Tune into Me
9. An Ignorance, A Veil:
Khushi looked at the entrance gate of her house, staring at it for a moment longer, lost in her own thoughts before letting out one deep breath and turned to her side, only to be met by another apologetic gaze of her friend.
"Damn Cammy, it's alright! We had a competition and you obviously had to go down first!" she exclaimed rolling her eyes.
"I'm already over that little regret..." he said gripping the wheel of the car.
"You are already over it? How can you possibly be over the fact that you were too busy to win a stupid competition when your friend was up that hill unconscious?"
"Now that is a total melodrama, will you stop with it already?" It was Cam's turn to roll his eyes and he looked on at her intently, causing her to raise the both of her eyebrows at him questioningly.
"What's going on here?" she shrugged.
"I have seen you yelling at that guy back there?"
"Okay...Why are you making a face like I was yelling at you?"
"You weren't yelling at me and I have never seen you yelling at anybody for that matter.."
Khushi gave him one of her bored looks and turned around causing her wet red waves to flip along with her head and hopped out of the car, before picking up her bag from the behind and banged the door close. "Park the car and walk back home, I'm definitely not walking all the way to your home tomorrow in the morning" she ordered looking at him through the window.
"See, this is what I was talking about, you are either sarcastic or rude and bitchy but never the ones to yell..." Camron trailed off thoughtfully.
"You definitely didn't see me at home..."
"But isn't he a complete stranger in that sense?"
That caused Khushi to look at him stumped and she continued look at him mirroring the same thoughtful expression that Camron had. "He isn't a stranger..."
She said leaning away from the car and Camron took the moment to park her car inside the car shed. As she watched the car being parked, her mind instantly took her back to the gigantic invasion she had at the waterfalls. How the hell did it all turn out into that? Wasn't she planning on being in disguise for the whole day at least?
"K..."
"Uh Cam, I gottto go, I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"
"Okay.."
**
Just as Khushi pushed open the front door of her home and stepped inside, she heard her father call out to her, even before he made an entrance into the hall.
"Khushi is that you? Are you alright? Mrs. Keller was telling something about you being unconscious? What the hell happened to your phone?" Sameer Gupta's voice was heard from Kitchen teamed with his footsteps on the wooden floor, announcing his arrival into the hall.
That's when Khushi tapped her Khakhi pants only to find her phone missing. "Phone too? Gone with the wind? Bloody hell!"
"Oh my god!"
She heard her father exclaim quite contrast to her own muttering and she looked up only to be met by Sameer's alarmed expression.
"Wha----"
"Did you hurt your head?" he asked his eyes barely blinking as he continued to stare at her with that perplexed look.
"Huh?"
"The...the blood in your hair?" he spoke all too robotically, like his words were being uttered from a mind of their own.
"Dad??" Khushi's voice suddenly took the sound of an incredulous horror and that was enough for Sameer to come out of his little shocking trance. "Was that supposed to be funny?"
"Uh, No, sorry, I..um...but your hair honey?" Sameer blinked still trying to process the weird look of his familiar daughter.
"I got it colored dad! What's with the over dramatic reactions since morning? Am I not done for the day already?!" she sighed as she lazily walked past him and dropped herself into the couch, plopping her legs over the small table in the living room and Sameer chose to sit on that same table facing her, as he took her bag away from her hands whilst placing it in the empty futon.
"But baby..."
Khushi just dropped her head back on the couch and Sameer took it as his cue to change the topic, and move onto something much more important at the moment. "Okay whatever, are you okay? Khushi what happened? How did you faint?"
"You should probably ask the mountains and trees up there, maybe they have an answer.." she answered not lifting her head from the head-rest and Sameer just looked away. His daughter was back to one of her grumpy moods.
"Well, then you should get some rest, I'll get your snacks up there.."
"That's it? Are you not gonna ask what did I do with your beloved guest?"
"I can figure out that much khushi..."
"---Is that why you sent him to the hiking?"
"He came to the hiking? And? What happened?" He asked quite surprised that they have finally met and his reaction only caused Khushi to tumble back into her infamous silence and thus choosing to move on from that topic as well.
"--- just so you know, he decided to stay in the store room after all" Sameer spoke after a small pause.
That made Khushi to lean away from the couch to glance at her father. "Perfecto"
"Which leaves minimum reason for you to be cross with him---"
"That's for me to decide dad, now if you can excuse me, I'll find my way to my room, I'm sure you guys do have a lot to catch up with..."
Just when khushi climbed the few of steps up the stair case that was leading up to her room, her eyes blurred a little and the giddiness returned causing her to stumble on the steps into a sitting position, her sudden movement creating quite an audible sound against the wooden stairs.
"Honey, are you okay?" Sameer rushed to her, only to find her holding her head in her hands and looking at him through the prison of her fingers.
"Did you forget to take your medicines today?" he asked giving her one glass of water and Khushi just looked up at him as realization dawned on to her. She sighed and dropped her head back into her hands yet again, which was a reaction enough to answer his question.
"This is not done Khushi, how can you be so careless with yourself?"
"I'll take now"
"But you were supposed to take them in the morning, and what happened to your glasses?"
"I lost them! I lost my phone, I lost my coat and I lost my sanity for god's sake! Will you just leave me alone!" she yelled, her little head-ache getting the worst of her.
"I'll leave you alone with anything and everything you do, as long as you are responsible khushi. Skipping your medicines is not acceptable at all!!" Sameer's voice turned into his one of his subtle warning tones but that was the least thing Khushi needed at the moment.
