Free You Were My Crush: Till You Said You Love Me! by Durjoy Datta, Orvana Ghai Page A

I really hated about him was his British accent! I mean, how could he be
cooler
than me? That is never how a father–son equation works!
    It was hard growing up without a father. But it was even harder to stay angry when you miss having a family, a family that could possibly have a
cool dad
.
    I drove around in the new car for about an hour, testing its limits in the open wide roads, and then came back home. I parked the car outside my house and, out of habit, I pulled open the glove compartment for the house keys.
    A
package
fell out. I emptied the glove compartment, collected the spare keys from the neighbours and headedhome. I checked the boot space for stuff that my father may have forgotten there, but there was nothing. I dumped everything on the living room table and flopped on the couch, still fantasizing about the car. I called up my father’s personal assistant to come and collect the stuff but no one picked up the phone. I dropped in a message.
    I called up Diya to tell her about the new car.
    ‘Hey!’
    ‘You sound happy?’ she said. ‘What happened? Did your father buy you Russia or something?’
    ‘You should meet me! Like right now? Can you do that?’
    ‘I don’t know. I will have to ask Mom. I will call you back if she decides to let me live.’
    ‘Fine, do that and call me. ASAP.’
    Diya had always had trouble getting permission to go out of the house. Her parents were a nightmare. No guys. No late evenings. No night-outs.
    I waited for her call; intermittently I would look out of the window and admire the car in the parking space. I could not wait to show it to Diya, Deb or whomever I could have got hold of.
    I called her again, but she cut my calls. Then, just out of boredom, I started sifting through the stuff I had got out from the car’s glove compartment. I picked up the package, which was deliciously sealed, pasted and taped.
    And until this day, I wonder how my life would have been had I not
opened
that envelope.



Chapter Fifteen
    There are times in life when a few seconds change everything. Either you are irreversibly fucked, or you hit a jackpot, but regardless, nothing remains the same.
    I had that moment then when I opened that envelope; everything changed. It was indescribable what I felt because I felt happy and sad and beautiful and cheated; I felt like crying, but I also felt like laughing.
    I held the envelope and tried not to cry, a million questions in my head. I did not know what to feel. I felt lied to. Cheated on.
    But I felt happy.
I lay there speechless, on the couch, with the phone in my hand, and there was just one question I wanted to ask!
    Why?
    I called Diya again and explained to her what I had found.
    ‘So what exactly are you saying?’ Diya said, as I told her what I had seen.
    ‘Hmm. You didn’t get it? These are letters. Pictures. Even tickets to Sikkim. There was a micro SD card with pictures of them.
Together
. They looked happy. And this was not when I was eight or something. This was when I was fourteen, fifteen, and even sixteen. Even a year before Mom died. Together, the two of them …
they even went on a trip together
.’
    ‘So?’
    ‘What? So? It means she was still meeting him while I thought she was angry with him! What does all this even freaking mean? My mom kept talking about how bad a father he was, that he cheated on her, and these pictures?’ I said.
    Silence.
    ‘The only reason why I was angry with my dad was because my mom was angry with him! But this …’
    It felt like someone had pulled a nasty joke on me. I did not know what to make of all that. Wasn’t I supposed to be angry and pissed off at him? I was supposed to stay away from him.
    I was furious because I had missed out on having a family, a proper functioning family with both my parents together. This was just unfair. The picture of them by the river, in an upscale restaurant holding hands, the picture of them in a cable car. It really did not look like she was mad at him.