A LONG YEAR- MaNan ff ch5 pg15 - Page 7

Originally posted by: Endurance

Are we gonna have an update today ??

thank you for all the love, i love you all and no matter how many times i say thank you it is not enough for amazing people like you all😊😳

CHAPTER 3- THE HEARTFELT TALK!

I was staring at the piece of paper in my hand for about an hour now, but its contents were as alien to me as they were when I read it the first time. How could this be happening to me? I rubbed my eyes for probably the fifth time and looked at it again- "Lack of extracurricular activities for scholarship." It was getting well past eleven at night and my mind churned hard to understand it, after all the hard work- being the head boy, the student body president, captain of the basketball team and excelling in academics they still felt I needed to do more to get a scholarship to Stanford. If I was a person who cried I would be crying right now, but no I had to stop myself from feeling sorry for myself and try to find a way to fix the problem.

I heard the knock on the door but had too much on my mind to reply right now.

"Manik," a soft voice whispered and I immediately knew it was her. I hadn't talked to Nandani for three weeks now. There had been some awkward greetings at the dinner table where I had to acknowledge her presence because of my parents but other than that I had completely ignored her. My mind had overpowered my heart and controlled the urge to talk to her even when there was no one around to distract me. This control had helped me a lot in going through my day as I had planned.

"Manik please open the door," I heard her again, this time her voice a bit louder. I threw back my head in defeat, my heart yearning to talk to her in this moment of setback. I unlocked the door and she pushed it open. She was wearing a baby pink coloured top with a white long skirt and her hairs were in an untidy bun. I kept staring at her, not even blinking my eyes. She moved around her head in embarrassment as if she could sense my gaze on her. I quickly looked away.

"What do you want?" I said in a harsh tone, my mind still trying to hold back my heart.

"I...ummm...I just don't like being alone and...I have been alone for the past three weeks and you, I really don't know what I did to make you angry but I am sorry but please talk to me...please," she said starting so sob.

"Sit Nandani please sit down," I helped her sit on the bed and handed her my handkerchief. "Don't cry okay please, just don't...you didn't do anything I was just too busy with my applications and stuff but now it is all over, you can talk to me." I said trying to console her. She wiped off her tears and managed a weak smile.

"Thank you, you know you are the only person who talks to me like I am a normal person everyone else is busy trying to fix me; like I am some broken machine. I have no idea why but I am still glad that you are not sorry for everything that happened to me." She said, her smile getting stronger.

"You know there is this playground game that kids play. They lock hands and on the count of three, they try to snap each other's fingers off. You hold out as long as you can or at least longer than the other guy. The game doesn't end until someone says stop, gives up, and cries mercy. It isn't a fun game. In the game of mercy, when one kid cries out, the other one listens and the pain stops. I wish it was that easy now? It's not a game anymore and we're not kids. You can cry mercy all you want, but nobody's listening. It's just you, screaming into a void. They will say they are sorry but in reality all they are is glad; glad that it was you in the crash not them and their family. I learned this pretty early in my life and I stopped feeling sorry for others and even for myself." I replied and she didn't look impressed.

"Oh! And here I was thinking you weren't sorry because you know that life is too beautiful to waste your time being sorry for the small sufferings." The smile on her face becoming uneasy and stiff.

"Well it wasn't my intention to rob you of your fantasy, but hey you lost your parents and your eyesight, I don't see a silver lining here," I said and turned back my gaze now fixed on the piece of paper that I desperately wanted to tear off.

"I know, I know life sucks and the scary story that you told me but for me life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. Each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love." She paused for a moment and not sensing and interruption started again, "Yes my parents died, but I did have 19 years with them, 19 beautiful and extraordinary years that no one can take away from me and yes I did lose my eye sight but at least I am still alive. Some people, they can't just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me... I don't know. I don't want to fix it, to forget. It wasn't something that was broken. It's just...something that happened. I'm just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time. I can choose either to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It's all a question of how I view my life." She finished and took a deep breath calming herself down.

"Um..." I swallowed hard, trying to think of something to say, I need to change the subject as soon as I could.

"Look you don't have to say anything, I know I am just a stranger and I always say too much, I will just go." She said and started getting up.

