MayRa SS- Two Negatives !! || Beyhadh 2 || Maya || Rudra

Chapter 1-The Dual Attack

The day crawled on as usual for Maya. Having completed her practical before anyone else, she decided to go back to the class. When she entered, she passed a flitting smile to the guy, Rohan, and occupied her seat.

As she hummed 'Let It Go' to herself, penning down her recent poem, she felt a presence behind her desk. She turned to look at Rohan who was fumbling.

“Hi Maya, I am Rohan, I mean, obviously you know that it's just that I wanted to ask you something,”

“Do you need anything?” She asked in concern because Rohan looked as if he would pass out in the next few minutes.

“Umm, yes… You know, a lot of people have a crush on you, you should check our college confession page on Instagram, people all over the different branches are crazy about you… so am I,”

Maya’s eyes went wide with surprise. No one, in the past 4 years of her college life had been bold enough to propose to her. She knew of the page, of course, she did, her girl classmates wouldn’t shut up when in the first year, someone had posted a confession for her and since then, they had been at least 44 posts about her.

“I Love you, Maya,you are so perfect”

Maya looked at Rohan, her reverie was broken.

“Who is my perfect girl?” His hands caressed her thighs as if they made of soft fur, to be played with, toyed with.

“Mumma!”

Maya rushed out of the class, her breath heavy in her lungs. She could hear her heart thud as the memories that she had buried for the last ten years flashed to her mind. She ran where her legs carried her, away from those words, those promises of chocolates and dolls, that ignorance of the child Maya who had no idea that she shouldn’t be touched that way unless it started hurting her.

She entered a room and leaned against the wall, her vision going dark, nothing seemed coherent right now, not even the “Hey! It’s the Boy’s Common room!”

Rudra was having a horrible day. How could he call! That b*****d! He wished he could run away, but damn he needed the money like no else, so he had to stay back.

And to top it off,Kabir had taken his bike keys, so he couldn’t even go riding and relax!

He threw his head against the bench when a girl entered the common room and leaned on her wall and he rebuked her, but the very next second, she fell to the ground, hugging her knees, crying like a baby.

“Are you ok?” He asked softly and stepped closer to her.

She nodded in a no and yelled. He stepped back.

“Ok, ok, I won’t come close to you, but you need to breathe alright. Can you do that for me?”She nodded meekly and drew in a sharp breath. Rudra sat on the ground, still maintaining his distance.

“Good, can you breathe for a few more seconds?”

He waited as she breathed for a few seconds, her hiccups slowing down and she opened her eyes.

“Can you name any of the five things you can see right now?”

She took a few seconds to process, her rocking and fumbling with her jeans not stopping.

“You, the bench,the bag, the cupboard, and the bottle,” Rudra turned to look at the locker cupboard behind him and saw the bottle. He nodded.

“What about the four things that you can touch?”

“My clothes, my hair, my shoes, and my wounds,”

Rudra raised his eyebrows but let it pass.

“And three things you can hear?”

“You, the fans and some boys outside.”

“Two things you can smell”

“Leather and some men’s perfume,”

Rudra looked at the football that lay near her.

“One thing you can taste”

“My tears?”

Color slowly started returning to her cheeks and she started breathing a bit normally. She rested her head against the wall and breathed for a few more seconds.

“You ok?” She nodded and stood up.

“You should rest, I think,”

“Thanks,” she replied instead and left.

“I don’t give a f**k about how he answered his exam Dessai! He needs to pass this year so that I can send him to London to do his MBA,”

“in London? MJ, the boy can’t clear his first semester exams,”

Mritunjay threw a disgusted look at the dean of his son’s college.

“You do not speak of a Roy in that tone!”

“Before being a Roy, he is your son, maybe you should listen to him and let him drop!”

“No, he stays! He completes his engineering, does an MBA and runs my office, that’s what he is born for, and you will make sure of that, Dessai, because I am pretty sure the government will not like it when they find out that the money they gave you to upgrade your machinery in the workshop was used to buy a house in Darjeeling,”

Raghav was shocked.No one knew of this, he and his assistant had made sure to keep their backs clear.

“Oh, you think I don’t know? I know everything about the woman who joins you at that house and I wonder what your wife will think about her? Will your kids love having a s**t as their stepmother?”

“You cannot do this!”

“No, I can, but I will not if I see the word pass written on son’s mark sheet. Have a good day!”Mritunjay left the seat and buttoned his court and smirked at the foolish dean who shuffled in his seat.

The smell of fear made him forget his son’s harsh words.

Shibani

Chapter 2- The Deal

“Please call Rudra Roy and Maya Jaisingh from the IT branch as soon as possible,” He ordered his assistant the first thing as he entered his cabin the next day. No, he couldn’t tell Pereira about this muck up. What if he was the one who snitched him to that son of a b***h! This is something he will deal with on his own.

“Sir, may I come in?” 10 minutes later the meek fourth girl knocked on the cabin door.

“Is Rudra Roy here?”

“No sir, he is absent today,”

Dessai couldn’t control his eye roll.

“I need him here in the next 15 minutes,” He barked at Pereira who nodded.

“You can come before the lunch break Miss Jaisingh,”

She nodded, thanked him and left.

In about 10 minutes, again there was a knock on the door and Rudra Roy stepped him, just like his father had yesterday. His blood boiled but he masked it with a smile on his face.

He waited for Rudra to take a seat and look around the cabin.

“Your father was here yesterday, Mr. Roy,”

“Oh really?” Rudra snapped. Snob!

“He had an interesting request that he made me, more of a demand, that I help you clear the semesters by faking your results,”

Rudra’s eyes shot up, but he showed no sign of anger, shock or happiness. He looked smug as if he had seen it coming.

