Where did it go wrong? Was it the deaths at the demolition site? The adverts he put out as a consequence? It locked us all in a death spiral. You were offended by what you thought was hypocrisy. You thought it was his father, but you weren’t looking at it right. It was all Sunny. He was trying to placate me. Trying to impress me, to spite his father. I was distraught, as you saw. I had some rage by then, a little of you had already seeped into me. I repeated your lines. But I used them quite cynically, to wound him. I started to question his world without really believing in the question. Just to taunt him. Only my grief was real. I’d been immune for so long to the city and suddenly there I was, confronted by it in the shape of dead children. Not on TV, in front of my eyes. Their ashen bodies. I was a mess, and he wanted to protect me. In his wisdom he took me away, smuggled me to his farmhouse, where I could escape the city, inoculate and isolate myself for a while, recline in luxury. It didn’t work. It only upset me more. I should have walked away, I should have come to you. I might have, if something hadn’t happened that night, if I hadn’t seen his father and understood so much . . .
. . . I won’t go into that night. You can’t have it . . .
But I barely saw him again after. I saw him on three occasions in seven or eight months after that night, and after the last night, never again, though he has haunted me all this time . . .
What am I supposed to apologize to you about? What is mine to confess? I’ve made excuses for myself, I’ve tried to make you understand why I was with him, why I didn’t betray him, how I got to that point. But all you want to know from me is what really happened that night.
Tomorrow I might tell this story differently. I’ll have changed again. Only the words will remain, and what truth they hold I can’t tell. I can’t remember. I don’t know what else to say. So let me tell you.
Sunny had made a decision in the weeks before—he was finally going to leave his father. He was going his own way. Taking what he could and making a fresh start. He had convinced me that Gautam was his friend. Oh, it’s so ridiculous . . . but this is what I understand: his father, punishing him, controlling every aspect of his life, charged him with taming Gautam, making him loyal to them for some future use, something about their land back in Madhya Pradesh. It was one of a thousand schemes his father had, he just happened to use his son for this one. But Gautam only dragged Sunny down. It’s clear to me now he’d got him hooked on the blow. Oh, these men, these fucking men . . . two heirs who hated their fathers, using the other for escape. The way Sunny painted it, they would survive. He called me that night. He called me and Gautam to the club and he was giddy. I went there with some kind of hope, but as soon as I walked inside, I knew all the things Sunny had been trying to convince me about Gautam were wrong. I could read it in his eyes. I looked at Sunny, he seemed so pathetic. I could see what was coming, it was so plain and clear. Sunny called for another bottle of champagne. When it arrived, he put one arm around Gautam’s shoulders, another around mine, pulled us close together and said . . . “Well, it’s time . . .”
“Well, it’s time,” he says.
“Sunny . . .”
“We’re getting out.”
“Sunny . . .”
She tries to stop him, but stopping him is as good as killing him right now.
Still, she tries.
“Sunny, don’t.”
Bloated, exhausted. On edge.
“You don’t know what’s on my mind. But we’ve talked it to death. Tomorrow morning, I’m doing it. I’m telling him I’m leaving him behind. I’ve tried to prove myself, I’ve tried to do what’s asked of me, and nothing works, nothing makes him happy. There’s nothing left for me. I don’t have to live like this.”
He’s staring at the bottle in his hand; the bottle in his hand is shaking.
“We can start from scratch,” he says. “We can build our own world.”
He’s never looked so naked and scared, never looked so vulnerable, and she’s never loved him so much as she does right now.
He pops the cork and charges her glass, Gautam’s glass, his.
She looks to Gautam.
Gautam looks to her.
And she knows.
Just knows.
Sunny sees the nausea in her face.
“What’s wrong?”
She keeps her gaze on Gautam.
Gautam on her.
“Go on, tell him,” she says.
Sunny frowns. “What?”
She’s not even sure.
But Gautam takes the bait.