Chapter 16: chapter 16

Chapter SixteenYash pulled to a stop in front of the café, Chai Point. He scanned the road and found it devoid of any parking. “Why don’t you find us a table?” he nodded to the café entrance, one eye on the traffic cop glancing their way. “I’ll figure out where to park and join you.”Maya got out without looking at him. He grabbed her hand before she was completely out of the car. “Don’t think of ditching me,” he warned. “I’ll come looking.”She glared at him, haughtily. “I don’t run from cockroaches. I prefer to stomp them out with my foot instead.” Maya yanked her hand out of his grasp and slammed his car door hard enough to rattle his bones. Yash winced but put his precious and now probably damaged car in gear and drove off before the cop could saunter over to harass him. He found parking a good ten minute walk away. By the time he parallel parked, avoided a dozen hawkers and even more pedestrians, he was sweaty, irritated and more than a little disheveled. He swiped at another trickle of sweat on his temple and swore under his breath when he saw Maya standing on the sidewalk, her arms crossed under those lush, gorgeous breasts giving her cleavage that was attracting the attention of more people than him. Not that he noticed anything. Okay fine, of course he noticed. He wasn’t dead. Just not interested. And apparently, a bloody liar to boot.“You keep muttering to yourself like that, someone is going to have you committed,” Maya observed. He glared at her, keeping his eyes determinedly on her face and used his forearm to dab at the sweat on his forehead. Was it just him or was it hot as blazes here? “Why aren’t you inside? I thought you were grabbing a table.”Someone jostled her and she shifted closer to him. “No space,” she said, crisply. “Let’s just go.”Great. Now they had to walk all the way back to the car. “Are you growling?” Maya asked, peering at his red, sweaty face.He bared his teeth at her. She only looked amused. The woman had no sense of self preservation. “So, shall we get back to wherever you parked the car then?” He spun on his heel and started marching back in the direction he came from. Maya sauntered along beside him, whistling tunelessly. Yash could feel a vein start to throb in his temple. Maya wasn’t even breaking a sweat and he could feel his shirt sticking to his back under his suit jacket. He ripped the jacket off and slung it over one hand. He loosened his collar and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirts. He was rolling his sleeves up when she snapped. “What are you doing?” she asked, sounding like a strangled frog. “Trying not to melt into a puddle of sweat,” he muttered, busy wrestling with his sleeves but they caught in a tangle on his forearm. He swore again, his fingers fumbling with the cuffs. Slim, cool fingers brushed his aside and rolled his sleeves up with a matter-of-fact efficiency that had him grinding his teeth.“Are you having a stroke or something?” Maya peeped up at him, looking a little worried. “You don’t look good.”“You think?” he said, wryly. “Because I thought the sweaty, red-faced, heart attacky look was in.” She grinned at him, her beautiful face right in front of his, that warm, generous mouth curving in that bright smile. She saw something in his face, in his eyes and her smile died instantly.She stepped away from him, clearing her throat, looking everywhere but at him. “Shall we?” she gestured down the road. His car was a speck in the distance. He nodded, the strange moment passing. “Is your leg okay?” he asked, gruffly. “Yes,” she said, curtly. “I’m not an invalid.” “I know,” he said. “I was just concerned.”“Lame. I’m lame. One leg is shorter than the other and I limp. But that doesn’t mean that I need to be treated like a weak, useless-“ “MAYA. I KNOW!!” The words exploded out him stopping her mid-rant. “I don’t see you that way. I never have.” “BULLSHIT!” He hadn’t known it was possible for so much noise to come out of such a slim, tiny person. “It’s been five years,” she sneered. “Not fifty. I remember every last thing you did, Sleazeball Yash.”His eyebrows shot up. “What exactly did I do?” She laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. All around them pedestrians gave them the side-eye and some even stopped to stare. Yash glared at them and had them scurrying away. “Do you need me to spell it out?” She threw her hands out on either side dramatically. “Fine. I will. You dumped your fiancée in a hospital bed because her physical disability meant that she wasn’t good enough to marry you anymore.”  “Are you insane?” Yash asked her, truly baffled. “You dumped me because I lost my job.” Maya shook her head, tilting her head back so she could appeal to the heavens. “Why God? Wasn’t today bad enough without you subjecting me to his lying arse as well?” “I don’t know why you feel the need to lie or whitewash your past actions but I don’t need this shit okay? I’m over it. I’m over you which says something since I was never under you to begin with.” She was gaining steam now. He could practically see it pouring out of her ears. “It doesn’t matter that it was just an arranged marriage and not a love match or whatever. What matters is that you abandoned the woman you were supposed to spend the rest of your life with at her lowest. You are scum,” she hissed.  “You are delusional,” he shot back. “And you’re re-writing history because you can’t live with your own black heart, gold digger.” “Gold digger?” she stared at him, nonplussed. “You were a mid-level salaried employee in the US. What gold was I digging for exactly?” Yash opened his mouth to reply but a loud screech cut through their heated argument. He turned to see the out-of-control van careen around the corner of the road and head straight at them. “Maya,” he shouted, throwing himself forward to pull her to safety. But Maya was just out of his reach.The crash when the van breached the pavement they were standing on was earsplitting. Yash’s fingers caught in Maya’s shirt just as the van’s fender clipped her on the hip and sent her spinning like a rag doll through the air before she crashed to the road feet away from him.Someone was screaming, a raw, broken sound as he ran towards her still, pale and bleeding body. It wasn’t until people came forward to hold him back that he realized it was him. He forced himself to stop, to go silent. He fell to his knees beside her, scrambling for his phone to call for an ambulance. As he sat beside her, careful not to move her body in any way, his trembling fingers stroking her still ones, he realized he was still screaming.Only that this time, no one could hear his screams but him.