If my looks had supernatural powers, Ryan would be struck by a lighting and Sasha would have turned into a crow.

Yet again I am reminded of this fact and I just sit there looking at Ryan with murderous thoughts running through my head.

"Ryan you should go. I need to talk to her, alone." Sasha said softly, looking at Ryan. It looked like he wanted to protest but he gave it a thought and stood up to leave.

"Try to get her to forgive all of us or I am screwed. Mini might not marry me and if she does that, I will kill you and Nick. I mean it." Ryan warned Sasha and walked away.

Yes, please, go ahead and talk to her like I am not here.

Minutes passed by and I was getting agitated.

"If you don't want to talk, I am leaving. But, if you want to say something this is your last chance."

"What do you want me to say? That I am sorry? I am not. Ok, there I said it. I am not sorry. Nick is a great guy and he likes you. You have lost faith in love because of me. I am the reason you are like this, so I wanted to help you meet someone and realize that you deserve love too."

"You think too highly of yourself, don't you?"

Hurt was very evident on her face. But, I couldn't stop myself anymore. Years of repressed emotions surfaced in the most horrible way possible.

"How can you say that? How can you say you are not sorry? How do you have no regret for what you did and how dare you not feel a speck of guilt after everything you did to me? I would understand if Ryan did this, I understand if Nick did this. But you? You have known me ever since I have really known myself. You were there when I first said my fears out loud, you know all about my insecurities and issues. You know the kind of person I am and how I react to anything. I have not really been a relationship because of so many reasons and they are mine to deal with. I am not your charity case. You don't have to fix my life. And I have not lost my faith in love because of you or your boyfriend. I just lost trust. And how dare you tell me all this and act like this is for my good. You have not said sorry to me once about what happened now or what happened years ago."

She just hung her head low and looked down at her figures not uttering a word.

"What were you thinking Sasha? You had a moment with my boyfriend years ago because of which we broke up, so you would find me a new guy and we can call it even? I give you my boyfriend and you get me new one? That's not how it works."

"I was not thinking like that." There was a very long stretch of silence, both of us weighing on what we had to say next.

"I have not said sorry years ago, because I don't know how to deal with you. It is easy to deal with angry Riya or crying Riya. It is impossible to deal with disappointed Riya. When you are upset, you become indifferent. It is easy to be hated by you than be treated like a stranger. Being treated like a stranger by you, would have made me realize the full impact of what Ash and I did and how wrong that was. But it just happened Riya. I have not planned it. I never thought I'd like him that way. I had not planned for our friendship to turn into something else. I did not plan on getting back together with him. But I sorry. I am sorry for everything we did back then. We were young and did not care much about the repercussions."

Nothing she said would ease my pain and I was upset with myself for bring up what happened years ago. They were happy now and that was all that mattered.

"I just hope you are happy. I am sorry if I said something wrong. I know I did, but I am really mad. You had no right Sasha, you had no right to go on with the plan with Nick."

"I know, but I am not sorry about it. He's good for you. Take it the way you want to and stay mad at me as long as you want to, but, Nick is a great guy and I want the two of you to be together."

*********

I was running with sweat dripping down my face and panting. I knew I was being chased but I couldn't figure out who the chasers were. Also weird was the location of my life-threatening marathon. There were twigs, rocks, big trees with humongous roots and tiny hills covered with moss. I seem to be the only human or living thing around here and I was being chased by a couple of faceless and nameless people.

I stumble on one of the roots, that seems to be flowing everywhere, and fall onto the ground. My brain goes into an overdrive and I knew this was it. I was going to die. I look up to see a couple of people gaining on me and I still cannot make out who these people are. Their faces were in the shadows and I saw them all in a blur.

I then woke up with a start. It took me a little while to realize everything and wiped my face and neck covered in sweat. When I look around I find my phone screen glow, indicating a missed call from a few seconds ago. It is 2:56 am and it was a missed call from Nick.

I call him back and he picks on the first ring.

"I am sorry, it was a mistake calling you. You must have been asleep, and I didn't mean to disturb you. I'm sorry. Go back to sleep."

I was tempted to listen to him, his voice was comforting and sounded like a lullaby. But I'm not stupid, no one calls at 3 in the morning unless something's wrong.

"Nick, shut up." I hear a deep breath from the other side and continue "now tell me what's wrong."

"It's nothing"

This went on for some time and I'm pretty sure I threatened to rip off his eyeballs at some point. I cannot really say because I was still sleeping a little.

Half an hour later Nick and I were sitting among the lilies again on my terrace and he was once again looking at the skyscrapers ahead of us. A sense of deja vu hit me until i realised that in all the time I've known Nick, he was a lot of things but never unkempt. He always looked dressed for the occasion and he oozed this confidence that said, 'I know what I'm doing'.

However, today was different. He had a few days old stumble and stress lines under his eyes. He was sitting with his legs crossed that were covered in grey joggers and flip flops. It was like he came here straight from his bed. It has been two weeks since our last encounter and I had a hunch that something horrible happened in the recent past.

"How many days has it been since you slept?" I asked with concern. He looked like a lost kid who needed a hug.

"Five days" he said with a smile "is it that obvious?"

I nodded, "I know something's wrong and that it's killing you. I am here if you want to talk about it. But if you want to just sit here in silence and think, I will also listen to your silence and still be here. Just don't be so hard on yourself, everything's going to be fine."

"How do you know that? How do you know everything is going to be fine? What if it doesn't? What if I cannot go back to the way I was? What if... this is it? What am I going to do then?"

"Have you murdered someone?" I asked with a very serious look on my face. I was worried by the way he was talking.

He gave a look that shouted really? "yes, and cops from ten countries are looking for me."

"Are you dying?" I asked in panic.

"No," he said with no emotion in his voice or face. He was still looking straight ahead without looking at me.

"Ok, you are freaking me out now. What happened? Did something happen to anyone in your family or friends?"

"No. I just..." he turned to look at me "just promise me you will not freak out," I bobbed my head up and down and held his hand worried about what he was going to say next.

"I sold my house and car today." I did not speak but I was definitely freaking out.

"Please say something," he pleaded after I just kept staring at him.

"Tell me you gambled away the money or lost it in some bet and I will beat you up."

"I wish that was the reason. I lost all the money because I was stupid and trusted too much and could not assess the situation in spite of being in the game for so long. I chewed more than what I could eat and now it has come back to bite me in the a*s."

"What do you mean?"

"There was this guy who approached me months ago with a concept of economic wristband that can detect heart attack and alert hospitals nearby based on the customer's location. It is a health/fitness band with additional features. It was revolutionary, extremely creative and plausible. I pulled all the stops on this one and put all my money into R & D and testing. The project was supposed to go to production last week, and two weeks ago he sold it to a big health care company. Taking the ideas from the progress we made in Nlogics, in the first two months he developed another model, and sold it as new concept to the health care company. I cannot challenge him in court because our deal just mentioned his initial idea and anything else contributed later by Nlogics was to remain with the firm. I had to sell off everything I own to pay off our employees and the vendor producing the bands. I can't even sell the bloody thing now because mine will look like a cheap rip off the product that will be launched by the health care company. I feel so useless. I should have known. It would have helped a lot of people."

Oh. Dear. God.

~*~*~*~*~*