I'LL LOVE TO BE LOVED

THE REAL HIM

Shravya paused her story as she witnessed a confusing look on Nikit's face.
  “You wanna ask something?” she asked him.
  “No. Actually how can you remember so much in detail.”
She started laughing and spoke, “It’s nothing like that. Actually I had the habit of writing diaries and I always thought of publishing my autobiography so my diary holds all the secret of my life. I wrote about all the small-small things that happened in my life. Well I now think how stupid the idea was. These past years, gave me a reason to read it again and again. I don’t know why I don’t want even a single memory to fade away.” Tears bubbled up in her eyes while she struggled to keep them back, hiding them with a smile.
  “What happened then? Where was Vihaan? And did you guys win?” Nikit asked curiously. Shravya continued.
 

Second group were on the stage and Vineet came up to us with a news that Vihaan was not in the room and then started the treasure hunt. My mind was constantly saying, ‘May be because his mom isn’t coming he is not gonna perform today.’ And that was making me nervous. I was lost in the thought that Aahana shook me and spoke, “Are you listening?” I found my band was not there anymore.
  “Shravya search for him in the parking area. Ok?”
I got the idea that everyone went in search of our leader. I knew Vihaan was in anger so I thought, ‘he probably didn’t want to perform and is in lot of anger. If by luck I’ll find him he’ll surely kill me.’
So obeying my mind I denied to Aahana.
  “I know you don’t like him but keeping that aside, look at the situation. Okay, you know what do it for Akul.”
  “See, I know I like him but I can’t die for him. Who knows you guys will reach on time to save me from him or not?” I pleaded.
  “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. But I wanted to keep what I saw to myself.
So within a sec I was in the parking looking at the car models and taking selfies with the one I was liking. It was 7:30 already and was getting dark but still enough light was present to see the surrounding. I was busy admiring the vehicles that lights turned on. I got scared but then I realized it was nothing to be scared of. I walked up to the last end where there was small gate leading to the back of the auditorium. It was dark but visibility was still there so all I saw was flowers blooming and that was enough for me to open the gate and go out. I was swooning the scent of the flowers that I felt someone standing behind me. I slowly turned back and found a guy about 20 with a knife in his hand. Before I could react he pulled me towards him and covered my mouth with his hands, and dragged me with him. I was shaking in fear. I was constantly slapping him and resisting to walk but his force was stronger than mine and I was feeling helpless but interesting part was yet to come. I closed my eyes and prayed to God. He dragged me to few lengths and warned, “Stop right now or she dies.”
I opened my eyes in shock, fully astonished and found a boy lying unconscious on the ground near my foot. I stumbled back in fear but the guy grabbed my arm and pushed me ahead pointing the knife at my neck. And guess who was standing in front of me? Vihaan Arora. The man I was searching for. He was drenched in sweat and I knew exactly why. Few bodies were lying down crying in pain and Vihaan didn’t even had a scratch on his body. He looked at me and scratched the back of his head like he didn’t cared at all.
  “Help me.” I murmured tears already down to my cheeks. Vihaan was constantly staring at me and I knew he was cursing me to be there.
  “Accept the proposal or I’ll kill her. I am pretty sure you would not let a stranger die for you.” The guy spoke. By this time I got the idea that it was about one of the bad things that Vihaan used to do and I was the part of the deal now. My life was at stake and all I was hearing was, ‘I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her.’ I was still struggling to get myself free while Vihaan was glaring at me.
I looked at him and whispered again, “Please.” Still there was hope that he’ll accept whatever the deal was and save me.
  “Boss is waiting boy. So what’s your decision now?”
  “It’s still the same.” Vihaan replied his eyes glued on me.
   “I am sorry you’ll have to die girl.”
   “Why are you doing this? Vihaan tell him to stop at once. Whatever your deal is keep it to yourself. Why are you involving me. See if you won’t let me go I’ll call the police.” I warned the guy in my shaky voice but he started laughing.
  “So you know him? But alas! He doesn’t care. Goodbye.” I looked at Vihaan and knew he didn’t like me but still I had hope that he won’t let me die cause of him.
  “Kill her.” Vihaan ordered and that killed all my hope. I don’t know why he kept on glaring at me and that was annoying me.
  “What?” I screamed.
  “Kill her. And please make it fast.” The other guy was confused at Vihaan’s words too.
