Posted:
Nice story line. Good mystery and the way it's opening leading to another.
Entwined
Chapter-5:
February 2007,
Just Another Sunny Afternoon...
"Pass the ball Arjun! Here!!" and her laughter followed her running self.
"Put me down, idiot!! I have to take the ball, Sunny put me down!! NO!!"
"Here, here, common, common, yeah!!! That's my basket!! Yippie!!!"
His ears caught the familiar, loud chirpy voice as his eyes snapped open looking to his side at the basketball ground while his lips continued to sip the water from the sipper with his head bent back in an angle as the hot sun reflected in his eyes causing him to close them back immediately. He gulped down the last drop of water before he jerked his head vigorously getting rid of the perspiration accumulated in his hair, causing the droplets to sprinkle around in swift moments.
"Jai!! Common! Pass, pass, pass!" he heard again and shook his head disbelievingly as he made his way out of the athletic ground to fetch his bag.
"Shit Imran that was such an easy basket!" He stopped in his tracks and turned his upper body a little to glance at the basketball court adjoining the athlete ground. That was like the 4th guy name she took out in mere five minutes and seriously he dint know why was he even keeping the count of it in the first place.
He then caught a flash of red run across the small opening from whatever he could see. He turned around completely as his legs on their own accord walked towards the opening into the basket-ball court. He entered the court and his eyes immediately caught the lean figure dressed in a red sports t-shirt and denims, with her hair pulled into a high pony that hopped along with her running self, droplets of sweat covering her face and part of her neck as she busily thumped the ball hard on the floor, hopping around the players, her t-shirt occasionally rolling up along with her working arms, her bossom moved in perfect sync with her hopping legs--- the pit of his stomach constricted with unknown rush of invasions and he looked away abruptly, composing himself.
He then stole a glance around and all he could see was, several pairs of obnoxious, salacious, lustful eyes of people belonging to his gender, while she was the only who belonged to the opposite gender. A sudden foreign stream of emotion that distantly seemed like protectiveness engulfed him and he quickly brushed it off before it could dominate. He kept his eye on her, for reasons unknown to him as he walked along the stairs resided as the periphery of the court with his hands tugged in his pocket and his gaze convicted on her. Once reaching the center part of the court's periphery, he settled himself on the upper step, folding up his legs lazily over the alternate lower one, his long legs occupying the latitude and he just continued to look on while she continued to play with a whole lot of taller boys quite oblivious to his presence.
He remembered how she made a promise not to intrude, the last time they met and true to her words, she maintained her stance. Not that he approached her, he did not and he knew he wouldn't either. The University was vast, with thousands of students being thrown into various activities on a daily basis and it was quite difficult to spot a known face unless you belong to the same class or you know the person. Although in their case, it was the later, Arnav did not want to acknowledge it, nor did she. And hence even though they did run into each other sometimes, they were nothing less than mere strangers"or so he wanted to assume.
He has his own reasons. The mere two times that he met her, she managed to extract uncommon reactions from him and that's did not seem healthy for him at all"he decided. But he did found himself throwing glances at her, every now and then in situations like this and more so, she would look back to meet his gaze too. More like their eyes were doing the conversation part while they both refused to do. He had a strange good feeling about such ventures and before he knew it, he was looking forward for the next such venture with her, where they would be busy in their own different worlds, yet attuned to each other's eyes.
Today though, it was different. He was not in any other world but is just being the distant observer of her world while she was being oblivious to him. He couldn't quite figure out what was he doing there in the first place. He observed her again and frowned at the choice of clothes she chose with so many guys around. Again how does that concern him, he have no clue about. Just when he was about to get up, pretending to be unaffected as usual, he saw her turn around to meet his gaze directly. He then saw her dust the back of her denims while casually running towards him.
"So Stranger, here to play?" she asked nonchalantly settling herself at the side of his legs.
"And you finally decided to talk---" he answered keeping his study gaze on her as she removed the band on her hair, letting the strands fall free and she turned around to look at him.
"It was what you wanted by the way and besides, I was getting annoyed with your staring--"
"Excuse me??" he asked incredulously.
"What?? Are you gonna deny that you have been staring at me all these days? Oh common Raizada, you know better than to lie to me--"
"And you were not?" he raised an eye-brow surprisingly enjoying the conversation.
"That's not the point here; the point is you were staring at me, why would I stare at you anyway? I'm not the one without friends around here---"
And that caught him off the guard. The nerve of this girl; "Yeah right, you have got great friends really, commendable job! So much for the trust lecture you give? Going out at late night with almost unknown friend to illegal parties, roaming and playing along with guys looking like like--" he paused waving his hand over her dress""Like this!"
"What's wrong with this?" she cut him off causing him to eat his rest of the words. Did he just insult her and all she took was the insult about her dress?
"It's my sports look! You know? I had to work part time at my uncle's departmental store for two months to earn for these outfits! And you have a problem with these?"
"What??"
"Yeah! I love playing basket ball and I needed a proper look for this, dad challenged me to do something productive to allow me for the practice and I took up the challenge" she shrugged. "And wow! I won it too, see!" she twirled around showing her outfit to him completely"her long slender legs drawing his attention for a brief moment.
"Were you concerned about playing the game or having right costumes for it?" he asked with a weird expression on his face.
"Uh---"
"You know what? Forget that I ever asked, I don't even want to know!" he said collecting his things and getting up from the place shaking his head vigorously annoyed more at himself.
"And what were you saying about me playing with guys?"