“Now, I know that you do not want to do engineering and no young man wants to clear his exams because his father owns a huge empire, at least, not you, as I know it,”

“I do not want that man to interfere in my life anymore, I let him do that once and I have to see your face!”

“You will speak with respect, boy! Yes, I am well aware of the josh of independence in you, so here is a deal, you attend classes, study hard, copy, do whatever you want and pass, so I needn’t dirty my hands,”

“Isn’t he paying you?” This was the time in the last 10 minutes Rudra had shown signs of surprise.

“I don’t like playing games Mr. Roy and this one is a dark for my liking, so I am not going to be a puppet in your father’s hands. You do whatever you can to pass and it’s a win-win for both of us.”

Rudra still didn’t look convinced but Raghav wasn’t in a mood of convincing anyone right now.

“I will speak to your classmate, Maya Jaisingh to tutor you after class. She will help you out and I hope you will not disappoint me. You have 5 minutes to think about the arrangement.”

Rudra looked at him trying to weigh his options and right now, he couldn’t see an way out of this mess. He sighed and nodded, and Dessai had a hard time fighting his glee.

The university was keeping a close on the results and he had no way helping Rudra pass, but if Rudra managed to do that on his own, then he wouldn’t have to deal with the university or Mritunjay.

He spent the lunch break convincing Maya Jaisingh to tutor Rudra. She was a tough nut to crack,but he had done his research, he knew she was working on an app that needed a lot of funds and he knew just the right people. Never had he been so pleased,after all, he had managed to outsmart the most cunning businessman of the country by manipulating two naive students.

The boys of the hostel had a mini heart attack watching the Maya Jaisingh walk into the hostel.They looked at her, in all her glory as she passed them and stopped to ask Rohan about Rudra. Damn that guy! He stole every girl in the college and now even Maya, who wouldn’t even spare a glance at them.

Badi baap ki bigadiaulad!

Rudra was working on his sketch. He had seen this new style of sketching and had spent an hour but just couldn’t get the hair right!

The knocking of the door pissed him off!

“What is it d**kwad!”He yelled at the person while opening the door and then stopped. It was the girl he had met yesterday.

“I am sorry!”

 “Maya Jaisingh”

“Who?”

Maya raised her eyebrows at him. He looked at her for a second or two and then his eyes went big.

“Oh shit! Sorry. I forgot! Please come in,” He stepped in and let her enter.

Maya looked around the room and to her surprise, it wasn’t messy like the ones they showed in the web series and movies. It was clean and decorated as if it was done by a professional interior designer. The sketches and paintings that were hung were so beautiful that Maya missed Rudra’s question.

“Oh hello!”

She looked at him.

“Girls aren’t allowed in here. Did you just sneak in to meet me” He smirked, despite himself.

“If you did me a favour of stepping out of this shit hole,” she paused and looked around, “I mean this room, I wouldn’t have had to walk in here. And no, I requested the dean to permit me to meet you here in this room and speak to you, because your roommate wouldn’t give me your number.”

“Well, Kabir must be jealous to see the Maya Jaisingh ask for my number, a nobody, unlike him!”

“I don’t care! I will tutor you from 5 to 7, and on Sundays from 10 to 1 and 5 to 7 in evenings,”

“Oh hello! I am not your slave,”

“Fine then, find someone else to teach you, bye!’ Maya turned to leave, but there was a smugness in her position, and Rudra dropped his shoulders.

“Fine! But won't it affect your schedule?”

“No!”

How could it, Maya never slept, but instead studied. The reason why she never slept was that the nightmares wouldn’t stop.

Chapter 3-A new Friendship?

It had been a week since the two were studying together. Rumors were flying like crazy! Maya had heard about twenty theories as to how the two began dating.

And when after two days Maya was done with Rudra’s shit, she forced him to attend classes,something he hadn’t done in the last 4 year and wasn’t expelled or debarred from answering the exams only because of Mritunjay’s pressure, the whole class collectively had a heart attack.

“People are talking about us,” Rudra said as he bit into the bland sandwich.

“As if I care!” She remarked as she continued highlighting important notes on his book.

“So, you won’t mind if I touch you?” He smirked.

On the third day,he accidentally pulled her hand while fighting for a pen and she threw a huge book at him, making him laugh his guts out. Maya didn’t think it was funny, but Rudra did because he is stupid.

“I still have the book with me, and this time I’ll throw it from a distance with much more force breaking open your skull!” His smirk dropped.

He liked her, no,not that way! Yuck! She treated him how he wanted to be treated, she respected him, that was evident, but she didn’t mind calling out his bullshit. That was a change for him, whose father had forced people around him to treat as if he was a princess who’d burst out crying if he was denied anything. He still wondered why she was teaching him.

“Maya, seriously,you needn’t do this, I’ll manage! There are apps that tutor, YouTube, and Google are still there,”

“Look, this is the third time in the week I am saying this, but I don’t mind, teaching you helps me revise and doesn’t affect me much,”

“But it affects your social life!”

She shook her head and focused back on the book. After the college, she would go back to the hostel room, freshen up and pick a novel and read. If it had sex description,she wouldn’t touch it, no matter how much she wanted to complete the story and then study till the dawn before grabbing sleep for a few hours, and hoping that she doesn’t have nightmares.

“When was the last time you opened this book?” She flipped through the pages that looked so new,that the book could be resold for its original price, had Maya not highlighted it.

“When it was delivered,” He chuckled.

Maya looked at him and rolled her eyes. She liked him for being this normal with him. The rest of the college behaved as if she was a fairy that descended on the earth and shouldn’t be touched. Boys would stutter around her and the girls spoke carefully as to not hurt her. She missed normalcy. But she couldn’t let her guard fall,no matter how much Diya encouraged her to make friends, it scared her.