"Oh really? You should have been this careful with your wife back then; I wouldn't have been motherless, today!"
Nasty taunting to win an argument yet again. She have done the same thing yet again and this time it wasn't quite reasonable as well. She knew it. She knew it as soon as she noticed the rush of hurt in her father's eyes. Glaring at him for another briefest moment, Khushi got up and climbed the rest of the stair-case reaching her room and closing the door all too vigorously, leaving a stumped Sameer alone, downstairs.
**
"That's not fair!"
Arnav found himself state standing at the door of the Gupta Villa, as he looked on at Sameer who was standing quite bothered with what just happened. He then saw the older man blink and tear his gaze away from Khushi's room as he looked at Arnav with what seemed like an assuring smile.
"Arnav...what? What happened? why are you all wet?"
It was then that Arnav looked at himself and shrugged awkwardly as he walked inside with the water droplets still dripping from his clothes. Sameer quickly brought him a thick towel and helped him to dry up while Arnav continued to look at him questioningly. "Did you land properly down the rope? Or right into the Canal?"
"Something like that.." Arnav chuckled.
"Uh, Arnav did you happen to see this new boy in the town who saved my unconscious daughter..."
Arnav looked up, his eyes popping out from inside the towel only to catch Sameer staring at him knowingly. "The one who had become the talk of the town in just about a few hours?" He added and Arnav yet again shrugged awkwardly.
"I don't know what you are talking about, but I definitely know about the guy who saved a distress and was rewarded with a push into the water..."
"To be back in this shape?"
"Well, what can I say uncle, I'm not the ones to back away from helping the vulnerable.." Arnav winked and Sameer nodded his head. "Great then, if you happen to find that boy, pass on my humble gratitude for saving my daughter..."
"Big words! He might just accept them because apparently, he didn't really hear any of such words from the one he saved..."
"Too bad, didn't he already know this one is really tough?"
"Okay now seriously, which team are you? You seem too confused to decide your sides, common choose, me or your daughter?"
Sameer just looked at him blankly causing Arnav to roll his eyes. "Even after she's being so rude to you? I mean that wasn't fair at all!" Arnav said and in the next instant, his own words reflected back into his senses. Was it the same when he talked to his father? Did it appear in the same way to a third person, like it appeared to him at this moment? It cannot possibly be the same, there should be something a little more to it and he found himself suddenly developing this sudden urge to justify himself. To no one but himself.
"That was blatant blaming!"
"She doesn't mean it Arnav, trust me. I know as much"
Arnav's shoulders slumped in defeat as he settled at the kitchen counter as he watched Sameer make him some coffee. "You know what uncle? You seriously deserve a break from this crazy creature..."
"Arnav!" Sameer warned him and Arnav raised his hands in submission. "Alright, alright, your darling daughter, but you still need a break from her, you think you have some drinks in your bar?"
"Excuse me?"
"It's refreshing, relaxing. Common now, how many days has it been?"
"That is none of your business Arnav, I'm not drinking with you, sorry"
"Uncle! Loosen up! It's okay, we should totally do a boy's night out today, outhouse? Outhouse is perfect Away from the monster..." he whispered and Sameer broke into the grin that he had been holding back causing Arnav to chuckle.
*
What they didn't realize in their little laughing session was the fact that their laughs were quite audible upstairs into khushi's room to avoid which she had been clutching her ears with both of her hands as the familiar agitation continued to engulf her. She even had to squeeze her eyes shut, to concentrate on not hearing their voices and instead think about something else. And that thought instantly took her back to the waterfalls as the now familiar images flashed right into her senses yet again. Those very mystic brown eyes from her latest memory, took her back to her weird dreams all within the matter of a few moments.
With the disorientation inside her mounting with every passing minute, she found herself looking for the notebook inside the pocket of her study table quite vigorously. Flipping the hard cover of the notebook open, she glanced at the words she had written not many days ago. As her fingers traced the lyrics she picked up from her dreams, she sensed the vague tune starting to play in her mind. The very same tune she heard in her dreams. The vague tune, as she thought it was, seemed to be taking a little more prominent shape, quite involuntarily. Just as the realization hit her, she clutched the paper hard into a tight grip intending to tear it away. They were the lyrics that she tried to pen down, yes, but the new significance that they suddenly embraced----his eyes; her dreaming of him; everything of it put together, made her even more disoriented. Why in the hell did she dream of him?
What she thought was a weird vague dream was now turning out to be something else in a complete different way. And she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.
Just as her fingers gripped the paper shrinking it even more, something hindered her from being ruder on the thick paper that adored her handwriting. Releasing an exasperated sigh with her raged eyes glaring the wooden notebook, she threw it away, making it to tumble, slide and rest at one corner of her room, behind the cot.
She then tied a black cloth to her eyes as tight as she can, to push away any possible images from her mind and also to avoid any possible dreams that she might be subjected to; those dreams that seemed to be rushing into her subconscious mind for reasons quite complex to her. And then, for the first time in years, Khushi extracted the mp3 player device, resting under pillow, unattended for times undefined, and plugged the year phones, switching it on and selecting the tracks that played with a heavy beats and high tempo and settled herself inside the duvet and she hoped, she would finally not hear any vague music inside her mind.
**
10.An Imprint, An Illusion
Edited by dedeepyalove - 11 years ago
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