  “But let me shoot it. It will be the best moment of my life. I wanna capture it.” Vihaan took out his phone and spoke, “Okay everyone ready in 1 2 and go..” That was hurting me. I believed he was a life saver but all turned out bad. I stopped struggling. I saw he was serious about it. I was busy absorbing the fact that he wants me killed that the other guy moved his hands to my waist and whispered in my ears, “So bad a beauty like you have to die with my own hands.” And I absolutely didn’t liked it. I again struggled to get free but he strengthened the grip.
  “Let me go.” I shouted. But my pleas went unheard.
  “Enough of the show. Your time is over.” Vihaan interrupted catching our attention.
Before I could think of anything Vihaan pulled me towards him after punching hard on the guy’s face. Blood oozed out from the guy’s mouth. That amazed me.
Within a second, the other boy charged towards Vihaan holding the knife in his hand but Vihaan was a pro he already had dealt with guys like him and the people lying in ground were the proof of that. Everyone stood up and watching Vihaan in action again ran away from there. The guy who threatened to kill me, captured the chance and attacked Vihaan giving a deep cut on his hand. Vihaan stumbled back holding his hand and that gave that gangster a chance to flea. Vihaan jerked his hand and his eyes followed the guy.
  “Are you okay?” I asked in a frightened tone. But he didn’t replied and started moving towards the parking. I quietly followed him and then he stopped and I knew I was doomed.
  “What were you doing here?” he asked facing his back at me.
  “Flowers.” I replied still scared.
  “Oh really.” He turned and he was carrying the same expression as the time when he tried killing me.
  “Instead of staying with the band you came here, alone, to swoon over these flowers?”
  “I was asked to search for you. Our performance is soon and you are still not ready. Everyone are stressed.” I spoke innocently.
  “5 minutes. That’s all I need to get ready. Girl, you seriously are mad. Okay, you always say that you are brave right, and you are not scared of me, what happened today when that guy pointed knife at you, where was your bravery or does it comes out of you suddenly, just against me. He was just one guy. You could have kicked him, punched him or done anything else. Why did you let him capture you? Listen being a girl doesn’t mean you have to depend on a guy for helping you. Learn to protect yourself and don’t worry at all, you let that guy know that you know me and from now on you will be their target.” He spoke which was more shocking then anything else. If my parents knew about it, I was in big trouble.
  “What this is all about?” I asked.
  “You know me right. I fight for money. Me and my boys we all are the strongest competitors among the emerging fighters. There’s a guy who wanna buy us to fight from his side and I don’t want that cause he isn’t good. I know he’ll do anything to do whatever he wants so all I want to say to you is, good luck. Well come on now we got to give our performance on stage.” He spoke and grabbed my wrist. I think he too knew that I froze after hearing him. I went to the band and gave them the news that Vihaan was getting ready. 5th band was on stage and I was engrossed in thinking about what Vihaan said. After few minutes I heard his voice again.
  “I was messing with you. You are safe.” I turned and found him standing behind me and for the first time I was relieved to hear his words. That was seriously relieving. But what surprised me most was his dressing.
A plain white T-shirt, blue denim jeans, white sneakers, locket hanging on his chest and bands in his wrist.
I looked at Aahana cause she was the manager who decided all had to wear black. But white was truly complementing his looks which was really strange cause I was loving it. But seriously looking at a whole new him, I was impressed.
  “Dress code was black.” Aahana commented.
  “I know.” He replied.
  “Where’s black?”
  “Here.” He pointed to his wrist bands and the ear.
  “You are unbelievable.” She spoke.
  “He’s our leader, he need to stand out.” Akul supported him.
   “A leader who was lost and band had to search for him. And who knows what he was busy doing?” I commented.
  “I swear if anyone knows about what happened earlier, I’ll kill you.” He whispered.  
  “I know.” I too replied him rudely.
  “Okay, we are up next. Ready guys?” Aahana spoke.
We all sang yes in chorus.
  “Please don’t forget your lines on stage. I beg you.” Vihaan pleaded to me before climbing up on stage.
I saw my parents and Aadi waving at me and that encouraged me to give my best. It is seriously the best feeling in the world. Your family cheering for you and giving you the courage to face the crowd. I turned to Vihaan, his eyes glued on someone and I saw he wasn’t glad to see whosoever he was looking at. There’s that look in your eyes right, when you want that person to support you, to encourage you but they don’t, he was carrying the same look in his eyes. He froze on his spot. I recalled him conversing with his mom and thought that she was there. I shook him. It was like he woke up from his fantasies, “Yeah.” He spoke.