“Have you seen my phone?”

“Nope!” She popped the "p" but ignored the iPhone that lay below the book, watching Rudra empty his bag on the table.

“What the f**k, I think I forgot it in the hostel,” He said as he removed a plastic bag and almost flung it in her hand. Maya stared at it curiously and was about to tell Rudra that the phone was right in front of him when Mr. Jha’s voice startled her.

“Aah! Mr. Roy!Everyone said that you have been doing us the favor of gracing us with your presence, and I couldn’t believe them, they weren’t lying then?” He faked a smile on his face. Maya wrapped her fingers around the plastic bag and slid it in her bag discretely, while Rudra sassed the professor who huffed and walked away.

“There you are, you piece of shit!” He yelled as he retrieved the phone.

“Oh shit! They have printed my sketches on the Collegites’ front page! I got an email! Can I skip this one, I need to see the hard copy, now! Ok, bye!” Before she knew, Rudra leaped out of the seat and was out of the cafeteria.

Maya touched the bag and breathed heavily. Her heart was racing at a pace that was making her giddy. Maybe even she should take the day off.

She texted Rudra that she was bunking and went to the hostel.

She locked the plastic bag away and instead tried focusing on her routine but failed. Was it a drug? Was Rudra doing drugs? He didn’t look like the kind of person to drugs,but then neither did Maya look like the person who had scars all across her whole body. The thoughts started weighing her down and she dozed off, losing track of time.

She woke up with a start when she heard the door knock rather loudly. Pulling hair out of her mouth, she opened the door to see the warden eyeing her angrily.

“There is a young man who is trying desperately to enter the hostel, asking for you and yelling his guts out! May I know what is going on, Ms. Jaisingh?”

“I am sorry, what?”

The warden walked away from the door and Maya ran her fingers through her hair as she jogged the length of the corridor to keep up with the huffing warden.

“Shameless! No ethics at all, whoever speaks to such kind of boys?” Even though the warden was trying to keep her voice down, she failed miserably, only making Maya more upset and confused.

She was surprised to see Rudra staring at her with tears in his eyes almost fighting the watchman.

“I’ll be in my cabin Ms. Jaisingh, I hope you can deal with this,” She eyed the watchman,silently telling him not the leave the two alone and walked off.

Rudra spoke without waiting for a second, “Maya, did you see a packet,”

Maya held his hand urgently, throwing a glance at the watchman. Rudra breathed heavily, calming down a bit. She pulled him out of the watchman’s earshot.

“I have it with me,wait I’ll get it. But Rudra, you need to stop doing drugs!” She whispered sharply at him.

“I know, and I had stopped, it's just that,” He rubbed his face with palms and sighed. Maya went to her room, pushed the packet in a book and returned to see that the watchman was suspiciously eyeing him.

“What is it with you boy?” He snarled at him. Maya gave him the book and slid a card in his hand.

“Call her, she works at a drug rehabilitation center as well, she will surely help you,”

“I cannot afford a therapist,”

“But you need one,”

She patted his arm lightly and left for her room, throwing a glare at the watchman.

Chapter 4-Healing takes Time

Rudra sighed as he entered the one BHK. He failed to understand as to why would Daadi live in such a house, but then, after Mom’s first miscarriage when he was three, Daadi refused to share a roof with her son and left. Mom had made innumerable failed attempts to convince her to return or at least shift to a better house, but she stood adamant. When they shifted from Delhi to Mumbai, Daadi followed them here, but bought a small one BHK in the shoddiest sides of Mumbai with the small amount of savings she had.

“Here you are! Look at you young man!” She chuckled as he patted his shoulder. She tipped the glass filled with amber liquid to her lips.

“Daadi, not again! You promised Mom you wouldn’t drink,”

“The promises made to the dead are useless Ru,” She said grimly as she placed the glass on the counter and hugged him.

“You don’t look good; did you start doing drugs again?”

“You, of all, can’t condemn me! That’s hypocrisy to its peak!” He rolled his eyes.

“Fine! But you had stopped?”

“It's him again! He thinks he can rule the world, my effing life, my effing breath! Bloody b*****d”

“I would have rebuked you for your language, but every word for that man is justified,”

Rudra couldn’t help but chuckle darkly. Never had it ever happened that a woman would tolerate ill words from her son, unless it was from her husband or any other elder, because she couldn’t defend her son in front of them, hell, *even Alexander’s mother fueled his desires of being the world conqueror and did her level best, even after his death to make sure that his son inherited the throne, but MJ never earned such respect and love from anyone, not even his mother, his blood. And they say relations of the blood are the thickest!

“My friend suggested me a therapist, but I don’t have that much cash on me, you know the only reason I listen to his horse shit is that I need the money to survive and shift to NYC. I don't know how I should stop doing drugs, I try and try and fail!”

Daadi nodded.

“Is the therapist good enough?”

“I don’t know, but she does work at a drug rehabilitation center, so it is worth a shot,”

Daadi nodded again and left the room. She came back in a few minutes.

“I had made some savings, I could never bring myself to use the money, but you can use it,”

“Are you sure Daadi? I mean we both know you need this money, for the house, for your treatment?”

“I am not taking the treatment anymore Ru, I am done with all this! I was living only to make sure that MJ doesn’t turn you into his image, and I am so happy that you aren’t your father's son, but your mother’s son. Antara will be so proud of you,”

“I don’t think so Daadi, I am pretty sure she didn’t want her son to do drugs,”

“And I am pretty sure she didn’t want her mother in law to be an alcoholic, or leave her son alone with that man, or accept death, but here we are. Ru, we become what the situation demands us to be. The queen is the strongest on the chessboard, but she is forced to protect and comply to the king, isn’t she? I know you, son, if you say that you had stopped doing drugs, then you had, and I won’t ask you what he did that made you take drugs again, but all I know, and all I care is that at least I won’t be ashamed when I face Antara  again,”

“Daadi, think about your treatment again?”

