Chapter 2 - The game
"Yoohoo Heer?"
Prem snapped his fingers across my face and gave a "whatever" expression. I come out of my train of thoughts and start to play along with him.
"Now, can I go get ready?"
"Why are you asking me? I thought you were old enough to get ready by yourself.... I never knew you needed me to get you ready."
I start laughing and he smiles at me and walks towards the washroom. But as usual, he forgets his towel outside and I had to pass it onto him.
"Cough cough"
As he is about to enter the washroom, Prem turns and looks at me. "What?"
I hold the towel out for him. "This"
Prem feels embarrassed and quickly grabs onto the towel and closes the door behind him. I roll my eyes and not being able to control my laughter anymore, I start to laugh. "Bulakad kahin ka" I laugh some more and from nowhere, Prem yells out "I heard that."
"Ya ya, whatever" I yell back.
Surprisingly, Prem comes back outside, all dressed up and ready to go in his basketball jersey and shorts in no time whereas, regularly, he takes more then an hour inside. As Prem is drying his hair and I stand leaning against his door watching him, Tauras comes and sits beside me. I notice Tauras sitting beside me and start to pet him.
"Good boy Tauras. Akir someone cares about me, hai na?" I say eyeing Prem from the corner of my eye.
Prem gets my hint and stops combing my hair and turns to look at me. He then walks over to me and takes a grip on my shoulder and looks me straight into the eyes. He sighs.
"Heer, you think I don't care about you?"
I don't say anything and he continues to speak.
"Acha, so tell me, who is the first one to wish you a happy birthday?"
I don't say anything. He than continues on.
"I did. I call you at midnight on March 14th, don't I?"
I nod my head. "Yes you do."
"And then, how can you say I don't care about you?"
This time I finally decide to say something.
"Because, you are getting late for you game. And that is why you don't care about me. I want you to win this game. You know you are the only GOOD player on your team and I know how much a 'win' means to you...and you know how important it is for me to see you smiling. And now, if you care about me, then get going. I want to see you win this game!"
I give him a mini-smile to hide all my pain and he smiles back.
"You scared me for a lil while there."
"Haha, very funny Prem"
We hurry up and get to his lexsus. We sit inside and Prem drives us to the B-ball Centre where the game was to start in 1 minute. As we get towards the main entrance of the centre, I tell Prem to get off while I park the car.
"Prem you go and I will park the car."
He gets off and runs inside while I switch seats and park the car. I then get off and run inside aswell. As I come inside, I run towards the men's changerooms and wait for Prem. I wait for 2 mins and each of the team players start to walk out of the changerooms one by one. Prem doesn't come out for a long time and even the announcer starts to ask for Prem.
"Prem Juneja, jersey # 1, please report to your team ASAP."
Having waited enough, I open the door to the changeroom and barge in to see about a dozen men staring at me with wide eyes. As embarrassed as I was feeling, I still went ahead and looked for Prem because I knew he needed me at this moment. As I walk through the changeroom calling Prem's name, I find him leaning against his locker, eyes closed. I not knowing what had happened to him walk upto him, slowly.
"Prem?"
Prem turns and looks at me.
"What happened? Why aren't you in the game?"
"I lost my lucky charm..." he answers.
"You mean the one that di gave you?"
He nods his head. I sigh. "Prem, you know there is no thing called lucky charms. You know that the locket that you had been carrying around was di's no more used locket, didn't you? It couldn't have been your lucky charm."
"But it was. Sanjana had given it to me."
I didn't want to protest against Prem at the moment. What could I say? That she gave the locket to Prem because she didn't need it no more? Or that she found that locket of mine so worthless and un-valued that she decided to give it to Prem? What could I say? That the locket was not Sanjana's but mine? That she had stole it from me in the first place and when she found something better, decided to discard it? I felt disgusted.
"Prem..." I spoke softly. "You know that the charm is within you and that your charm, which is to always stand up for friends is the luck for you. You don't need some stupid lucky charm. You know that you are the luck and you, yourself are the charm."
Prem smiles at me and I smile back.
"Now go and win and make the Tigers proud"
And with this spirit, Prem hits the basket ball court. Everyone, including I, cheer him on. Prem shots baskets after baskets, making the other team look like defined losers. At the end, the game is won by the Tigers, 50 -23. Prem is taken in for shouts and screams of girls being fluttered by him and he is thronged by fans, from little kids to avid old basketball viewers. I stand at the back watching Prem's smile and pleasure. Inside the changeroom, when Prem finally gets time to breathe. I stand at the changeroom doors, waiting for him to say something and he finally walks over to me. My heart starts to beat, faster and faster. My whole world freezes and all I see is Prem walking towards me, sweating. But my dreams break faster then glass, Prem walks right past me. Shocked, I turn around to see Sanjana hugging Prem. Tears want to escape my eyes, burning like coal inside me, but I hold them back. I stand there watching Prem and Sanajana hug, heartbroken. Broken into 1000 seperate pieces.
Prem and Sanjana walk over to me. Sanjana smirks at me and Prem, unable to control his smile or pleasure, starts talking about Sanjana.
"Oh thank you Sanjana for coming!. See Heer, I told you there are things called Lucky charms. See, Sanjana came and I ended up winning the game. You said that the luck and charm are within me and today, I say, that my heart is filled with Sanjana's love and there is where luck and charm resides."
"Aww...thank you baby."
Sanjana gives Prem a kiss on the cheek and smirks at me. I unable to disclose my tears and my feelings anymore, leave without saying another word. After I leave, Prem is unable to see what had he done wrong and calls out to me.
"Heer..."
"Aw, leave her na baby, she is just happy for you."
When I am outside, I don't bother getting inside the car, and instead start to run, running away from my life, from my feelings that I had surpressed within me, from Prem. From Tauras. From God. From Sanjana. From Padma. From MYSELF.
As I am running, I stop and start to cry. Showing my anger out, because no one was there to listen. No one was there to pacify me. No one was there to say that they cared about me....and for once, I was glad.
"WHY? WHY? WHY ME?" I look up at the hot sun and tears rolled down my eyes. "Kyun? Why am I being punished? Why? Why can't I be another normal girl? I can't live with all these things...I just can't. I am not strong enough to see Prem going away from me....I can't...."
My heart aching more, I slowly start kneeling while crying and questioning God if this was ever going to end. If I would ever be able to tell Prem that I loved him.
~End of Chapter 2~
Edited by *Shifali* - 15 years ago
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