Chapter 3: Twice Fooled

Chapter 3:

Anika’s P.O.V

“Rahul?” I looked from my fiancé to my roommate. “Ash?”

“Anika…” Ash laughed nervously, pulling the sheets up to her neck as her and Rahul sprang apart. “This isn’t how it looks like…”

My mind just shifted to autopilot-bitch mode on its own. It was my defense mechanism since I was a teenager. Being continuously harassed for my ‘smelly hair’ and ‘curry’ lunches, I had developed almost like a split-personality that didn’t give a shit about what other people thought and always ended up getting me in trouble, but it was what had helped me survive The American High School Experience as a woman of colour.

“Really?” I pulled out my phone from my purse and snapped a picture of the shameless duo without a second thought. “Because this clearly looks like cheating to me.”

I held the phone up to show them their picture and Rahul sprang up from the bed, in all his three inch glory and rushed to get his pants. Since I too was riding my shameless adrenalin high, I snapped another picture of him, trying to pull his pants up and then, without wasting any more time, sent the two pictures in the family chat groups that I was a part of, especially the one that had been created for our wedding by the two families. At the bottom, I left the message:

“The wedding is off motherfuckers!”

“What did you just do?” Rahul came at me full speed, just as his phone beeped with the incoming message. “Give me that you bitch!”

Just when he was mere centimeters away from me, his focus solely on getting to my phone, I swung my purse at his three-inches and hit a bulls-eye.

“Fucking hell!” Rahul went down in an instant, clutching his privates and yelping in pain while Ash screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs.

“How dare you!” She screeched. “He’s your fiancé!”

“Not anymore, bitch.” I spat at her. “I’m not interested in buying used goods. The wedding is off, so you enjoy my leftovers and paying the rent of this house alone.”

“Wh-what?” Ash asked flabbergasted as she fumbled with the covers to get some clothes on.

I headed straight for my room and locked the door to prevent anyone from barging in. I could feel the vibration from my phone in my hand as it rang with several miss calls and incoming messages. I switched it off to keep it from distracting me and weakening my resolution.

So this is what that fucker of a fiancé had planned all along. He was getting a hefty sun as a dowry from my stone-age brained parents who thought that being born a woman was a liability and that marriage and producing rag-rats was a woman’s topmost priority. I’m not against any woman who thought that way, but this was the 21^st century for fuck’s sake! There was no way in hell I was going to be the trophy wife who sat at home with a rounded belly while her beloved husband was always out on ‘business’ trips with his secretary.

I packed whatever clothes I had into a large travel bag, gathered all my certificates and valued items and threw them in as well and left the rest for the whore of a roommate I had. If she liked licking off the crumbs from my plate, then I think she’ll enjoy the toiletries I’m leaving behind.

Once I was done, I came out of my room with two large bags and found the culprits in the living room, huddled together like they were the victims while I was the one who had wronged them.

Yes, I admit, I should throw these two out instead. But was there any point in arguing with people who didn’t even realize their own mistakes? So it was better if I left instead. This stinker was way too far from my hospital and the price was too high. Ash and her new ‘roommate’ will be better off in this hellhole.

“You’re going to regret this!” Rahul folded his hands over his chest. “If you walk out this door today, I’ll make sure you never get married!”

“Is that a threat?” I paused with my hands on my hips, raising my eyebrows at the man who I had thought was the hottest dude in the world not even half-an hour ago. Right now though, as I looked at him up and down, at his poorly buttoned silk shirt and unkempt hair, all I saw was filth.

“Yes, it is.” Rahul said in a menacing voice, stepping close to me to intimidate. “You know just how powerful my family is.”

“Yes,” I gave a boost to his ego before bursting his bubble. “In the tiny Indian community that you live in. This is America, so you fall under the same circumstances that my family does. You don’t get white privileges just because you’re a tad bit fairer than us. The wedding is off, Rahul. I hope you’re intelligent enough to understand that.”

I took off the diamond ring that his family had provided on our engagement day and threw it at Ashwini, who almost leapt to catch it.

“Anika!” Now I could hear panic in his voice. “You can’t do this, baby! Our wedding is planned for next month! Cards have already been distributed! My boss and his entire family will be there!”

He fell to his knees in front of me. “Let’s rethink this whole thing, okay?”

“Rethink? Rethink what, Rahul?” I pointed from him to Ashwini. “This?”

