching Minty as well. They grinned at each other and turned back towards the movie screen in silent accord waiting for what they knew would come next. Sure enough three more possessions, one failed exorcism and a creepy old man ghost with an upside down head had Minty slouching even more in the chair with the gap in her fingers getting smaller and smaller.

They watched as the screen went completely dark, the only thing they heard was the victim’s terrified panting, when the doorbell rang. Minty let out a loud scream and launched herself into Ryan’s lap trying to burrow into his chest. Trying to let his ringing eardrums recover from the scream from hell, Ryan patted her on the back while trying to pry her death grip from the front of his shirt. Sia wasn’t any help given she was holding her sides and laughing. Finally managing to get off the couch, Sia headed towards the door to relieve the pizza delivery boy of his burden. She was still laughing when she opened the door to find Nisha standing on her doorstep with a rather petulant expression
on her face. The smile dying from her face, she pulled the door open wider. Talk about people haunting you, she grumbled to herself while leading her into the drawing room after exchanging the necessary pleasantries.

They walked in to find Minty still clinging to Ryan’s shirt like a drowning woman clutching the last raft. In the moment of silence that followed, Sia watched Ryan’s face change to an expression of dismay when he caught sight of Nisha and her furious face. Minty continued to bury her head in Ryan’s shirt, blissfully unaware of the sudden tension in the room. She was after all dealing with her own ghosts. They had upside down heads. Sia didn’t think Nisha could top that although Ryan’s appalled expression made her think Nisha might actually have some scary tricks of her own up her sleeve.

‘So, she’s the one?’ Nisha’s surprised drawl cut through the little tableau. Minty’s head shot up and with a comical look of ‘what is she doing here?’ she scrambled off Ryan’s lap and stood up.

‘The one?’ With a carefully blank expression, Ryan stood and looked at her trying to figure out exactly what Nisha was doing.

Amusement filtering through her voice, she scraped a look over the two of them. ‘I suppose it’s the novelty factor. Though in my opinion, you could do a lot better.’

‘Careful.’ The undertone of menace in his voice had even Sia taking an involuntary step back.

‘Oh! Don’t fret darling. I’m not here to cause a scene. You and your current squeeze can go back to whatever it is you were in the middle of. What I came for won’t take more than a minute.’

‘Nisha –’ Ryan warned but was cut off by one finger stabbing into his chest. The woman really needed to cut those talons she called nails.

‘Don’t. I’m not in the mood to listen to you. I wish you luck
with each other. I heard you would be leaving soon and only came to give you what you’d left behind at my place.’ With one last disparaging glance at Minty, she handed Sia the paper bag in her hand and swept past her and out of the door.

They stood frozen in silence before Sia shook her head disapprovingly ‘Tsk tsk. Keeping secrets from your best friend is not acceptable. When were the two of you going to tell me about this grand passion you share?’

Ryan started to growl at her when he heard a muffled snort from behind him. He turned to see Minty bent over in laughter. She had tears streaming down her face and slowly lowered herself to the floor clutching her side. Ryan let out a disbelieving laugh as the incongruity of the situation hit him.

‘Umm, Ryan?’ Sia was peering into the paper bag with a strangely blank expression on her face.

‘What?’ Taking the bag she held out to him and peeking into it, he felt a dull flush creep up the back of his neck.

‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ Clenching his hand around the bag that held his briefs, he started to explain but a sound in the entranceway had them all looking over to the open door. There was a puzzled pizza delivery man standing there watching the strange little tableau they presented. Judging by his expression, he was wondering whether to take his pizza and leave.

Ryan was just walking over to pay him when Adarsh burst in looking like a deranged escaped convict. He brushed passed the pizza delivery man who took another nervous step back.

‘I am so sorry. That stupid woman cornered me in the office and badgered me into telling her where you were. I couldn’t get away before finishing a meeting and none of you were answering your phones for me to warn you. I came as soon as I could to help. Where is she?’ Staring wild-eyed around the room, with his hair standing up at strange angles, he looked like he was ready for battle on their behalf.

‘Adu-’

‘What? Is she in the other room? Should I go ask her to leave? Tell me what to do to make it up to you. You should have seen her expression when she left from there. I should never have told her you guys were all hanging out together here.’ Determinedly squaring his shoulders, he started to move towards the door leading to the other room.

‘Adarsh.’ Ryan’s quiet voice halted him mid-stride. ‘You really want to help make up for it?’

‘Yes.’ Eagerly, Adarsh turned back towards him. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘You can pay for the pizza.’

‘Pizza?’ Adarsh revolved slowly on his heel and looked at the delivery boy clutching the pizza in one hand and the bill in the other. His earlier confusion was replaced by the beginnings of fear when the lunatic who had come tearing into the room stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

‘Damn. I was looking forward to being in on the action. Anyway good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.’ He strode forward and paid for the pizza, giving the relieved delivery boy a hefty tip before sending him on his way.

‘We are rid of her, aren’t we?’ He looked back suddenly at all the grinning faces for confirmation. When they nodded back at him, he let out a sigh of relief and plopped down with a slice of pizza.

‘So what are we watching?’ Stuffing the slice into his mouth he hit play and was immediately accosted with the brutal murder of the girl hiding alone in the dark storage room. Once all the blood and gore had finished flying and splattering around, he rubbed a hand over his suddenly queasy stomach and said ‘We’ll eat later then? When the mood is more conducive to food?’

They settled into a companionable silence to watch what was left of the movie. As Minty and Adarsh fought over a cushion,
Ryan draped a hand over Sia’s shoulders and dragged her closer to him. Settling her in against his chest, he played idly with her hair and waited patiently until the rigid cast of her shoulders slowly relaxed. Under the cover of the mayhem emanating from the television, Sia put her lips close to his ear to say ‘A lot changes in six years.’

When he only lifted an eyebrow quizzically, she grinned and whispered, ‘Red satin briefs never were your style before.’