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“It’s true!
“It’s true! Look into my eyes! I swear on my brother that I did not kill your father! Look into my eyes Meera, it is the truth! We were the ones betrayed! Us! Why do you think he didn’t want you there?! Why do you think I didn’t shoot you first if all I wanted was revenge?!”
Holding her this close for the first time in fifteen years was killing him, his body didn’t quite understand that this wasn’t a pleasant encounter. He was enraged at her but she was still Meera, and she still had the same overwhelming effect on him. He backed away.
“And if you still don’t believe me then take this!” Kaali produced a gun from his waistband and pressed it into her hand, pointing it right into his chest. “End this now, Meera! Shoot me! I won’t survive this time, not from this close! Shoot! Shoot me, Meera!” he yelled.
Meera slowly lowered the gun, dazed, “You really didn’t kill him,” more statement than question. She shook her head and crumpled to her knees, dropping the gun beside her. Kaali knelt across from her in the sand.
“You didn’t kill my father,” she whispered.
“No, Meera. We only went to seek his blessing just like you and I had planned, I even asked where you were. We were ambushed. Our fathers shot each other, I ran over to help mine and I just had the gun up… There was a lot going on, Meera, but I did not pull that trigger!”
She reached up and pulled his open shirt aside uncovering the scar from the bullet wound she’d inflicted, like she needed to see that it was really there, that it had really happened. She placed her hand over it. “I shot you, Kaali,” she looked up into his eyes, “I tried to kill you and you didn’t even kill him!
“I have been punishing your brother and my sister!
“I have spent fifteen years hating you and trying to forget you! All of it, and you didn’t even kill him!”
Guilt was not an emotion Meera often entertained, of what use was she to her father and his business if she felt guilty about the things she did in the name of their family? But now the feeling washed over her, her mind racing with a carousel of everything she had done, everything she had lost in excruciatingly vivid detail. The tears began to fall and sobs wracked her entire body and Kaali moved to cradle her weeping form in his arms.
“I ruined all of our lives Kaali, and you didn’t even do anything wrong! All this time… I never even let myself consider that you also lost your father that day! You lost as much as I did!” She looked up at him now, “How can you still want your brother to be with Ishu? How can you want any connection to my family?!”
“Meera,” he stroked her hair, “enough now, let’s get you home.”
She pushed him away weakly, “Will you stop being so fucking nice to me Kaali?! I don’t deserve it! You have every reason to hate me, to want me dead—”
“Meera, stop it now!” he shook her by her shoulders.
“What will all this do, huh?! You know the truth now, that’s all. We can’t change it, we can only do better for Veer and Ishita. We can stop playing tit-for-tat mafia games with their lives, and ours. That’s all we can do now.”
Meera tried to sit up and speak but she couldn’t form the words. He tried to help her up but she shook him off.
“I’m trying to apologise to you, dammit Kaali!”
He sighed, more pleasant memories of his past with this infuriating, stubborn woman came flooding back and made him smile a little. He sat back in the sand and gave her all his attention, gesturing for her to proceed.
Meera still struggled to speak for long moments, “I… I don’t know how! ‘Sorry’ doesn’t seem like enough for all I’ve done, for sending you and your father into a death trap, for treating your brother like crap, for telling him a secret that wasn’t mine to share! For shooting you in the chest like you were no one to me and leaving you to die!
“For not trusting you.”
She looked away now towards the sea, “The more I think about it the more I’m realising I’ve always made your life harder… worse, even when I didn’t intend to. I wish I could take it all back, maybe we should never even have crossed paths at all, as much as I loved you, I would take it all back. Your life was so much better without me in it.”
“Hmm, maybe it was, but was yours better without me?” he asked.
She looked back at him, speechless, shocked he would ask her that, and pained because she knew the answer.
“It wasn’t all your fault, you know?” he continued, “We were both so naïve, impulsive, too used to being betrayed, seeing enemies in everyone and meting out our own justice. If only we were just an artist and an incredibly handsome guy who bumped into each other in a park…” he smiled tearfully at her, “the circumstances were ridiculous Meera, but we can still start over.”
Meera started to cry again and Kaali leaned forward and held her, stroking her hair and trying to soothe her. He hadn’t missed it when she said she had loved him, but that was a conversation for another day.
“I’m so sorry Kaali. I don’t know what else to say.”
“Let’s not say anything else for now, we can just sit here until you’re ready to go home to Ishita,” and so they did.