  “I’m sorry. So let’s start in 1,2, 3 and music.”
Our performance started and seriously he didn’t even looked at the audience again. Either he was facing me, the band or the ground. He was singing that I noticed the wound from earlier. He had tied a handkerchief to hide it which was going perfect with the clothing and I unconsciously smiled looking at that. He looked at me and raised his hands. I holded it and he spun me around. He was completely enjoying the song, so was I and there was this thought in my mind that trophy is ours.
Our performance ended and whole auditorium was filled with applauds.
Vihaan literally ran out from there.
  “What’s wrong with him?” Aahana asked.
  “I’ll see.” Akul spoke and went to him.
  “He was okay on stage.” Aahana spoke.
  “No, he wasn’t.” I uttered still looking at the direction he left. I was worried for him.
  “What?” She asked.
  “Nothing. He just doesn’t seem like Vihaan we all know.” Aahana agreed with me. Akul and Vihaan joined us later and it was result time. We were runner up but we were happy. We were called on stage and presented with the trophy. I was so happy and guess what when our pic was clicked, I was beside Akul. Unconsciously a couple’s picture.
I was dancing at my house not because we won but because I finally had Akul's and mine pic together.
  “Knock-knock. And Ahem!” Aadi entered. I stopped dancing.
  “Well. Congo sis. Where was Vihaan?” He asked. I had full trust in myself that I can’t hide anything from him.
  “How do you know about it?” I asked suspiciously.
   “He wasn’t on stage.” He spoke.
   “Aadi, what are you talking about?”
   “Whole band was on stage at result declaration except the leader.” He spoke and I wasn’t getting anything.
    “What?”
He showed me the pic and seriously Vihaan wasn’t there. I was looking at Aadi with big eyes.
    “Why I feel you know something?” He asked me suspiciously.
    “I don’t know.”
    “I know you don’t know a lot of things but I feel you know something this time.”
    “See I know a lot of things.” I argued.
    “Since when?” he teased me.
    “Aadi seriously you wanna talk about this?”
    “No absolutely not. I know I have already won this argument.”
    “Bhai?” I shouted.
    “I’m listening.”
I told him everything about my first experience of getting involved in a fight. And I witnessed his reaction. He was shocked. I had to shake him to bring him back to reality.
    “No Shrav. We have to tell mom and dad.”
    “No Bhai. They’ll kill me. Please I beg you.” I pleaded.
    “But...”
    “He said I am safe.” I spoke.
    “Shravya I’m trusting you this time but you’ll regret keeping this from mom and dad.”
    “Truly speaking. This isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”
    “More surprises that prove that my sis has changed.”
    “I am ignoring that for now. Well I heard Vihaan talking to his mom and the surprising thing was, he cried.”
    “So..”
    “Bhai he cried. Vihaan cried. You know when we were on stage he was looking at someone and that was troubling him.”
    “Why is it troubling you then?”
    “It’s not troubling me, I just want to know why.”
    “You hate him.”
    “Uh-ah, loathe.” I corrected him.
    “Wait so you think that cause of this Vihaan wasn’t on stage?” He asked curiously.
    “May be.”
We seriously discussed a lot until mom scolded us for being awake for too late. So our discussion ended with Aadi advising me, “Competition ended. Stay away from him now. Ok.”
Next day Akul came running to me.
    “Hey Shravya.” I turned and found myself in the lap of nervousness. Best part Aahana wasn’t around.
Instead of saying ‘hi' I simply took a very deep breath.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    “I know.” I replied. Seriously my mind stopped and listening to my reply to his questions, I wanted to slap myself.
    “I don’t think you are fine today.” He spoke.
    “Seriously I am not weird. Trust me. I am a good girl.” I didn’t want him to think that I was weird. Failed miserably.
    “Copy that or whatever you say. Well wanna come to library with me?”
    “Huh!” That was all I uttered.
    “Don’t worry Aahana told me that you are going to library so I thought of joining you. It is fine with you right?” He asked so cutely that I wasn’t able to deny, neither I wanted to. We went to library. I truly enjoyed that small-small romantic things like, accidentally touching of hands, whispering in each other’s ear silently, opening of books in front but only talking to each other, in short I enjoyed his accompany.
But as we were coming out of the library I collided with Vihaan and his team.
    “I was searching for you.” Vihaan spoke.
    “Why?” I asked.
