One Stone...Four Lovebirds...(Tell Me Your Sins...-Part II)

He had a simple motto for life – where people play checkers, you play chess. And so, instead of rushing into any hot-headed moves, he planned his steps with methodical beauty. The first few confessions were too lame or too obvious to be of any use. So he waited patiently while people kept filling his arsenal. Finally one day, a confession rang a bell in his mind. Out of the galactic pile of confessions, he connected four dots forming a four star constellation – Akshita, Laveesh, Eleanor, Anirudh. Soon his devilish smirk was lighting his face up as a plan formed in his mind. When all the rough edges were sanded off, he looked up and said,” You cursed me with Asperger’s. Now watch me make use of it”.

The spicy pickle these four “stars” were in was this – Laveesh and Eleanor had been in a relationship for quite some time and had recently undergone an ugly breakup. Laveesh turned to his best friend Akshita for comfort and Eleanor likewise turned to Anirudh. What Laveesh and Eleanor were unaware of, was that Akshita had secretly loved Laveesh for almost all her life and Anirudh these days had eyes for naught but Akshita. Laveesh even went on to confess that he still pined for Eleanor and hoped that soon days will be sunny again. Not while the admin rains on your parade, poor guy.

So one day while helping Abhishek – Laveesh’s thick-headed jock friend, in some assignment, he casually let slip that it was Akshita who sowed differences between Laveesh and Eleanor letting loose rumors about Eleanor’s promiscuous behaviour. Bewildered, Abhishek put off the assignment for later and ran off to Laveesh. The gullible oaf, he thought and smirked. He had seen Laveesh’s hollowed look and was sure that grief had shut down whatever little sensibility he had. In grief a man would believe almost anything, and when it came from a lifelong friend... “Well, I always wanted a domino set to play with”, he thought.

As expected, Abhishek ran straight to Laveesh and blurted out all he had learned. Later when Akshita came to Laveesh to ease his pain, Laveesh, mad with grief, accused her bluntly and asked why she did it. Akshita, having suffered more slights to her self esteem than she could allow, lashed out back that she had always loved him more than anything else in this world but would never do any such thing to have him and was disgusted that he could even think so low of her. With that, whatever camaraderie one could hope to exist between them, vanished and she stormed off.

But Akshita wasn’t one to go down quietly. She could not help blaming Eleanor for all this murky business, what with Eleanor always whisking away Laveesh from her in the past. And so in another showdown, as she ran from Laveesh she landed soon in front of Eleanor and for a change, there was more than mere exchange of words. Bruised physically and mentally from the face-off, Eleanor looked to Anirudh for support but suddenly where there was always a friendly twinkle in his eyes, there was now a deep loathing.

Anirudh, having witnessed the ghastly exchange between Akshita and Eleanor was stunned to silence, seeing how nasty his seemingly sweet Eleanor can be. He went after Akshita and tried consoling her in the best possible way as they were yet mere acquaintances in her eyes. Consumed with heartache, Akshita hollered at Anirudh asking him to leave her alone and never come near her again as she wanted nothing to do with the likes of Eleanor and him. Dazed beyond rationality, he walked away aimlessly and suddenly bumped into a crying Eleanor. As he gazed upon her, Eleanor hugged him and cried, asking if he was still with her when everyone had seemed to desert her. He jerked her off and spat out many words in spite, effectively ending their friendship.

Laveesh, Eleanor, Akshita, Anirudh – love lost...best friend lost...world shattered to pieces. All with a simple lie to an unsuspecting fool – a single stroke. One stone, four lovebirds...but this had just whetted his appetite. This was just the beginning.

Read on in Part III...