"No, wait. We should probably stop being strangers and find a way to know each other. Tell me five things about yourself that you have never told anyone and I will do the same." I said not completely sure why I had said it but it seemed to work. She sat back down excited about knowing my little secrets.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked me, a mocking smile on her face.

I wanted to say no. I should have said no but I couldn't see her sad, I just couldn't. "Yupp, I am positive."

"Let me see... five things I have never told anyone..." she started thinking hard, making an adorable focused face.

"Okay... here it is... I only eat the brown coloured gems because I have this silly notion that they have the least amount of chemicals as chocolate is already brown and they don't have to add colours in it." She smiled at how silly it sounded and I smiled watching her smile.

"I read the end of a book first just to see if reading it and taking the journey with the character will be worth it," she said and laughed amazed.

"I hate technology and maybe even repel it. I only got a mobile last year and I haven't ever used it. And now I can't," she added and winced.

"I don't like taking pictures, I just feel if you are really enjoying a moment you do not need to capture it in a camera because it will forever be engraved in your heart and last but not the least I hate valentine's day, don't get me wrong I am a romantic but I just don't like a day when you have to show off your love, I think love is small things you do for each other every day and true love shouldn't need big gestures or proclamations." She finished and sat there in anticipation for what was coming from me. But I was in a bit of a shock, I didn't think she would actually share these kinds of things and now I had to match up.

"I hate it when people call me Mr Malhotra because it makes me feel like I do not have an identity of my own," I started off with the little secret.

"One day I want to go on a road trip. I want to get away explore places. Sleep in the car and stop a lot just to admire the view. Visit museums and try all the coffee shops, listen to my favourite albums while driving. Run through a forest, chase a frog, chase the sun and spend hours in the field just lying. One day I want to feel alive and I want to waste all the time I am saving now." I said and a tear drop fell from eye. I shouldn't have said that but now it was out there, my mind started pushing my heart away and for once I let my mind win that night. I needed to finish this up quick and not get too deep into it.

"I love pink colour, even though I am a boy. It's a bit embarrassing but I can't help it and I don't think music is a waste of time but I will never publically agree to that." I said in a hurried voice and Nandani caught that.

"Manik..."

"And yes I want to eat meat but I am too scared of my father to try it," I said and was glad I was over it.

"But Manik..."

"I think you should go," my voice suddenly stiffened and I closed my eyes trying not to look at her sad face.

"Listen I will..."

"Nandani please go, I have work to do now and I don't want to spend any more time with you, I have already wasted enough." I said and helped her up and out of the room and literally manhandled her and slammed the door on her face.

My heart was shouting at me but my mind was praising me for my logical move. I was about to tell her more...things that I didn't want anyone to ever know. I had already let out too much and if she had stayed everything I ever tried to bury would have come out.

"Manik... Pain is a pesky part of being human, I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart, something I wish we could all do without, in our lives here. Pain is a sudden hurt that can't be escaped. But then I have also learned that because of pain, I can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of healing. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces." She whispered from the other side of the door and I was on the verge of breaking down. She didn't know what she was talking about, she didn't know anything about my pain, and I had never let anyone know about it except one person and that too accidentally.

I should have opened the door, it was my last chance to make my misbehavior go away but I didn't, I let logic and reasoning win over what I wanted. I sat down on the floor, tears rolling down my face and my eyes reddened. I heard footsteps moving away from the room and then there was quite again. She was gone I had pushed her away.

My looked at the paper again and the night came back to me.

I was standing in the school hall. It was the farewell night last year. I had planned the whole thing for our senior, but on the night attending the party seemed irrelevant and boring but my teachers insisted that I had to come and I couldn't let them down. I was irritated by the loud music and the stupid chatter so I decided to take a glass of punch and go to the roof for some time not realising that the seniors had mixed a little something in the drink. I sat on the boundary drinking the punch and getting high with every sip, my mind getting confused and free at the same time.

Mr Sharma came their talking on his phone, and I watched him, every nerve of my body wanting to tell him what I couldn't have possibly told him in a sober state.

"Sir," I shouted out as soon as he got off the phone. He turned in my direction and took a few minutes to recognize me.

