Page 109 of Game on, Love
It was a while before I found the courage to speak again, but for the first time it felt like speaking about her wasn’t wrong. Like he wouldn’t use the memories I had with her against me.
“Have my brothers told you anything about her or when or how she passed?” Pulling my head back, I asked, meeting his eyes, unsure of what he already knew.
“Just that she died suddenly. Neither of them like to talk about her,” He whispered, like he felt bad for even saying it, but I nodded. I… understood where they were coming from.
Taking a deep breath, I spoke. “She had Scleroderma. It’s a rare autoimmune condition where the skin and connective tissues harden, which eventually causes other issues like hypertension, heart issues and other stuff. There are someclinical trials and drugs that can help with… everything. But there’s no cure for it. But that’s not how she died.”
He ran his hand down my back in a comforting gesture.
“She was part of this clinical trial for years, and she used to go through phases of getting better before she got worse and then back again. In 2017, they put her on some new meds, and the phases stopped. When she got better, it was for longer, and there were no more of her really low days, only some bad ones. From being told she only had two years max left to possibly living out a full life, we all were starting to see light at the end of a tunnel.”
I let out a shaky breath as I spoke further. “I don’t even know what it was she had gone out to get but instead of taking the driver like she used to, she had decided to walk to the local market we had nearby. It wasn’t that far away, but you still had to get on the main road and cross a four-way intersection to get to it; it wasn’t the safest, everyone knew that. There wasn’t a red light to navigate either, so you had to always pay extra attention when you were near it. Driving, walking, or even standing by it because one wrong move by one person and so many lives were…”
“I’m so sorry, Raina.”
“No one has any idea what happened. Everyone has a different story because it happenedsofast. There was a camera on one of the shops nearby that caught it from a weird angle, but it was where Ma was. She was on the sidewalk, and out of nowhere, a spinning car hit her from the back, and because of her meds, she was already easily bruised, that even on low impact, she died on the spot.” I gulped. “The journal Vedant gave me was from that year. She wrote almost every day, and the last day she wrote was the day she got told the good news, and she was so excited to live, but this all happened within 24 hours of that.”
“It will be six years in a couple of days,” My chest rose and dropped, my breathing uneven as I laid my head on his shoulder, my gaze fixed on the sky. “She had her flaws, just like every person, but she was my favourite person. On her best days, she taught me how to bake and how to be me; and on her worst ones she taught me how not let the decisions other people made for me to hold me back. Those four years where it was just the two of us back at her home were some of the best and worst years of my life.”
Oliver ran a hand down my back, and I could feel the comfort he was trying so hard to give run through me.
“Can I ask something?” He whispered and I turned to look at him. His eyes were filled with understanding and genuine pain like he could feel the heartbreak too, and I nodded. “Why did you stay in India after that?”
I wasn’t sure if I’d misread his tone, but I felt like it was deliberate.“What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath. “Rihaan told me once that you didn’t move back until you were eighteen. He’d said that you didn’t want to come back with them when they’d gone back for the funeral.”
“Is that what he thinks happened?” I asked, bewildered.
Oliver blinked, clearly not expecting my response. “It’s not?”
“It wasn’t my choice.” I replied, evenly, though a part of me felt the anger rising.
“What do you mean?”
Pressing my lips together, I took a deep breath. The sad part was that I feltnosurprise at learning this piece of information.
Taking another breath, I replied. “My dad didn’t want me to come back with them. He said that I was ‘settled there’,and he didn’t think it was a good idea.”
Oliver’s eyes widened, and I suddenly realised the weight of what I’d just dropped.
“Okay, I know I said that in a very nonchalant way, but with him, I’ve learnt how to… expect things like this.”
His lips turned into a thin line as he shook his head. “No.. I’ve seen how your dad can be, and I always thought Rihaan let it happen because there was more to the story, but I didn’t realise it was with all of you.”
There was a quiet frustration hidden in his voice as he spoke about my dad, and I realised that it was still happening with Rihaan.
“Is it bad?” I asked, unsure how much to ask.
“He’s gotten better at holding his own, and he shrugs it off like it doesn’t bother him, but it’s like he becomes a different person when he is around your dad.”
I blinked at him, caught off guard by his tone. What was frustration before was now pure bitterness.
“Will you tell Rihaan?” Oliver’s voice was softer this time. “About how it was your dad’s decision?”
I sighed, running a hand down my face. “I need to wait.”
“Why?” He frowned, pulling back a little.