Chapter 1
"Heer!!..Heer!"
"Coming..!"
I hurried towards Sanjana di's room balancing her breakfast in one hand and her ironed dress in the other. As I tossed, tumbled, fumbled and walked upto her room, I kept reminding myself that I had 2 more weeks with these people and then I would be in Mumbai, away from all this. Just 2 more weeks and I will be free to go...Free.... That word sounded so easy to say but hard to go through. Hard to live that word. Gently I pushed open Sanjana's door and heard loud ear brusting music. I was even suprised that she hadn't put the TV on yet...on full volume.
"Heer!"
Here we go again. Her "You-think-you-are-a-princess- talks". Sanjana walks upto me and takes the glass of juice of my breakfast tray. She takes one sip and puts it back on the tray.
"So princess Heer FINALLY got the chance to come here, is it?"
Nahi nahi, if I even had 1 % human rights in this house, I would NEVER come to her room. I sighed imagining my life without Sanjana or her mom.
"Di.."
I tried to reason with her to tell her that it took a little longer to iron her dress..."PERFECTLY" but no, she was not ready to listen to me. At that moment I wanted to question her if she ever tried ironing her own dresses for once and there I was, ironing 3 people's wardrobe's.
"Di, why do you need the dress? Don't you know it is Prem's basketball game today and he considers you his lucky charm?"
Sanjana rolled her eyes and I felt like punching her in the face. If I had to, I could even murder her for rolling eyes on something that meant ALOT to Prem.
"Uff Heer. Don't act like a baby. You know that I have no interest in basketball plus, I can't spend 3 hours for something that is important to Prem. There is a huge sale in this new clothing store today and I am going shopping, then getting a manucare and a pedicare so don't bother even waiting for me at the game."
I crunched my fingers up in a ball ready to fight. But I stayed calm.
"OK. But for once please do something that means alot to Prem. Seeing you at his champion ships means alot to him and I am sure it won't cost you much" I said disgustingly.
"Shut up Heer! And stay out of this!" Sanjana growled at me and I left without saying another word.
Once inside my room, I checked the messages on my iPhone.
"Ashlesha, Preet...Khushi...Meera...Nandini...Ravz...Asma...Shabo...Prem....Prem....Prem...Prem..."
Holy crap! I was too busy talking to Sanjana trying to convince her to come to Prem's basketball game that I almost forgot that I had to wake Prem up for his game!...Crap! I hurried to my closet and took out the most regular pair of jeans and t-shirt. After looking as regular as I looked, I hurried down to my car, not even bothering to eat breakfast.
"Crap I am late"
I check my watch and start driving as fast as possible. I drove as fast as possible, driving past cars, and even jumping signals. Everyone in Ludhiana were pretty nice people and knew that when I was in a hurry, it was best not to come in my way and I appreciated it. As I reached huge mansion, the guard opened the tall iron gate by himself. I gave him a huge smile which he knew as an indication that I was saying 'Thank You'. As I parked my car beside Prem's lexsus, I rapidly opened the door to my seat, and got off, not even bothering to lock it. As I ran towards Prem's car, I kept praying that hopefully Prem was awake by now and dressed up ready to go but I also knew that all my prayers would go down in vain because as much as I knew Prem, he never woke up until 2pm.
"Please be ready...please" I muttered as I closed my eyes, praying. As I reached Prem's house, I shoved open the front door and quickly ran inside. As I ran towards the stairs, Taurus, Prem's golden retriver comes running upto me and sits down on my feet, indicating that he wanted me to pet him. I stop in order to take some deep breaths and give Taurus what he demanded for.
"Good boy Taurus. Now tell me where Late Langoor is."
Taurus looks up at me as if I had offended him by calling Prem a late langoor and then goes back to his 'pet-me' mode. He knows this happens daily, very ishmart he is. But don't they say that "Animals are smarter and well-behaved then most humans", this can also be said about Prem and Taurus. On one side, there is Prem who doesn't even care about anything and who is totally dependant on his friends to help him around life and there is Taurus, who cares about everything and everyone...including me. Sigh.
"Woof woof!" Taurus looks up at me and starts barking. I then remember about late langoor and walk up to his room.