“I can’t Ru, it's suffocating. I can’t live with the guilt of marrying your mother to your father, of leaving you two with that man, of so many other things! I just want death, but I am not strong enough to slit my own throat, so might as well let the alcohol do the work for me,”

Rudra sighed. For an outsider, he would look like a b******d for not stopping his Daadi, but his Daadi had a hard life and needed to some decisions for herself, enough if that decision was death.

_________

He stepped into the small room where the receptionist smiled at him.

“Hello sir, I am Ananya, how can I help you?”

“Hi, I am Rudra Roy, I need to meet Dr. Diya asap,”

“Are you here for a consultation?”

“Yes,” He said after a long pause.

“Ok, so we provide the first 2 sessions for free, and from then, we charge Rupees 1000 per session. The doctor can see you on all days except Tuesday and the weekends since those are the days she goes to the drug rehabilitation center. The timings are from 10 am to 5 pm, each session of 1 hour. You need to book your appointment a day before, at least, and if its an emergency, then at least 2 hours prior,”

Rudra nodded.

“Is she free today?"

“Yes sir, she has no patients till 4 o’clock, so you can meet her now,”

Ananya flashed him a formal smile as she led him to the clinic. It was painted bright blue and white and there were a chandelier and a couch. In the corner, there was a desk. A woman in her early forties looked up and smiled at the two.

“Doctor, are you free right now? You've got a patient,”

“Yes I am, but Ananya, I need to go to the rehabilitation center at 1.30,”

“Ok, mam,”

“Please have a seat, Mr.”

“Rudra Roy,”

She smiled at him and joined him on the sofa near the couch.

“A friend recommended you, Maya Jaisingh,”

Diya narrowed her eyebrows for a few seconds and then nodded.

“Yes, she has been my patient for some time. I hope she is doing good now, we haven’t seen each other for quite some time,”

Rudra thought of the panic attack. He wasn’t sure whether he should speak about it.

“It's ok, I was just making small talk,”

Rudra smiled embarrassed.

“So tell me Rudra,how are you doing today,” She pulled the pen out of the diary and opened afresh page and wrote his name on the bookmark.

“I don’t know where to start from,”

“There is a lot, I understand, but surely there is something that needs to be out first, and that you can trust me with,”

“I have been doing drugs since I was 15, but then I was clean for about 2 years until my father forced me to do Engineering,”

“What exactly makes you think that you should do drugs?”

Rudra looked at her for a few seconds. The fact that he was openly expressing to an unknown lady,while he had been stuffing his emotions for about 10 years now was shocking enough, but this question, he wasn’t sure as to what the right answer was.

“I can’t say, maybe when it gets too much or when I feel hurting myself or when I hate myself, a lot of things actually,”

“Did you do drugs anytime now or felt the need to do them?”

Rudra gulped. He didn’t want her to judge him, not in the first meeting, but he had to be honest, otherwise, he would have another guilt eating him.

“Yesterday night,”He sighed, “but I didn’t,”

“Why?” Rudra looked at her in confusion. Was the question why did he feel like doing drugs or why he didn’t. 

“I, um… I sketch and paint. And the Times India Now’s college magazine Collegites’ had organized its first competition accepting paintings and sketches all over India and had declared me the winner. I was happy as f**k!” He looked at her in regret for his cuss word, but she nodded.

“But later I found out that my father had paid them to declare me the winner,” He growled. His anger suddenly left him and when this thought struck him, he looked at Diya.

“And why does this make you think you should take drugs, I understand your anger, and from where I see it, it's not the competition, is it?” She went to her desk and got searched for the magazine and then returned. She placed the magazine and Antara ’s smiling sketch, with a rose in her hand stared back at Rudra. The whole sketch was black and white, except the rose and her hair, streaks of brown and red peeking from the black.

“She is my mother,”He sighed and played with the couch’s cushion.

“You didn’t want to win, you wanted your sketch to win,”

“Yes!” He was surprised. He was upset and couldn't figure out why, and when Diya said those words, it fit so perfectly!

Diya looked at him,studying him. He refused to meet her eyes.

“Rudra, I won’t ask you to let go, you are too young to do that, but you are also too young to hate. At your age, I have seen people abuse their parents’ power like anything,but you are different, and I know it is way deeper than it looks, I hope you find a confidant in me and can share the pain, we can help you heal for better,”

“Do I deserve to heal, when my mother died saving me?”

Diya looked at him,her eyes going wide with realization. It was survivor’s guilt that was eating this boy and not the simple desire to rebel and cause mess for his father like other kids.

“Yes, because I am sure when your mother saved you, she didn’t want you to blame and hurt yourself. And I don’t think you should heal for someone else, but yourself.”

Rudra nodded. The clock chimed softly that had they not been quiet, both would have missed it.

“Did an hour just pass by?” Rudra looked at her in surprise.

“The thing about time is that it passes even if you sigh, reflect or roll your eyes,” Diya smiled cheekily making Rudra roll his eyes.

“I would like an appointment for next week,”

“Meet Ananya and she will help you out,”

Chapter 5- Can I ever Heal?

It had been a week since the session and Rudra was doing good. Maya could see the change in him.The two had grown close, so much close that the closeness scared Maya. She knew the day he sees her beyond her attacks, he sees the scars on her wrist that he hadn’t yet, he would leave her and walk away, and Maya would never blame him for that.She was broken and no one likes broken stuff.

But it was great being around him. He could be a cheeky little shit but still would never cross his limits. She was still trying to get used to being touched but was finding it hard to let anyone touch her, and Rudra would make sure that she doesn’t freak out when things went out of her control.