He turned around and raised his eye-brows. He then glanced around the place before shifting his attention back to her questioning gaze. "I don't see a single girl here, other than you"
"So?"
"So?" he asked back almost probing her to enlighten him.
"Why am I even answerable to you? Anyway, since you asked, let me make myself clear. I like basket ball and the girl's team is just so lame, they can't play like this"with this seriousness you know? And so I offered to play with these guys, they agreed. And today is my first day, did you see how many baskets I just made??" she grinned proudly.
"Of course they would let you!" he said exasperated.
"What do you mean?"
"Khushi, look at the way these guys are looking at you! They are just having fun watching you play, and literally undressing you with their eyes!"
"Eeks!! Shut up! How could you think anything and everything negatively?? I know how to keep an eye for such guys! So please stop with your lecturing plus some of them are my friends! I trust--"
"Argh! Stop! Not with the trust lecture again! I haven't seen such a nave fool like you all my life! What am I even doing here with you!" he yelled throwing his hands in air and quickly getting up to leave.
"Fine go away! I don't like you anyway!"
"Well, I'm not a fan of you either, get lost--" he said throwing a look behind his shoulder as he started walking away already. She stamped her foot hard on the floor and turned around walking in the opposite direction. She stopped as if remembering something and turned around again in one swift moment.
"And I'm so happy that you will be leaving the college in just about a month!" she yelled on the top of her voice to reach his ears. "Definitely not happier than me!" he yelled back not even turning around and finally exited from the court. By the time he reached his car, his lips were playing with a small smile as it suddenly dawned onto him that he is just one month away from his freedom and his dreams.
**
Lavanya stated visiting the hospital having been informed about Khushi everything. Well, as much as he could inform her that is. She talked to Khushi every day as much as she can, shared her experiences, talked about their times together, all under Dr.Angad's supervision. Nothing at all worked though, just as he suspected. Nothing seems to be working what so ever. Most of the stories and instances Lavanya narrated to her had nothing to do with Khushi. Although the conversation she used, to talk about, did involve khushi, nothing that could even distantly relate to her. All were more about Lavanya's own life stories and instances with colleagues. He could tell everything was going over Khushi's head. Nothing was reaching her senses to trigger a reaction"to put it in Angad's words.
Two weeks of continues efforts all going in vain, but Arnav could tell something has been processing in Angad's medical brain. He just hoped it meant something good. One such day when the two of them were observing another session of Khushi with Lavanya, Angad was keen on observing the pulse machine having instructed Lavanya to speak about certain aspects. Angad fell into a completely thoughtful silence observing the fluctuating pulse rate and after processing his mind for another few moments his eyes directly met Arnav's and he instantly knew what was going on in his friends mind.
"Her senses are working" Angad simply stated as they were now sitting across each other in the hospital lounge.
"They are?"
"Yes, it was a really tough shot to confirm though, it completely missed our minds Arnav, and we were all looking at the right side of it, not the wrong side----"
He then heard Arnav intake a sharp breath shrieking his eyes shut that clearly told him about his confused state of mind. "Don't you think your sentence just has reverse words in it?" Arnav said as patiently as he could with his low voice, clenching his teeth, speaking in between his tight lips.
Angad sighed bringing himself to the edge of the couch and looked right into his eyes.
"Arnav listen to me carefully and just"just don't freak out okay?" Arnav was already holding his breath and he just stared pointedly urging him to continue.
"Given the fact that we don't really know anything about her, I can see it is almost impossible to try and find out any anything related to her near past that might come under good memories"in fact I doubt if anything ever happened in the past few years of her life that can hardly be regarded as good' part of her memories" he made air quotes.
"The file of her term of employment has quite a few sexual harassment cases and the complaints were merely written in her own words. We did find them quite emotional and quite articulated, dint we?"
"What are you suggesting Angad?" he snapped suddenly engulfed with the same kind of disorientation in his chest that he experienced when Lavanya first mentioned this.
"Just calm down and listen, okay?"
Angad's sudden calm and composed behavior has only added to his impatience as he abruptly stood up facing his back to his friend. "Just spit it out" he said titling his head to his side.
"I have seen her pulse rate; it is actually fluctuating according to what she hears. That explains her blood-pressure which is in turn caused by her natural anxiety. That is a sign. But this reaction is very minute, as minute as you can define, but a reaction nevertheless. And, this happened---"
Arnav's shoulder's stiffened when his friend trailed off exactly where he expected he would proving his initial suspects to be true. He just remained patient hoping against hope, for his instincts to be proven wrong for the first ever time.
"This happened when Lavanya spoke about the Sexual Harassment incidents at her work, exaggerating it a bit like I asked her to---this somehow gives me a thought that may be Khushi might have been through some kind of physical assault-----" he hesitated for only a moment before Arnav turned around abruptly throwing fierce glances at his friend, his eyes smoldering venom.
"Don't you dare go there Angad!" He snapped again. "This has nothing to do with her recovery!" he raised his voice a little controlling the sudden urge to yell as his fist hardened digging into his own palm.
"Denying won't help Arnav and I seriously think we should give this a try, it might really work!"
"Have you completely lost it????" Arnav finally yelled startling the entire waiting hall instantly demanding attention. "Arnav--"
"Enough!" he yelled again pointing his one finger. "Not another word" he whispered dangerously low.
"But--"
"NOT.ANOTHER.WORD.ANGAD!" He stressed giving him one hard glare and leaving the hall ignoring everything and everyone around.
**
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