Cross-border Merger

The Truth Tap

After talking to Sam my phone alarm started to ring indicating that it was finally time to join Sid and Aish on a video call. So, I dropped the idea of making myself another cup of chai and simply ran to my room.

"Bitch you're a goddamn lawyer. How in the world are you still never on time?" Aish questions me as soon as I join the video call.

"Seriously Aish? I won't get any 'How are you Yukta? How're you holding up? We miss you' stuff?" I question her back acting to be offended.

"How are you Yukta? How're you holding up? We miss you. happy now?", Sid throws it all back at me.

"You guys are the worst"

We all start laughing after that and I don't know why. I guess I just really missed their stupidity so  I started laughing and then they started laughing at my laugh which is actually horrendous sometimes. 

"God your laugh is back" Sid said while continuing to laugh.

See... Told you! 

After we calmed ourselves down, I asked them, "So, tell me how's everything going?"

As always, Aish is the first one to start, "Oh trust me there's nothing interesting going on with my life. I am still pretending to be interested when a snobby person walks into the boutique. Life's still boring and guess what... tomorrow is finally the day that I'm gonna break my head since I'll have to interview some people to assist me at the boutique."

"Why? Is Ananya leaving?" Ananya was the girl who helped Aish in attending the customers.

"Yeah. Ananya is actually getting married and her fiancee does not live in Delhi so she'll be moving from here."

"That's great! Tell Ananya I'm sending her my wishes" I tell Aish.

"Well since I'm still at the boutique and Ananya's right here, why don't you tell her yourself" Aish says as she calls Ananya.

I congratulate her and talk to her for a while before a customer walks into the boutique and Ananya goes back to do her job.

"Hey Aish, now that Ananya's getting married, Aunty would be so after you to get hitched too"

"Oh tell me about it... Mumma's already going nuts. It's like Ananya's making her proud by getting married and I'm in a way disgracing the family by neither finding anyone myself nor selecting anyone she's suggesting. Wait ..." Aish started looking away from the phone, "guys I've got to go. I'll catch up with you later."

"Yeah yeah chill! You go run your boutique", I tell Aish and she blows off a kiss.

"So, why are you so awfully quiet today?", I ask Sid.

"I'm not quiet, I always talk less, remember?" Sid replies.

"Okay mister. Dripping sarcasm today, are we? What happened?", I ask him again.

"I'm telling you nothing happened." I raise one eyebrow as if to tell him if he seriously thinks I'm going to believe him. 

"Okay fine, I'll tell you but not today. Promise", Sid finally says.  

I know to not push him further than this point. Sid knows my limits and I know about his. You know there is this person in your life that understands you even when you fail to do that sometimes... Sid is that person for me. I don't even remember how or when did we become such good friends but I always thank my stars for making it happen.

"Now you'll tell me how's everything going for you and in fact more importantly why did you not pick up my call that day."

Shit! I can't tell him that I was crying that day!

"Everything is going pretty good right now. Today was my second day at University. All my Professors are pretty good except this one Professor whose class is the hardest to take in. In that particular class I met this guy Calum and he introduced me to his friends today and they invited me to hang out with them too which means that I guess I made some friends today. So, that's good," I told him with genuine happiness. 

"That's amazing Yukta! As much as I am happy for you for finally settling in, I know that you totally tried to dodge my second question which means that something's wrong and you're not telling me about it. And now don't even give me some 'I was busy' bullshit because I know that wasn't the reason." He caught me.

Since there was no point in lying to him anymore I told the truth as discreetly as possible without breaking my Non disclosure agreement.

"Okay, yeah, you got me. It's just that I was feeling pretty low that day. I had just moved in and then my housemate was a total jerk to me and I was missing home and I wanted to talk to you but I didn't want to cry and didn't want you to worry," I realised I was blabbering, "so yeah your call came and I just couldn't get it in me to talk."

The worst part is Sid literally looks into your soul when he wants an answer and the truth then just keeps flowing out as if your mind forgets to turn off the truth tap.