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I go to whatsapp and to my absolute luck, find my bestie online. Three cheers for free Wi-Fi.
" What are you doing?" I quickly type, still not sure how to properly break the breaking news to her with all its due respect (more like impossibility.)
" Just finished work in the kitchen and now trying to get the remote from your father without waking him up." My mother replies after a few moments, making me shake my head with a sigh. This has been a ritual for my father since forever. He will lie on the sofa after coming back from work and will put on some news channel and will fall asleep in record time while the politicians will scream each other's head off in the TV. Though asleep but if you try to take the remote or turn off the TV, he will immediately wake up. So this has always been a little adventure for us to successfully get the remote. Now, so far away from home, I can still imagine what it must be like there and just like that, suddenly I am way too homesick.
" You won't believe what happened today." I decide to start coming to the point.
" What?"
" Guess. You have three chances." I type laughing. I personally know how much she dislikes this hating game but this is what I always end up doing before dropping the bomb actually.
" Ranbir Kapoor proposed you?" Her reply come flying back making me roll my eyes. If only.
" Two more guesses."
" Will you just tell me or not?" I know she is getting irritated, not being the patient type. So I stop beating around the bush.
" Well," I take a deep breath and type, " I met his highness today." And I hit the send button.
" What!!!" I can almost see the wheels in her brain wheeling at the speed of life, thinking if what she is thinking is actually what or rather who in this case, is happening. I sigh again.
" Yeah ammi, I met Asad Ahamad Khan today, the one and only jerk."
And she goes off. The next thing I know is my phone ringing, telling me that a voice call from my mother is coming. I can almost feel my whole face lighting up with a huge smile. I know she doesn't like typing and talking and this situation certainly demands special attention. So we are now going to be in our element. I never felt better about her learning to use Skype the last month.
" What?!! Are you serious? You are not joking right?" these are the first words she say or more like scream after taking the call and as an immediate reaction I can see my father stirring in his sleep. We both go silent and dead stiff in a moment. Though my being unmoving doesn't make any sense but this is a reflex from many such incidents in the past. We watch with baited breath as my father goes back to sleep after few moments and my mom silently go to my now empty room, closing the door behind her. We breath in relief and suddenly a thought comes to my mind.
" You guys are not using my bathroom, right?"
" No, we are not. It will stay untouched till you come, all right?" She says rolling her eyes and I giggle. Though she knows that I will let them use it anytime but I am seriously very possessive about my bathroom. I am quite obsessed with this thing actually. You give me a crumbling house, I can live in it. But you give me a dirty bathroom, I can never live there even if it's a palace. Weird much?
" Now you tell me exactly what happened? I want to know everything, from start till end." She orders me which I am more than glad to oblige. Since I was small, it has been my habit to tell her everything that happens in my life, from the crush to brush, every big happenings and all the smallest incidents, every burp, cough and laugh... whatever it is, I have to share it with her. I don't feel normal until I do my daily course of verbal vomit to her. So I narrate everything, from the first moment in caf to the last second in my apartment with what I doubt to be excessive hand-gestures and comical expressions. When I finally finish emptying my stomach, lungs and heart to her, I feel considerably better and light.
" So you really met him? and he really recognized you? And even talked to you?" My mom asks again after a beat of silence. The disbelief clear in her tone and her face looks as traumatized as mine probably looked an hour ago. One can surely tell that she is my mother.
" Yeah, yeah and yeah and I still can't believe this has happened." I lie down on the bed.
" And he is your neighbor too. This is so impossible."
" I know ok. I know but I still don't know what to do around him.
" Talk to him."
" What?!! Are you serious? What should I tell him? We have never talked then, so what am I supposed to talk to him about now."
" Six years has passed Zoya. You guys have grown up, things have changed. It can be a fresh start. You can start from the scratch. Just make sure before doing anything that he is single."
" Ammi, the question about him being single comes when there is a chance of anything happening between us and there is simply no chance of anything ever happening between us. So why does it matter if he is dating someone or have a girlfriend or a wife with ten children." As soon as the words leave my mouth, it leaves a total yucky taste in my mouth. I cringe horribly and my mother too. Eeek.
" Well, let's just hope this is not the case." And I nod.
" He probably just talked to me out of surprise. It was like a shock to see me after so long, right? So he just said without thinking. It doesn't mean it is going to happen again or there is anything happening, ever." I swallow hard and finally voice my real fears. My voice is just above a whisper. " What if he just goes back to ignoring me the next day. I don't want the history to repeat itself." The unconscious wounds of past stir awake again, the hurt, the humiliation and the helplessness still stings. And this fact alone is enough to make to scared for the safety of my own heart. " I don't want to end up heart-broken."
" And you won't. otherwise I will come and break his bones myself." I smile a little. " I always told you na that if something is meant to happen, it will happen anyways. You were meant to meet again so you met." She always said that but though an ardent believer in destiny, I always refused to believe it will ever play out in my life. But now? I am not so sure. I hear my mom continuing.