____________

Rudra wanted to know the reason for Maya’s panic attacks. He knew imposing wasn’t right, but apart of him was very curious.

“Rudra, I cannot tell you, you know that!” Diya rubbed her forehead and looked at him pointedly.

“Ok, sorry. But do you really think that if I forgive myself for Mom’s accident, I’ll be able to deal with my drug issue better?” He decided to change the topic.

“Rudra, guilt can be good, it shows that our conscious is alive, but being guilty of throwing a pencil at your bench-mate in class five is justified, then, not now. Similarly,when you start let something huge like this have such an effect you, it consumes you, destroys you. And destruction requires a distraction, where drugs and alcohol step in,”

Rudra nodded.

“It runs like a film in my head when I sleep,”

“So, you can’t sleep?”

“I can, it’s just when its death anniversary, or her birthday that I cannot,”

“Ok, how are you doing otherwise?”

“I am still waiting for the NYU to release its entrance exam forms, I know I have very thin chance of getting in, what with people all over the world wanting to be an Art student there, but I can always try,” He shrugged.

“Have you thought about any Indian colleges?”

“I did, there is one in Pune that I want to go to, but that’s where my Mom was from, so I can’t bring myself to there,”

“So, you mean to say that you are running away,”

Rudra nodded and looked down at his clasped hands. There was silence in the room.

____________

Maya stared at theblade, its sharpness making her skin tingle as if calling it. Honestly, she hadno reason to hurt herself, she was feeling so peaceful these days, but shereally missed the blood gushing against her skin.

Should she? She had bandages and first aid stacked in her room and no matter how much she hated doing the first aid on the wounds, she was forced to, because, surprisingly enough, she didn’t want to die. Her phone’s ringtone broke her trance.

“Hello, Maya? How are you? You haven’t called for a week now?”

“Sorry Maa, I was busy with the app,”

“Did you speak to Diya about it?”

“Yes, she thinks it’s an amazing idea!”

“Do you need to meet her for counselling? I could send you extra money,”

Maya looked at the blade.

“No, I am absolutely fine,”

“Ok, your dad is busy on a conference call, he said that he will you in the evening,”

“Sure thing, bye Maa,”

“Bye baccha,”

Maya disconnected the call and threw the phone on the bed. She placed the blade between the two huge scars on her wrist and forced it into her skin. It stung, but as she dragged it across her wrist, she felt better, as if there was no pain in the world.

Maya never made deep cuts, hell, a part of her always wished to go deep enough that with the blood, even life bleeds out of the wounds, but she didn’t want to her, a huge part of her didn’t.

____________

Rudra laid on his bed. They hadn’t talked much in today’s session, but Rudra had applied to the Art College in Pune, still scared. Honestly, he didn’t want to, but it worth a shot!

He closed his eyes and soon enough, fell asleep.

“How dare you MJ! She is a kid!”

“Antara, relax, I have got them shifted to Mumbai,”

“And that solves everything? How could you, you b*****d?”

“Antara, you aren’t supposed to take stress,”

“What do you want me to do? Calm down? Looking at your sick face makes me want to puke my guts out,” She pushed him aside and both turned to look at Rudra, his badminton racket lying on the ground. Antara yanked his hand, the other hand on her 8-month-old baby bump and pulled him down the stairs.

“What are you doing?” MJ yelled from the above floor.

“Taking my son away from a monster like you!” 

“You aren’t allowed to travel Mom,” Rudra said in a meek voice, but Antara ignored him, her eyes blinded with tears and nose red. She pushed him the passenger’s seat and waved off the driver, who gave her the keys and stepped away.

Chapter 6-The Scars

"You have been of great help, Diya. I have had difficulties while sleeping but still, I am doing better," Rudra said as they began their third session.

"It's not me,it's you Rudra. You wanted to help yourself, and that is the first step of fighting depression," 

"Yes, but if it hadn't been you and Maya, I would have been a mess, still!"

Diya looked at him for a few seconds, frown slowly forming on her face.

"It's not my place to say Rudra, but before you go getting attached to Maya, it's better if you know that she isn't like other girls, or like my other patients. I know she is getting better, but still."

Rudra felt confusion stirring inside him.

"What do you mean by that?"

Diya shook her head.

"Please, tell me,"

"Do you have feelings for her?" The question was blatant, and it shook Rudra. In the past few weeks, he hadn't thought of it, he knew he was falling for her, but was scared to admit. 

She was a mystery,and Rudra was never good with games and relationships. How could he be? His father spent his entire life playing games with him and his mother was never around for him to see the love between them (at least his mom said that she loved MJ, irrespective of his short comings). All he saw was MJ with various women, and he was scared he would turn out to be like him. So, when he questioned himself about his and Maya's friendship, it scared him.

"I don't know," he said meekly.

He stepped out of the cabin, in 45 minutes to see Ananya on her phone. Ananya was the friend he never had. With Maya it was never fun and games, it was raw emotions that surfaced, he did behave brashly around her, but every time they were together,all he had were questions.

But Ananya wasn't that, she was silly when she wanted to be, and wouldn't shut up about Harry Potter, something that was common between the two. She was a psychology student, who worked part-time with Diya so as to learn more.

"Preparing fora ballet, Mehta?" She rolled her eyes as she kept her phone down.

"Nope,studying about self-harm, did you know that A 2012 review of 52 self-injury studies from around the world found that around 18% of individuals had cut or otherwise deliberately injured themselves in their lifetime?"

"Whoa! And why are you reading about it?"

"Mam has a new patient who indulges in self-harm and had this huge crazy wound that almost made me puke, so I was just studying about it,"

"Ok,"Rudra looked at her skeptically. He never found it charming to cut himself open, thank you very much, so imagining someone else hurt them self was a thought that made him sick.