“Look…baby, it was a mistake!” He said, much to Ash’s horror. “It’s because I was sexually frustrated! You wouldn’t sleep with me until our wedding night and-”

“Oh! So now it’s my fault?” I snapped. “I drove you to fuck my roommate? How hard was it to keep it in your pants for another month?”

When both Rahul and Ashwini gave each other nervous looks, I knew I had been a fool.

“Fuck you!” I spat at them. “How long has this been going on?”

“Anika, pl-”

“How long?” I snapped at Ash as she tried to come to Rahul’s defense.

“Five months.” Ash confessed in a low voice.

I felt the ground shift from under my feet.

Five months? Five. Fucking. Months!

“Fuck you both!” With that, I grabbed a hold of my bag and left the apartment, slamming the door shut on my way out.

But I didn’t go far. I pretended to walk away and ping the elevator door, but then I took off my heels and returned to my apartment, pressing my ears against the door in hopes to listen to their conversation. And listed I did…more than I had anticipated.

“Thank goodness the bitch found out!” Ash’s voice was faint but I could still hear it.

“Are you kidding me?” Rahul yelped. “Her parents were going to give me a large amount as dowry! I could’ve bribed my boss with that money for a better position and a promotion! It’s all gone now!”

“Oh baby!” Ash cooed. “Don’t be sad. I’ll help you forget about everything.”

“Ash, not n-”

Rahul’s words cut off half-way and I didn’t even want to know why.

Those two cheaters didn’t even care about what they did wrong! All they cared about was my parent’s money! Fuck!

I looked at the lock pad outside the door and an idea formed inside my head.

Typing in the override code, I set a new lock code for the door, set it in and this time, walked out of the apartment for good.

Setting my suitcases inside my trunk, I got into the driver’s side and threw my purse onto the passenger’s seat before taking off. Stupid, stupid, Anika!

How could I not have noticed my fiancé cheating on me? How big of a fool was I?

After driving endlessly for about fifteen minutes, I had calmed down enough and the adrenalin high had also subsided. Switching off of the freeway, I parked my car at the side of the road and opened the window to let the cool night wind into the car.

Regret set in almost instantly and I felt my hands tremble on the steering wheel. I bit my lips to keep them from trembling, but it was no use. My entire body was trembling with emotions and I now felt completely helpless.

How had my life turned completely upside down within the span of a few minutes? My roommate, the girl I thought was my friend and my fiancé? How could Rahul of all people betray me like this and then act like this was all my fault?

I looked at my purse laying in the passenger seat and taking a deep breath, took my phone out of the purse and turned it on.

72 missed calls. 39 messages. 27 chats.

I gulped; nervousness making my throat dry up as I opened the missed calls list.

65 were from my mother. Two from different relatives and 5 miss calls from Teresa.

Choosing to deal with my family later, I called Teresa instead, wondering if there was any emergency at the hospital. Truthfully, I was almost hoping for an emergency, anything to keep my mind off of the events that had just happened to me.

“Teresa?” I asked as she answered only after the second ring. “What’s wrong? I saw the miss calls-”

“Anika, what did you do?” She cut me off in an urgent voice.

“What?” I looked at my phone, momentarily stunned. “What do you mean?”

Had I done something stupid again? Like sending Rahul and Ash’s cheating pictures to my office chat group instead? What the fuck had I done?

“Seriously, Anika! What did you do?” Teresa asked urgently. I could hear shouting in the background, but nothing was clear. “Steven is fuming! He has all the interns on their toes.”

“Steven?” Shit! How could I have forgotten that I had broken my boss’s nose before running off to my apartment? “Fuck! How much trouble am I in?”

“Do you want the good news first or the bad news?” Teresa asked and I heard the sound of the shouting decrease, as if she was moving away from the commotion.

“I doubt there’s going to be any difference between the good and the bad news.” I sighed, placing my head on the steering wheel. My hands and feet felt numb at this point and my heart was beating so fast, I was afraid it was going to burst out of my chest.

“Well, there is.” Teresa commented. “The good news is that you didn’t get fired…yet.”

“Oh God!” I banged my head on the wheel, regretting it instantly. “What’s the bad?”

“You got transferred to the tiny clinic on the Sapphire mountains. Starting tomorrow.”

Everything else just blacked out. I couldn’t hear anything; focus on anything except for the name Sapphire Mountain.

It was an almost desolated trekking track on the outskirts of New York that had only recently been built due to the few accidents that were reported and one patient dying before reaching any medical facility since the closest clinic was half an hour away.

A desolate mountain track with one single, tiny clinic and number of houses that I could probably count on one finger.

“My career is over.”