This chapter contains detailed depictions of self-harm, severe grief, and high-intensity negative emotions, including a brief scene of physical violence, which may be disturbing for some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
[POV: Divya]
Day Five.
The world had narrowed to the square of sunlight that moved across my floor. I'd named them: Morning Patch. Noon Blaze. Evening Glow. Dusk Surrender. They were the only events on my calendar.
Aunt Meera had stopped leaving trays. Now she just left bottled water and protein shakes by the door, like I was a feral cat she was trying not to spook. "Jaanu, just drink something. Please." Her voice was a scratchy record of despair.
I'd drink sometimes. Just enough to keep the headaches at bay. The shakes tasted like chalk and vanilla lies. Food was a foreign concept. My body didn't deserve fuel. It had carried me through a world where Amit didn't exist. That was its crime.
My phone was still dead. A black rectangle. I'd look at it sometimes and imagine it lighting up with a text.
Amit: JK! Super elaborate prank! Miss me? The fantasy was so vivid it was a physical pain.
The room was a museum of us. The "Divya's Epic Sewing Jams" playlist poster he'd drawn. The stupid plastic trophy from the college fest where we came in last in a trivia competition but laughed the hardest. The band t-shirt of his I was wearing, now smelling like my own stale grief instead of him.
That was the worst part. He was fading. The specific scent of him—turpentine and sandalwood and the weird lemony gum he chewed—was gone from his shirt. My memories started to feel like copies of copies, losing resolution.
I had to find a primary source.
I got up, my bones creaking. The room spun. I hadn't stood in two days. I shuffled to my bookshelf, my vision tunnelling. Not my sketchbooks. His.
He'd left one here weeks ago. "For inspiration," he'd said. "So you can see how brilliant I am while you're sewing."
I pulled it out—a thick, black, hardbound thing, its cover smudged with charcoal and what might have been blueberry jam. My heart was a trapped bird, beating against my ribs. This was a terrible idea. This was the only idea.
I sat back on the floor, my back against the bed, and opened it.
The first page was a explosion of color. A study of light through the leaves in Lodhi Garden. He'd written in the corner: Divya said the dappled light looked like "liquid gold." She's a poet and doesn't even know it.
A sob hitched in my throat. I turned the page.
A series of quick, gestural sketches. Me. Me bent over my sewing machine, my brow furrowed. Me laughing, head thrown back, a blur of motion. Me sleeping on his couch, my mouth slightly open. He'd captured the stupid, unguarded truth of me. The me only he saw.
Every page was a love letter. A portrait of Dada-ji's wise, wrinkled hands. A chaotic, joyful painting of Rajesh looking intensely at a chess board, with a thought bubble that said: "I will dominate this game and then perhaps the small country of Luxembourg."
I laughed. A dry, broken sound that turned into a cough. God, he knew us. He saw us.
I kept turning. The pages got more recent. Studies for his new series. Abstracts of "energy" and "light." Then, near the end, a two-page spread.
On the left page, a detailed, careful pencil sketch. Not a building, but a architectural detail. An old, ornate window frame, crumbling. It was beautiful and sad. At the bottom, a note: St. Martin's. The light at 4 PM is tragic and perfect. Might use this. V. interested.
My blood ran cold. St. Martin's?
He'd been there. Before. To paint.
On the right page, it wasn't a sketch. It was a list. Amit's messy, all-caps handwriting.
QUESTIONS FOR UNCLE V.
1. Trust disbursement Q3 - 5L discrepancy? Where?
2. Grandfather's Jamaica land sale - final amt? Papers?
3. "Business loan" to V's friend Co. - collateral?
4. ASK DIRECT: R U STEALING FROM MY FAMILY?
Below that, scribbled: Met with P.I. Arjun. Retainer paid. Says V's finances are "a hall of mirrors."
A Private Investigator. He'd hired one.
The final entry on the page, circled heavily, was just a name and a number: Vikram. +44 7890... and below it, the last thing he ever wrote in this book: Confrontation = Truth. Scared. But have to.
The sketchbook fell from my hands. The thud was apocalyptic.
He wasn't sad. He wasn't depressed.
He was investigating his own uncle for fraud. He was scared. He was going to confront him.
And then he was found dead at the very place he'd gone to paint.
"No signs of a struggle."
The police narrative in my head—the sad, lonely boy giving up—shattered. It was replaced by a much darker, clearer picture: a brave, stupid boy who got too close to a truth someone would kill for.
And I'd been in here, feeling sorry for myself, while his murderer was probably sipping scotch and counting stolen money.
The guilt wasn't a wave anymore. It was the entire ocean, and I was at the bottom, crushed by the pressure. He'd been fighting a dragon, and I'd been worrying about a dance.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered to the empty room, to his sketchbook. "I'm so sorry, Amit. I didn't know. I should have known."
But knowing now changed nothing. He was still ash. The dragon was still free.
The bleak, absolute logic of grief took over. It presented its case with cold clarity.
Point 1: You failed him in life.
Point 2: You cannot avenge him in death. You're a design student, not a detective.
Point 3: The world without him is a monochrome hell.
Point 4: He promised, "No matter what happens… we stay together."
Conclusion: The promise is the only thing left. You know how to keep it.
The decision didn't feel dramatic. It felt inevitable. Peaceful, even. Like finally solving a math problem.
I stood up. My body felt light, disconnected. I went to my sewing kit. I didn't look for pills. That was unreliable. I looked for the sharp, precise tools.
My fabric shears. Heavy, solid steel. The blades were eight inches long, sharp enough to slice through silk like air.
I took them and walked to my en-suite bathroom. I didn't look in the mirror. I turned on the bathtub faucet. The water roared, a white noise to drown out the world.
I sat on the edge of my bathtub, the water off. The room was tomb-silent. My sewing shears were in my lap. They were my favorite tool—German steel, perfectly balanced, blades so sharp they whispered through four layers of chiffon. They caught the dull afternoon light from the high bathroom window.
This is a tool for creation, a distant part of my brain noted. You're repurposing it.
My hands were steady. That was the weird part. For the first time in five days, they weren't shaking. The endless, screaming static in my head had gone quiet. There was only the plan. The procedure.
I looked at his silver bracelet on my other wrist. Paintbrush. Sun. Star. Heart. The promise.
"We stay together," I whispered to the empty room. My voice was hoarse from disuse but clear. "No matter what."
It wasn't a goodbye. It was a reunion plan.
I closed my eyes. Not to block it out, but to focus inward. To find the courage in the certainty. This was the right answer. The only answer to the unsolvable problem of a world without his light.
My fingers tightened on the scissor handles. The muscles in my forearm tensed. This was it. One firm, decisive pull. A diagonal slice, deep and true. Like cutting the final thread on a project.
A sudden, violent BANG shook the door.
"DIVYA!"
The sound was a physical shockwave. It wasn't Aunt Meera's pleading. It was a male voice. Raw, commanding, furious.
Rajesh.
My eyes flew open. My concentration shattered. The scissors slipped, the point scratching a thin, stinging line across my skin. A bead of blood, perfect and red, welled up. It wasn't the cut I'd planned. It was a papercut. An insult.
"Divya, open this goddamn door RIGHT NOW!"