"I'll see you later," She waved and went back to her phone.

____________

"Where were you?" Maya hissed as he occupied the seat next to her.

"Therapy?" 

"You purposely took a morning appointment, right? To miss Jha's lecture?" He smiled cheekily at her.

"Anyway, the test marks are out and you passed." Rudra sighed in relief. That bloody idiot had given them a surprise test and on the very day when he had decided to attend Jha’s lecture last week.

"Really? Thank god!" He touched her arm by mistake and she winced.

"Oh shit,sorry," he said and the next second he lost his shit, for her white sleeve was slowly turning copper-red.

"Maya, you are bleeding!"

"Rudra, shut up!" But Rudra couldn't, he stood up, breaking Mrs. Kapadia's jargon about Python.

"What is it,Mr. Roy?"

"Mam, Maya's arm is bleeding!" He said without thinking, making everyone look at them.Mrs. Kapadia's eye brows went into her hairline.

"Excuse me?" She stepped down from the podium and walked to Maya, while the whole class started buzzing.

"Are you ok,Ms. Jaisingh?" 

"Yes mam, it's just a scratch."

"Very well,you and Mr. Roy should go to the medical room and get the wound bandaged,” she waved, as if it was her final word. Maya threw a glare at Rudra and stormed out. Rudra picked their bags and followed her out.

____________

"Why would you do that?" Maya almost shrieked to the empty corridor.

"Excuse me,mam, I scared of blood, so when I see blood, I panic, what did you expect me to do?"

"Oh, I don't know, faint maybe!" She said as she walked towards the exit of the department.

"Oh hello! You need to get your wound treated,"

"I'll do it myself!"

But Rudra had got over his shock of seeing blood and pulled her other arm and forced her into a small room that they called the medical room. It was only there because some huge ass doctor had funded one for each department, only to see his name written in gold on the door. As usual, the nurse was out somewhere, probably in the canteen, gobbling down snacks.

“Look, you are scared of blood, I’ll do the first aid in my hostel room,”

But something Rudra told him not to trust her. He shook her head and picked the first aid box that was lying on the table and pointed to the chair.

Maya looked at him nervously.

Shit! He would see his scars and wounds. But she had come to understand Rudra in the last few weeks, and she could see the determination in his eyes, determination to fight his fear of blood.

She slowly folded her sleeve to reveal a bloody bandage and an arm that had scars, old and new. Rudra gasped, but Maya wasn’t sure whether it was because of the sight of blood or because of the number of scars that looked like paintings on her skin.

Rudra breathed heavily as he did her first aid, and Maya could literally hear his head running. It took a lot of time to change the bandage, but when he was done,Maya ran out of there to her hostel room, her closed heaven, where she could do whatever she pleased, with her body.

____________

Rudra felt life slowly being sucked out of him. Was it as if there was someone preparing him for this situation earlier when he was talking to Ananya? He knew those weren’t just mere injuries, the cuts were too deep to be passed off as scratches, and they were way too many to count.

____________

Maya closed the door and flung her T-shirt on the bed. She touched the scars on her stomach and arms. Each time her finger ran over them, she felt alive again, but today,Rudra’s haunted face flashed in her head. She curled into the bed and cried.

She loved Rudra,she knew it. She was aware of her feelings like no one else, and she knew it was beyond infatuation, and now, he would hate her, be scared of her. What if he never spoke to her? She wished she could scrub every scar off her body, they seemed to scare her now.

Shit! When did she fall for Rudra so much that she started hating her own addiction?

____________

Rudra searched his room for the packet. It had been weeks since he had thought of it. He drove through Mumbai to a small temple that he would visit whenever he missed Antara. He greeted the priest and went in its garden and dug up a small hole and buried the drug packet.

If he was to confront Maya and his feelings for her, he was to confront his own fears first.

Chapter 7- The Demons of Past

Maya avoided Rudra as much as she could. She hadn’t answered his texts or hadn’t received his calls. She would stop tutoring him, even if the exams were approaching. Rudra had fallen into the schedule they had prepared and was attending lectures, Maya was sure he would at least pass without her help.

She felt his eyes on her back but still didn’t turn. The day passed on, and unlike every day where Rudra bunked at least one lecture, he was there for all and didn’t even miss the day’s practical, though they were in different batches.

“I need to talk to you,” She flinched as his voice echoed in her ear. She looked at Mr. Iyer leave and shook her head.

“I don’t want to,”

“Maya, I respect your decision, and I want to tell you that I am not judging you,” She looked up at him.

“Not for anything,not even for hurting yourself,” She felt her mouth hang open. He smiled softly at her and stood up to leave.

“I’ll wait for you in the car,”

She wasn’t sure as to what to do, but her guts told her that she should talk to him, so that’s what she did. He drove to a nearby hill, which was usually where the couples went to seek privacy, but with the monsoon sinking in, they went back to empty classrooms and parking lots.

____________

Rudra has spoken to Ananya last night, who told him not to question Maya about anything, nor ignore her. He had decided to speak Maya first, but when Ananya was rambling about her ex texting her, she caught on his vague replies and forced it out of her. Diya would be so proud of her prodigy! “Just be there for her, if she wants to talk about it, you will listen, else you will talk about the weather,” She had said on the call.

____________

He didn’t step out of the car; it was cloudy and he didn’t want to get drenched.

“Maya, I just wanted you to know, the reason I did drugs was that I had survivor’s guilt. The guilt of being alive when my mom and my unborn sibling died,”

“Rudra, why are you,”

“No,” he interrupted her, “we all have our pasts to haunt us and the future to scare us,but I want you to know, that no matter what, I am here for you,”

“Even after knowing that I cut myself open almost every night?”

