Page 214 - The World's Best Boyfriend

scared.
She wondered if she would one day be able to stand up to her father and assert
herself like Dhruv had just done. But he wasn’t an alcoholic and neither did he

consort with prostitutes. A part of her wished he did. She got up to leave as well.
‘Here’s the professor’s number,’ Aranya said and handed over a piece of
paper to Dhruv’s father. ‘Don’t disappoint him please.’

She left and quietly boarded the motorcycle. Dhruv handed over the helmet to
her. In the rear-view mirror, she could see his face muddled up in tears, and it
made her cry, and she hugged him tighter from behind for she didn’t know what

else to do.
They stopped at the next petrol pump where Dhruv got his motorcycle
refuelled. Dhruv’s phone started to ring; Ritika’s name flashed and Dhruv cut

the call. ‘She will ask too many questions. I don’t think I can answer them right
now,’ he said as if explaining.
‘You can just lie. I won’t tell her we were together. You know, whatever.’

‘I can’t lie to her.’
‘She won’t rest in peace if you don’t call her back,’ said Aranya. Not that she
knew Ritika very well, but if someone had to be in love and in a relationship

with Dhruv, anything less than total madness was cheating.
‘I will call her in some time to explain everything. I will have to tell her from
scratch.’

‘Ummm . . . she doesn’t know about your parents?’ asked Aranya.
‘No.’
‘Why?’

‘I wasn’t ready for that kind of intimacy,’ said Dhruv.
Aranya didn’t quite understand what Dhruv meant but she nodded. They got
on the motorcycle and drove back to the college. Aranya thought of what Dhruv

had just said and what intimacy meant for her. She kept going back to the time
she had almost thought of stripping in front of that boy on Skype. The thought of
being naked in front of the boy had scared her shit. The fear of the boy knowing

everything there was to know about her had gripped her and she hadn’t taken
anything off. But Dhruv, driving heroically, stoically, felt naked to her, and so
did she to him, for they had no secrets to hide any more and if that was not

intimate then nothing was.
But of course, she couldn’t fall in love with him again.