" Now everything and at the same time nothing is in your hand. You will behave according to the situation, according to how things turn out. You will talk to him, if he talks to you or shows any interest in you. If he ignores you, you ignore him even more and if he has a girlfriend or something, you move on and remember that there are better guys waiting for you. I know doing these are going to be lot harder than saying them but well, what's the thrill in doing easy things?" I smile some more at her, shaking my head. She can really talk too much sometimes and talk sense. " Don't be so negative. B' positive." And I laugh a little. This has always been a little inside joke of us two. " Just never lose your dignity and self respect. He ignored you in the past and could it do anything to you? See where you are today. Far better than anyone around you. Ms. New York times bestselling author plus software engineer and now the story writer and character developer at Disney? How many people can do that, huh?" And I can't help but feel my ego boosted a little. The facts are facts, right? " Never let him make you feel low or doubt yourself." Though I don't say anything, she catches the right nerve from where every thought of mine are steaming. " Don't lose your confidence or feel like unworthy or bad looking. If anything, you are far better than him. and if he can't see it, it is his bad luck and bad eyesight." She finally stops. Boy, can she speak! But always speaking everything for my betterment. And as I look at her confident eyes, I feel better than I have felt all day. My mom's magic.
I nod.
" So how does he look now." She asks again after few moments.
I think a little before speaking. " Actually I was so shocked that I kind of forgot to take in his whole appearance. His face is still very much the same. More mature, manly actually but still the same. Very handsome."
" And still a match-stick?"
" Oh come on ammi, he wasn't that thin."
" Oh really? He looked like he will fly away with my one blow." She says with a deadpan face and I burst out laughing. She is obviously exaggerating and I am obviously loving it.
" And what does he do now?"
" How about I just go and ask him?" I answer sarcastically. How the hell am I supposed to know?
My mother rolls her eyes.
" Well he is here in California and from the looks of it, I am quite sure that he is here for work. So I guess he must be doing something good." I tell to placate her and she nods thoughtfully.
" So you are saying that your glass wall..." She starts.
" Faces mine." I finish.
" Wow."
" Yeah. Can you believe this? This guy is making me feel like a trespasser in my own house. I am afraid of going outside this room lest I have to face him. I guess I have to curtain the whole wall because of him."
" why? This is your house. You will stay as you please. Why will you affect your life just because he can see a little bit of how it is. Just ignore him. Behave like any other neighbor. Nothing special. But again, if you feel really uncomfortable, we will think about the curtain idea." In that moment she actually sounded like my father and it is a tad bit scary. I nodded, not knowing exactly how to do it.
" I wish you were here." I say at the verge of tears. Stupid girl.
" I am literally just a call away chutki. Just call me anytime and tell me everything that is in your heart. Just like we used to do here. Don't suppress your feelings ok? And let me know what happens." She said with a wink but I know she is also as sad and heavy-hearted as me. I manage a smile ad not to cry as I nod. We talk some more and then hang up. This is the best thing about your mom being your best friend. You never have to fear back-stabbing and can actually relay on her to give right advices. I clutch the phone to my chest and sigh, again. I am terribly home-sick.
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I poke my head out of my bedroom door to ensure that the coast is clear. I look around. The curtains of his glass wall are drawn. Good. I practically run to the bathroom and lock the door. Once inside, I breathe a sigh of relief and one look at the pristine white bath-tub and I know for sure that he can go to hell and I don't care. This is my time and my place. So damn him if he can listen to me singing in my bathroom.
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My bravery stays with me for the next 20 minutes that I spend inside the bathroom. When the sacred moment of departure from my safe haven arrives, I can feel the nervousness return. The bathroom is in such a position that I can't see the wall from here. So after taking a deep breath and chanting all the holy prayers I have known in my life, I tip-toe out of the bathroom. Things were going smoothly when I was simply just looking at the door, but then near the bedroom door, in a moment of absolute dumbness, I look up and BAM!!! I find his highness, near his wall. He probably has just come to push away the curtains under the same false impression of security as mine. And as my insane luck would have it, he caught sight of me at the same moment as noticed him. so now we are both staring at each other without the faintest idea about what to do. I am suddenly grateful for the fact that I am fully clothed because I have this amazing habit of walking around the house, when no one except my mother and grandmother is present, in just a kurti and shorts or an oversized tee shirt. I can't even begin to imagine where my embarrassment level might have reached if I hadn't decided to dress fully now and went on with my crazy habit. But as I continue to look at his flabbergasted face, I am not sure if I should thank the heavens for this mercy or request to swallow me whole. So while my mind busy calculating the force with which I have to bash my head into that god forsaken wall to kill myself, I feel my right hand lift up at its own accord. Whenever I zone out like this in my thoughts, the unhealthy subconscious part of my takes over and makes me do stuff I never would have done otherwise. So as the most recent destructive result to that, I see with utter horror that my hand wave an awkward hi to him. can anyone just kill me now?
As I kicked my head mentally, I see, incredulously, he lifts his hand after a few moments with which can only be described as the world's most frazzled and astonished expression and return an equally awkward wave, seemingly questioning my mental balance and his own sanity. Not knowing how to kill myself in less than a second, I offer him a smile (another act of stupidity) which I am sure looks more like I am suffering from constipation and without waiting any other mishap to happen and not sparing anything another glance, I dart inside my room and shut the door. I am so not leaving this room.
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PRECAP: how about a nice cup of coffee?
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Sorry guys for not including the spoiler in this part. Actually it was getting too long and I didn't want to split that part. Thanks a lot for all your love and support. This really means a lot to me. I guess this one was kinda boring but I still hope you all will leave your lovely reviews behind. Thank you😃
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