Page 234 - The World's Best Boyfriend

54

Dhruv had waited for night to come. All that crying outside on the bench turned

his heart to mush and he wanted to see his father. Maybe even apologize. But he
didn’t have it in him to just walk in, sit by his side, and have a heart-to-heart
conversation.
Instead, he had decided he would go in late at night when his father would be

fast asleep, he would say what he needed to, complain, bicker, curse, abuse and
drown him in his frustration.

It was two in the night. The deserted corridors looked straight out of a horror
movie. Gingerly, he opened the door again; it creaked like in a cheap Ramsay
movie. His father was sleeping.
He sat on the same chair he had sat in in the morning, feeling nothing,

absolutely nothing at all but now, a few hours later, he felt like the ten-year-old
Dhruv who would cry himself to sleep in his arms. He started to talk.

‘Dad. You ruined my childhood. You ruined everything for me. I don’t even
know if I love you any more,’ Dhruv whispered into the night. ‘I hate you. That
I’m sure of. But thinking of you makes me cry and I don’t know how to label
that. I have spent days thinking why you would do what you did and I still do

hope it would all make some sense some day but it doesn’t now. Why didn’t you
fight for Mom? If not for yourself, then at least for me? I still can’t wrap my

head around why you slept around after she left. Did you not think about what
you were doing to me, Dad? I was little! I was so young! Why? Why did you do
it? I know you wouldn’t have an answer and that’s okay. I have learned to live

with it. At least you taught me not to trivialize relationships and to take
responsibility for my actions by fucking my childhood over.’ He held his head
and cried for a few minutes. ‘Anyway, Dad, I need to go now. I have college to

attend. Oh, by the way, thank you for calling my professor. Thanks.’
Dhruv stood up and turned away when he heard his father voice. ‘Stay.’
‘. . .’

His father looked at him, not groggy and definitely awake. That sly bastard
had listened to the entire thing. He called Dhruv over to sit by his side. His eyes
were unnaturally kind. For the first time in years, Dhruv had seen his father

sober.