An-EXIT

CHAPTER 3 (NIGHT STAY)

AHAANA

"Hold the corner." Maa threw the bedsheet in the air while holding it from one end, forming a huge balloon-like structure over my bed, as I saw it unfolding. The bedsheet which is now scattered in an amoeba shape over the mattress, is meant for 'special occasions' as per my mother's dictionary. But why is she taking it now? For Arushi?

"Mom, do we really have to do these stupid things? This isn't the first time she's coming over!" I fussed. "She knows how messy I'm, where I hide my test papers, what my wardrobe looks like and the best part, how you gossip about Mrs. Singh (Arushi's mother)" I sat over the mattress.

Mom gulped and asked, "Really? When did she hear?"

"Never mind!" I took the other end of the bedsheet from her hand and covered it over the mattress, nice and clean.

"The room is CLEAN now, I guess your job is done, so do you mind leav-" I turned to look at her, and she was busy reading something from my wardrobe.

"When do you reach there?" She was with them. The letters, the whole freaking bunch of letters. Why do I even have them? Till now?

"Ahaana, are these yours?" She moved them in the air, and my eyeballs followed their movement.

"Maa, I've asked you a lot of times to not touch my wardrobe without my permission! And what is this? This is beyond touching, okay?" I walked towards her to snatch them away, but the mom she is, she jumped in my opposite direction and sat on the bed.

"Oh, Ahaana! You've got a lot of Valentine's Day cards!" A creepy looking smile plastered on her face.

"Maa, just ignore them." I tried another attempt, the result was the same as before.

Valentine's day in our school used to be a total mess. Boys, who were never decent, would suddenly start to behave like a gentleman. For me, this day is just as same as the other 364 days, but for Maa, this day holds a separate meaning. From the beginning of my eighth grade, I started to receive some strange attention from my surroundings. It was a little weird for me, but it got creepier when I found out the reason behind this sudden attention. The changes my body had been through due to puberty, posed a severe attack on my soul. Arushi says that puberty had hit me so hard, even my old self would straight away deny from recognizing my present self. How could that even be possible?

"Have you read them?" She glanced at me. "There is no chance that you wouldn't have read them!" A clear sign of disapproval spreaded on my face like a flu, but Maa ignored me and continued her business. She flipped open one of them and savagely started reciting them. WHY? I mean Why?

"You're so sweet, you can put Hershey's out of business." A text written with a glitter pen felt weaker in front of sparkles in my mother's eyes.

"Ahaana, I'd always been worried that my little baby might threaten her schoolmates, but this line brought a quick relief to me." Seriously? Quick relief? Is she okay?

I really wanted to give her a sarcastic reply, but all I could say was, "Maa, can you stop reading them?"

"Okay baba, but can I take a quick look at the other greeting card? Please, last one!" She picked up another card and flipped it open.

"They say Disneyland is the happiest place on earth. Well apparently, no one has ever stood next to you." Her expressions summarized in an awe. She was looking at the card with so much light in her eyes, that it made me ponder- Whom has it actually been addressed to?

"Maa, they all are just googled pick-up lines. Don't get so impressed by them. Also, do you really think they're enough to impress a po-" A poet. For the thing which has always scared me, even after a stretch of two years, I cannot completely remove poetry from my life. I have already given up on it, but it is not ready to give up on me.