An-EXIT

CHAPTER 19 (GIRLFRIEND)

MITANSH

2014 (2 YEARS BACK)

"Mitansh, what should we do?" Zaid threw his hands in the air and then tied them at the back of his head. Zaid, Agastya and I were sitting around the table, placed in the center of our hostel's room.

"Funds! But from where will we get the funds?" Agastya raked his fingers through his hair debating what to say next.

"Relax guys, stop making this look so hard!" I eyed both of them, and scrunched my eyebrows together.

"Seriously Mitansh! You think we're making this hard?" Zaid questioned me while slightly raising his voice to attract our attention.

"This isn't the time to fight dude!" Agastya turned his face towards his right to look at Zaid who was clearly glaring at me.

"Yes, you are making this hard! All you are doing is ranting about our conditions and crying over the loss of time." I glared at him with equal intensity.

"Guys-"

"Ya right! Says the one, who didn't even try to ask his father for help." Zaid fired back.

"Zaid, don't!" I warned him in a deep voice, giving him a deadly stare. My head tilted slightly at one axis without losing my eye contact. It was pretty clear that I was pissed.

"No, tell me. Why didn't you ask him?" he pressured further.

"That's none of your business!" I continued in the same level of my voice and looked at Agastya from the corner of my eye, keeping his palm on Zaid's shoulder to drop this.

"That surely is my business! OUR business. We are working our asses off on this project. So don't you dare think that it isn't important for me. It is as important to me just as it is to you, get this straight in your fucking head!" Zaid raised his voice further, practically shouting. The vein in his forehead throbbed.

I closed my eyes and placed my thumb and forefinger on the bridge of my nose, pressing them together trying to calm myself down.

Agastya exhaled deeply, "You guys, please don't fight right now!" his voice was weak and low. My left hand's fist which was clenched a minute ago, loosened its grip as I heard Agastya speak.

"He doesn't know about our project!" I said after a short silence, looking downwards.

"What do you mean?" Zaid questioned.

"From the day Maahir's panic attack went out of our hands, he refused everyone to talk about it. He was so concerned for Maahir, that he tried to erase words such as anxiety, depression, panic attacks entirely from his life, from our lives. I know it was a dumb idea, and he should have read about it more, but If he gets to know that I'm doing something big related to this, he will not forgive me." My eyes were still tracing the marble flooring.

"Why didn't you tell us about this?" I could feel Agastya's eyes looking at me.

Gulping the lump inside my throat, I looked up and said, "Because I don't want this project to stop under any circumstances!" My expressions were clear and straight.

We three took a deep breath and exhaled sharply, looking at the ceiling in unison.

"This shouldn't be this tough!" I looked straight to face Zaid, who was sitting in front of me. He closed his eyes, and a line of tension slowly disappeared from his forehead.

"I know-" He said.

"I'm going to rob a bank, someone's coming with me?" Agastya said with full enthusiasm trying to lighten the mood. Nodding his head, he pretended to memorize his plan of robbery in his mind.