    “Your song book. You left it in the room yesterday.” He spoke and my heart stopped. As I told earlier that diary had a middle page and in that page was scribbled Akul's name in red pen captioned, ‘my first crush.’
I first looked at Akul in shock and then at Vihaan. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him behind me but damn he didn’t move at all.
    “I need to talk to you. Alone.” I spoke turning back. He moved his head in disappointment and walked with me.
    “You read it?” I was waiting eagerly for his no.
    “I’m not dump enough to read your boring stuff.” He replied.
    “Oh thank goodness.”
    “Anything else?” He asked.
    “How’s your wound?” I asked hesitantly.
    “What wound?” he asked surprisingly.
    “Cut from yesterday. Remember?”
    “Yeah! That’s fine. Anything else?”
    “There is but I know you won’t reply.” I spoke recalling him crying.
    “Well then I’ll go.” He spoke.
As he went away I checked my song book and guess what my two incomplete songs were now complete and the song, I’ll love to be loved, it’s ending had new words which were, ‘This song is not yours. Remember that. Chorus is mine. Fake brave.’ And I understood he definitely read my book.
    “You lier.” I shouted to him. He waved his hands without even looking at me. But I was damn sure that he didn’t read that middle page cause he didn’t tease me or made fun of it or told Akul about it. So I was fine with it.
School life was fun after that. Those spoiled brats whom I hated were now my friends and seriously there company was best. They weren’t bad people they just had few defects which I think everyone has in themselves. Competition seriously gifted some good friends to me and especially Akul. We became good friends, of course he was my crush but I was his best friend and once I spended some time alone with him my nervousness vanished. Talking about Vihaan, that guy seriously made no progress in my rating. He was unbelievable. Every time I tried thinking of him in a good way he used to be there to prove me wrong. Our fights grew to such extend that our friends didn’t even used to let us see each other. That boy was seriously a trouble. Well talking about Akul, once I was talking to some girls that he shouted from back, “Boooo" and trust me when you are busy and someone does that, it scare the hell out of you. I got scared and screamed. I turned with my hands covering my mouth. Tears of shock in my eyes. I wasn’t crying, tears bubbled up cause I was shocked. I turned and found Akul standing behind me, laughing. He looked at me and his smile faded.
    “I am sorry. Please don’t cry.” He spoke.
    “I hate you.” I spoke.
    “After this, I kind of thought of that. Come here.”
He cuddled me in his arms and what more I could have opted for. My luck was working perfectly for me. Soon boards came, exams finished, I scored good and now it was time to get into Aadi's college. It was decided from the start, after all it was the best college in the city. I was praying to God for Akul being in the same college. I remember one day Aahana was in our house talking to Aadi both were in the middle of serious conversation but stopped as I entered.
    “What happened? Why you guys stopped?” I questioned.
    “She’s my friend. We were conversing and now it ended.” Aadi spoke stealing his gaze and I knew he was hiding something. I looked at Aahana, she was smiling and that smile was very clever. Aahana was close to Aadi more than she was with me after all they were the best friends from the childhood. I was Aahana's friend cause she was Aaditya's friend. I was left out from there conversation most of the time. So, it wasn’t new for me.
    “So you talked to Akul?” Aahana asked.
    “About what?”
    “He is going to US. You know that right?” She told me and I was completely shook.
    “What?” I screamed in astonishment but mostly disheartened.
    “Oh sorry I forgot you are not in social media. Well his status stated he has flight tomorrow.” She spoke and that was terrible.
   “Well good for him right. He is rich and he deserves to study abroad.” That was really hard for me to say. I knew I still liked him. I found Aadi and Aahana staring at me.
    “You are okay with him going abroad?” Aadi questioned.
    “He won’t stop for me. Well it’s just a feeling that make him so special to me and I’ll forget it in no time so it’s cool.” I was rocking those huge lines but I was a bit upset. No one can change luck. Whatever happens, it’s for a reason and I am still living with that thought.

Shravya was interrupted by waiter who was there with the bill. Nikit tipped him and they both walked out of the shop in silence.
   “Is it okay if we continue this story at your place?” Nikit asked breaking the silence between them.
   “You are curious to know what happened?” Shravya asked smiling.
   “Frankly speaking I’m dying to know.” Nikit spoke and that made Shravya laugh. Nikit saw that side of Shravya for the first time and that made him fall in love with her again but he knew this wasn’t because of him but cause of someone who wasn’t  in her life anymore.
Soon both sat on Shravya's room with her continuing her story.