Rishi sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, he's here. He hitched a ride with someone. I thought you knew."
Dimple clapped her hand over her mouth. Rishi couldn't help but see the slight admiration in her expression.
"Haan, Pappa, main usko keh doonga. I'll tell him. Thikh hai. Bye." Rishi hung up and looked at Dimple. His face was so creased with worry, he looked at least a decade older. "I better go find Ashish before he gets up to I-shudder-to-think-what. Will you be okay here for a minute?"
"Yeah. I mean, I could go downstairs back to my room if you need a little while with him."
"No, stay. We need to practice. Besides, I'm not ready for you to go yet." Rishi smiled, leaned down, and gently kissed her. Then he was gone.
CHAPTER 40
Dimple sank into the chair and fiddled absently with the laptop. This was beyond weird. Ashish was nothing at all like what she'd expected, like what she'd thought Rishi's little brother would be like. He'd said before that Ashish was different from him, but this was so beyond different, Dimple didn't even know how to comprehend it. Ashish seemed like he should've come from a different set of parents. Honestly, he seemed more like he could be Dimple's little brother than Rishi's.
But things made more sense now. That's why Rishi was so adamant about doing exactly what his parents wanted. He'd said it before, but Dimple hadn't really gotten it. He was the only child in the family who was doing what their parents wanted. Ashish was probably such a handful that Rishi wanted to smooth things over, make things better for his parents.
But that's not fair, Dimple found herself thinking, her temper flaring. Why was it Rishi's responsibility to keep their parents happy while Ashish got to do whatever he wanted? Why did it become Rishi's job by default to be unfailingly dutiful and obedient just because his little brother wasn't? Dimple felt a throb of resentment toward Rishi's parents, for not realizing how unhappy they were making him with their unfair, unrealistic expectations.
She got up and began to pace the room to dispel some of the anger before Rishi and Ashish came back. That's when she saw it.
Rishi's messenger bag, hanging open from the bedpost. Peeking out was his sketch pad, full of his art, brimming with his talent. Dimple hesitated for just a second before walking to it.
She ran her fingers along the spiral top, letting the cool metal press into her flesh, turning her fingertips white. Rishi was protective of his sketches. He didn't like anyone to see them, but he was doing such a great disservice to himself and other people. He didn't know how much the world needed his art. Society was practically crying out for people who poured their heart and soul into work that was bigger than them. Besides, he had let her see his pocket-size sketch book. Surely he wouldn't object to this.
She slid out the sketch pad and began to riffle through it. The earliest sketches dated back three years, and as she progressed, Dimple felt like she was holding a guidebook to Rishi's talent, of the time and effort he'd put into carefully and lovingly honing his craft. His characters became more lifelike, more real. Although he sketched a variety of things and people-buildings, his house, what looked like students in a posh school cafeteria-he kept coming back to Aditya. As time progressed, Aditya became more and more fleshed out, more substantial. His expressions changed, became more fluid and dynamic, more complex. In the most recent ones, Aditya had begun to fall in love with a girl with wild, curly black hair. They were dated before Dimple and Rishi had even met. Kismet?
There were fewer sketches as Dimple moved through the sketchbook, and she felt a pang. His art was disappearing. No one was telling him how good he was, how much he needed to keep going, and so he was letting it die. She saw the pain in the pages-when he did come back, he drew detailed scenes, every leaf on every tree vivid and trembling with life.
Aditya looked reproachful in these later sketches, his eyes beckoning the artist to stay with him for just a while longer, to not forget, to not relegate him to these empty pages. Dimple felt an actual lump in her throat. This was wrong. She couldn't, in good conscience, just stand by and watch Rishi's talent wither away like some poor plant in a dark basement.
Before she could talk herself out of it, Dimple pulled out her phone and began to take pictures of Rishi's latest sketches, focusing on Aditya. She was about six pictures in when she heard Rishi's and Ashish's voices in the hallway, raised in argument. Heart hammering, Dimple slid the sketch pad back into Rishi's messenger bag, crossed the room, and sat back down at the laptop. She slid the phone back into her pocket and took a deep breath, trying to rearrange her facial features into a not guilty of snooping or any other illicit activity expression.