Rudra nodded. Last night he had figured out Maya a bit more. He figured out why Maya wanted to make an app that would act as a platform where a person suffering from depression or any mental illness could contact a psychiatrist and get help,without disclosing his identity. And he had given her the idea of providing medical and legal facilities to the users when it grew more.

It was a huge app and she was building it but lacked funds, and she had told him a few days after his first session that the dean had offered her funds and contacts of people that she would require in exchange of teaching him, but Rudra couldn’t hold grudge against her for thinking of her own gain when her app idea was this amazing, and now he understood that it came from a personal space.

“Mom had a fight with dad and then she took me with her in the car. She was advised bed rest and wasn’t allowed to drive, what with three miscarriages, but the fight was so bad that she didn’t care and drove. Our car hit a truck and she threw herself on me so that I get the least of the impact, and that’s what happened. She died, I didn’t,” He sighed and looked at her.

“I am slowly getting over her death and I hope I can help you get whatever you have faced,”

He smiled as he started the car. She looked at him with tears pooling in her eyes.

____________

 It was nearly 7.45 pm, the hostel closing time, so they left from there and Rudra pulled over in the parking lot to see the white BMW with the black sticker on the number plate. 

“I’ll see you later, Maya,” He said as he got out of the car. Maya stepped out of the car in confusion and looked at the man who was stepping out of the car. Her blood went cold as her heart beat thudded against her rib cage. She felt her breath in her lungs, struggling to come out.

Before Rudra knew it, she ran away.

“What are you doing over here?”

Rudra yelled at his father.

“I am here to see my son?”

“Oh really? Where is he? The last time I checked, you had no children after your wife met with an accident,”

“Then who are you?”

“Something that your wife left behind whom she wouldn’t take along with her!”

“Rudra, please!”

“No, Mr. Roy! Not today! I want to know! Why did Mom leave you? What had you done? You had affairs even the two of you were together, then why did she want to leave you?”

“Rudra, shut up!”

“No, I won’t!” 

“Yes, you will!!’

“Why? Because you raped a child? That you displaced her whole family from Delhi to Mumbai?Because you threatened her father’s job? Because your wife had panic attacks since her second miscarriage and you were never there for her? I was ten, yet it was me who had to help her out of it! Is that what you want to hide from the world Mr. Roy? That you are a spineless, disgusting man who is not fit of becoming a husband, a father or a human?”

Rudra was seething.The questions in his head were reeling like crazy, since the day he was discharged after the accident, and today, after 10 whole years, he needed closure. It was the darkest secret he had buried deep in his heart. Both his parents had assumed that Rudra hadn’t heard the conversation, but he had. 

And that is why when his father had forced him to do Engineering, he insisted it should be Mumbai, forcing him and Daadi to shift to Mumbai, and the fact that the students had to stay in the hostel and not with their parents was another plus point. He wasn’t sure what he why he had shifted here, but here he was. Maybe,he wished to see guilt in his father's eyes, but MJ was way past feeling guilt or remorse, he wasn’t a human anymore.

“Rudra, that was in the past, and what’s the big deal, it's just a kid!”

“Shut up!” Rudra yelled, his blood boiling. He turned to look away, not liking to witness this man’s face when he realized Maya wasn’t around. Maybe she had left them to give him some privacy.

“Please just leave from here. I wished to see you rot in jail, but that isn’t happening anytime soon, but I don’t want to stay around you, you disgust me! I am scared of you,of becoming like you and that fear has been destroying me for ages now. But I am becoming better, I was healing, and then you showed up,”

He felt his breathing go abnormal, something that hadn’t happened in weeks now, but here he was. He pushed his father and ran away, as fast as his legs could do so.

MJ sighed. One mistake in the past and he was still suffering, he wished he hadn’t seen that girl all that ages ago.

Chapter 8-The Fragile Soul

It was a dinner at her father’s boss’ house. The host was a beautiful woman, who was struggling to manage everything with her 5-month baby bump showing itself grandly. Her elder son was on a vacation trip and the hostess couldn’t shut up about him. Her father’s boss looked at her as if she was the most beautiful thing in the world and called her a doll, a perfect doll.

Then he visited her home when her parents were home, on weekends, and one day, when they weren’t home.

Maya found the blade stashed away in the cupboard and she used it on her wrist. Her mind was haphazard and she just scratched it across herself, without realizing what she was doing.

The touches were crawling on her body, the whispers haunting her ears, her eyes filled with tears and she didn’t even take notice the hot blood leave her body. She let the blade touch every part of her that she remembered him touching and slowly darkness overtook her.*

____________

 “You promise me, Rudra, you won’t be like him!” She said as the blood seethed out of her body. She was on her death bed,the 12 year old Rudra wasn’t naive to not know that.

“I promise Mom, I will be a better man,”

Rudra felt a headache take over him, but something was off! He wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t do drugs, not now when he was doing so well. He had promised Diya and Maya, and most importantly, to himself. Maybe he should talk to someone.

He dialed Maya’s number, but she didn’t receive it. He tried after some more minutes and then after some time again. 10 missed and 8 messages later Rudra felt uneasiness rise in him. He walked up to the girl’s hostel, his father’s face haunting him.

As usual, he had to face the watchman who gave him dirty looks.

“I need to meet Maya Jaisingh, Fourth floor, room 44,”

He rolled his eyes and Rudra wanted to say, “be careful or they might get stuck in your skull,”but didn’t as he dialed a number on the telephone. After a few minutes, he got a call back saying the Maya wasn’t in the room. 