I don't bother knocking and instead just barge in. Once inside, I turn on the lights and slowly walk towards Prem's bed. Making lound thud thud noises as a ray of hope to waking Prem up. As I stand beside his bed, I take the large rich cream blanket off his forehead. Prem lay there with a bare back with his head titled in the other direction.
I sighed. "Prem!...Gadha kahin ka! Roz roz, same pose!" I mumbled.
I start shaking Prem to wake him up. "Wake up Prem!" I give him some more pushes and suddenly his 2 hands grab my 2 arms, tightly and flip me over on the bed. I didn't even get a chance to scream when he lays me down on the bed beside him and pins me down on the bed. I try to break away from his tight grip, fighting away. He stared straight into my eyes, I did too. His face so close to mine. His grip tightened around my hands. They were starting to pain but I didn't complain because my pain was nothing compared to the happiness...to the warmth I was recieveing now. My hands ached but I was too lost in his dreams to remember anything. Prem then suddenly lets go off my hands and pulls his face away from mine as if he had just witnessed something shocking. He then gets off me and stands beside the bed, with no words to describe what had just happened. His face...expressionless. Akward as I was feeling, I get up and stand beside him. I look at his face and start laughing. He looks at me with a "Is-she-out-of-her-mind expression".
"Late langoor, mujhe nahi pata tha that you were this strong..."
"What do you think Tennis, why did they choose me for the basketball team?"
"Oh, they were meaning to choose me but accidently, they chose you. Accidently"
"Haha haha, very funny"
"You don't worry, I won't tell di. I know how much you love di, and trust me, I won't tell her anything that happened here...Darpok kahin ka!"
I stick my tongue out at him and wiggle my fingers pretending to be a 'witch'. He starts laughing...and I start laughing aswell. I start laughing harder and harder and tears start escaping my eyes. Tears roll down my eyes as I continued to laugh louder and louder making it harder to know if I was really crying or laughing. I didn't know how I was doing with my acting but putting a pretense of being happy was much harder and painful then I had imagined. I was packed with bad luck. The day I was born, my mom died, and then my millionire dad remarried with a woman who already had a daughter named Sanjana. 2 months after I turned 10, my dad died leaving all the property on my step-mom Padma and her daughter, Sanjana's name. I don't complain about it because I don't want property, money or business. I don't care if I am still the 'servant' of the house at age 19. I don't care about anything. They can take it. They can take the property, the house, the money...EVERYTHING except for one thing...PREM. He is the only true friend that I had since I started kindergarten but now even he was going away. After all these years of friendship, suddenly Sanjana comes in and he starts liking her. I am not going to think bad about Prem because I want him to be happy, even if it means seeing him with Sanjana because I want him to be happy, and his happiness lies in Sanjana and mine lies in him. Waise bhi, they say that "Love in all about giving and not taking". As I continued to cry over my destiny, Prem calls out to me.
"Woohoo!. Heer to planet Earth. Heer to planet Earth"
Prem snaps his fingers across my face, making me come out of my train of thoughts.
"Huh?"
"Exactly. What are you doing here Heer?"
"Oh. I just came to wake you up for your basketball championship game"
He looks at me as if a cat had bit his tongue.
"You...-remembered?"
Of course Prem. Why wouldn't I remember anything that was so close to you?
"Er ya. I checked di's calendar"
I smiled at him to make him feel better. One side of my mind echoed..."Jhoot Heer. Sanjana doesn't even have a calendar in her room. She doesn't even care about Prem's feelings - and you are defending her?" My heart replied back saying 'NO Heer. He loves her. Don't tell him the truth. He will be heartbroken'. I didn't know who to support and instead kept answering Prem's questions.
"Oh....then why didn't she come?"
Because Prem, she doesn't care about you and cares more about shopping. Thats why. I told you, it doesn't make a difference to her if you win or loose!
"Erm, oh she told me that she has a surprise waiting for you after you win the championships and she had to make last minute adjusments to it."
A huge smile occurred on Prem's face and seeing him smile, I smiled aswell, even if it meant 5 gallons of sorrow for me and even if the smile was taken out of a thousand pile of lies.
-End of Ch 1~
Edited by *Shifali* - 15 years ago
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