"What are you doing here Manik?" he asked My hands gripped the glass in my hands, my eyes swiveling towards the back of my head in a distressed sense of a headache. I tilted my head towards Mr Sharma as I took a long swig of the dark substance that affected me. I sigh as the walls become part of a fun house, changing figure in a blink of an eye. My breath was the underlying cause of the smell of alcohol that entered my nostrils, and my mouth was sore from the amount of alcohol that had gone down my throat. I cleared my throat as I stood up, just to fall back down on the floor in an unbalanced attempt to walk to the dark figure of Mr Sharma.

"Are you drunk Manik?" he asked me trying to get me back on my feet.

"Oh...no no no sir I don't drink, never but I do have something important to tell you," I started off, Mr Sharma took the glass from my hand smelled it and understood the whole situation.

"I...I think sir you should teach me music, I am ten thousand time better than those idiotic Fab four and all of your students who don't even understand what music really is... I like music because when I hear it, I . . . I lose myself within myself, if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once, and I can feel the whole earth roiling around me. When I play. I'm not . . . for once, I'm not destroying, I'm creating" I said trying to balance myself without his help.

"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest." I added shifting my weight again and again from one foot to another.

He kept staring at me like I was some alien and I started singing, I don't know how well I sang because I can't remember that part well but since then, since that encounter Mr Sharma tried talking to me every time he saw me and I just kept ducking him knowing fully well I would have sang well, because even in that drunken state I couldn't insult music, I just couldn't do it.

The memory ended and I was staring at the paper again. I had to find something other than music to fill my portfolio, because music, well music would just mess up the whole plan...

Originally posted by: vihaa

First of all dear i am sure you are an amazing writer, and second of all thank you so much for appreciating the work. i am blessed with amazing readers like you who pamper me a bit so Thank you again and i have already accepted the request. :)

no dear I don't write. I am just writing a manan story that too in a diary but truth is I don't think I am gonna continue it. I am damn busy and I have stopped writing also. Welcome dear, and I am sure you deserve lot more than this.

"Okay... here it is... I only eat the brown coloured gems because I have this silly notion that they have the least amount of chemicals as chocolate is already brown and they don't have to add colours in it."

woah!! that was incredible!!

Originally posted by: blah_blah13

"Okay... here it is... I only eat the brown coloured gems because I have this silly notion that they have the least amount of chemicals as chocolate is already brown and they don't have to add colours in it."

Wedding Planner 😃

It was M&Ms in that if I'm not wrong

Lovely update as usual...Manik is quite a complex character...very interesting...a little hard to like but intriguing for sure...Nandini is like a Paulo Coehlo novel...so much wisdom and so much acceptance!

Amazing Story.
Very nice update.
Loved it.
Waiting for next Update.

Originally posted by: vihaa

Okay well i will have to admit that i do that too, it is the silliest thing but i did it before and then i heard it in the wedding planner and i was like blown away how could that have happened and of course Paulo Coehlo is my inspiration, he is my guide to life so you shouldn't be surprised at all that my character feels like him! :D

wooww.. that was something..
i mean every update of yours is bettr than the previous.. which makes me fall in love with your writing more n more..
i just loved it.. the way you are potraying both of them is outstanding..
im jus luving this nandini.. shez soo adorable...
n that gems one secret ... aweee that was super cute.. she has a very postive way of living.. n shez helping manik too..
n now our very own manik malhotra.. well how much does he plan.. u have made his character so intersting.. hez trying soo hard to keep away n go ahead in life as he has planned but but but evrything doesnt happn as planned..
i loved his secrets.. i was totally surprisd when he suggstd this game.. he wants to be free yet he doesnt want it.. he shouldnt push nandini away ..
n his secret abt music is out.. hmm very exciting update.. im eagerly waiting to read futher.. update super soon dear..
P.S. this surely is my longest commnt till date.. :)

Hey vihaa,thnx for another beautiful update,
Poor Manik he has spend his entire life working hard for that scholarship n now he won't get it.Nandini still seems quite mysterious to me.Manik's life is a mess wt he needs i think is a day off with lots of me time and a warm hug from someone who won't ask him what the f*** on earth is wrong with you im thinking Nandini is d one who cud do that.bt a day of wud ruin his entire system n ... Okay I dnt knw wt im saying.uh...like always vihaa d words i love u for those words Nandini said.im not mature enough to understand everything she says but still those words have this...effect on me that...i can't explain man im out of words here.anyways this chapter just made me crave for more.continue soon n come up with a lengthy update
C u soon,Meghna.