Rudra stood there eyeing him in confusion. He knew Maya never stepped out of the hostel post 8 o’clock and it was 8.15. He spent another 10 minutes waiting for Maya to walk down, but when she didn’t, something snapped in him. He ran across the corridor with the watchman yelling his guts out behind him. He climbed the steps two at a time and the girls had the shock of their lives watching Rudra Roy run across the hostel corridors like a mad man.

He banged on Maya’s door for some time. Maya locked her room and if it wasn’t locked, it meant she was inside. He tried to break open the door.

“What are you doing Mr. Roy?” The warden screeched.

“Mam, I know Maya is in the room, and she has been in distress for quite some time, “

“Maybe she is sleeping,”

“She doesn’t sleep,” He yelled at the old hag, why was she not getting it! Something was wrong, his guts were saying so. His labored breath was making it difficult for him already, but he knew he had to break open the door.

“Please, Mam,”

The warden sighed and signed the watchman. The two of them broke open the door and had the shock of their life when they saw Maya on the bed with blood dirtying the bed sheets and her eyes closed.

“Maya!” Rudra yelled as he ran to the bed and held her face.

“She needs help,”the watchman whispered, but Rudra was hyper venting next to him. The warden looked at him.

“Mr. Rudra Roy, you need to calm down. Please leave while we dress her wounds,” She said, but she looked scared herself.

“Maya,” He looked at her like a kid who lost his most precocious toy, making her heart cry.

“She'll be fine, I promise, now please,” She looked at the watchman who pulled him out and the girls who had followed them joined the warden.

His phone rang making him jump. He received it without reading the caller ID.

“Rudra, are you ok?” Ananya asked.

“Maya,” Rudra burst out crying.

“Rudra, is everything ok?” She panicked.

“She is hurt Ananya, she cut herself,” He cried in the phone.

“Rudra, I know it hurts,but you need to calm down. Maya needs you right now, I’ll inform Diya mam.Please take care,” She disconnected the call and rushed to tell Diya the news. 

He breathed for few seconds and then dialed for the ambulance. He accompanied Maya in the hospital and in a day when Maya was stable, the first person who insisted on meeting,was Rudra.

Epilogue

Shifting to Mumbai,10 days after she had told her parents of the incident was a huge milestone.Maya’s father had a gambling problem, and MJ had used it to force him not to make any complaints against him, instead, had relocated them to Mumbai.

The first few weeks, Maya had refused to let anyone touch her, her body was sore and hurting.She couldn’t sleep and would change clothes every few hours. Her mom then met Dr. Diya, who became her therapist.

Maya grew older,and while growing older, she got addicted to hurting herself. She wished she didn’t grow up to be pretty, a part of her wish that she would grow an extra limp, her ears would drop off, anything, anything that would make people not want to touch her, not want to look at her.

____________

Rudra pushed the bean bag and threw himself on it. 

“It will burst open Rudra,” Maya chuckled.

“I deserve this, I worked my ass off!’

 “You have not done shit!” She rolled her eyes.

It had been a year since their final year was complete. Maya sold her app idea to a successful IT company in Bangalore who had come to the college during the college placements, not sure if she could run the app successfully, but the app developer, Rishi Gupta,named it Maya, after her. Maya had helped a lot of people and had about 3M+ downloads. They were now planning on bringing lawyers on board, for people requiring legal help.

Maya worked an IT company in Bangalore, while Rudra shifted to Pune. He had got into the NYU, bu the decided to go to Pune instead.

The two hadn’t officially started dating, but they knew that they didn’t require words to express anything. Maya was comfortable with his touch. Her scars were stil lthere and Rudra had told her not to hate them.

“Rudra, you idiot!That’s my bean bag,” Ananya yelled at him. She was now a resident doctor in the Government psychiatry ward and was help Diya with the drug rehabilitation center. The three were video calling. These video calls were Maya’s favorite part of the day.

She had shifted with her parents to Bangalore immediately after the final exams when Rudra was in Pune giving his written entrance exam, so they never said a proper goodbye.

“Ok, I am logging off, I have a patient tomorrow, see you both later,” Ananya blew kisses at the two of them and disconnected the call.

“So it's just the two of us,”

“Shut up!” She blushed and rolled her eyes.

“How are you feeling,”

“Happy?” She smiled at him. He smiled softly.

____________

Rudra hated thinking back to the day when he found out that it was Maya who MJ had raped. After calling him in the hospital, that was the first thing Maya told him, not wanting to lie to him. Rudra had locked himself in his room for a whole day,before Maya’s mom had spoken to him and helped him calm down.

He realized he loved her and confessed to her mom and felt that he shouldn’t be near her,after all his father had destroyed her, but Maya’s mom told him that it was Maya’s decision whether she wanted him around or not, and when he asked Maya the same question, she touched his cheek and said ,v “Stay”

____________

Daadi has passed away six months after, not before meeting Maya and apologizing to her. After Daadi’s death, the university exam results were out and Rudra flung it on MJ’s face and left his father’s house and name, assuming the identity of Rudra Antara Parekh, Antara’s maiden name.

Things were going great for Rudra and Maya. The two had gone on dates, one second, those weren’t dates, there were just outings, he had told Ananya, who had rolled her eyes and hit him on his head. They had almost kissed once, but Maya had started freaking out, so Rudra had pulled away and had touched his forehead to hers and promised her that he wouldn’t leave her ever.

He looked at Maya who was telling him about the pineapple cake she had managed to burn and laughed.

“I love you,” He said before he could stop the words.

“Shit! I am so sorry,” He disconnected the call and threw himself on the floor.

He heard his phone ring but didn’t receive the call. He switched off the phone and pulled out his sketch book, making vague lines, trying to make a coherent picture, but failed.He entered the room and threw himself on the bed, but sleep evaded him, so he checked his phone, to read a text from Maya, “I love you too”