Thinking of You

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Author's POV:

Present Day

Randeep disconnected the call of the security guard and exhaled heavily through his mouth. He drew his one leg out and rested on the rug on the floor, the other one still folded, and leaned forward resting his elbows on the knees and hiding his face with his big palms. He was having a slight headache and dizziness. And it wasn't just the strong and neat Jack Daniel's but he also had had scotch in the evening with his friends. He was having a terrible hangover.

Six months... It had been six months that Randeep had posted that reel announcing the AshDeep videos. But nothing has happened in this time period. Literally nothing. Various emotions were building inside Randeep over this period. Anger, guilt, helplessness, regret, ego, anxiety, failure, perturbation and what not... He experienced every single emotion of these in the six months period. He was angry at Ashi because he never expected that she would keep him waiting for this one promise and also due to her changed behaviour since that time. But he would then melt easily whenever her posts or reels dropped on his feed. He could never believe in himself that he had seen her 'switching positions', 'tenu mai dassa' and 'harfanmaula' reels on loop when they were posted. This was so unlikely of him. He tried to hold a grudge on her too, but he failed every time seeing her smile, though only on social media.

Helplessness because he couldn't do anything regarding the videos until Ashi coordinates with him. There were two people involved in this promise and its fulfilment was dependent on the presence of the other person too. Ego because after asking for two more times, he just left all this on her response. Failure because he was unsuccessful in convincing his ex-costar for such a small thing, whom he has known for four years now. But out of all, the most prominent emotions he had undergone all the while were guilt and regret. Guilt of not delivering to the fans what he had promised six months ago and regret of putting that reel in the first place itself. The only thing he could do in this span of six months was 'unfollowing' Sunny.

But he had been feeling very low from inside for the past two-three months. Regarding his work, he had done only two episodics, that too for his friends Aniruddh Dave and Abhishek Saxena; release of the two music videos he shot for in Delhi was postponed due to covid times and then this second lockdown. He was there in Goa for some days too, but looking at the worsening situation outside, he couldn't enjoy the stay to the fullest. What had impacted him badly was when the second wave of covid reached his family and he just couldn't do anything. He was just helpless, vulnerable and gloomy in those 15-20 days of May month. He had completely lost his senses; panic and worry took over him in those days and he used to spend all his day either talking to his family or praying to God, alienating himself from the world by keeping his phone on flight mode. Thankfully his brother recovered soon from covid and he sighed in relief. Gradually he too came out of worry with his friends being around to cheer him up.

There was one thing that was bothering him for quite a long time now, and it was the stand taken by his friends lately on his 'reels' thing. Initially, his friends, Abhilash, Zain, and Abhishek Kapoor, weren't bothered much when they got to know about his reel. All of them were mature enough not to interfere in their friend's personal matters, but they knew what all was going on in his life. But when they didn't see any result coming out of it even after 2 months, they cautiously started asking questions to Randeep about the what's and how's and why's. Randeep used to share just some basic information when being asked, but over time, they knew what was the exact matter. Randeep didn't like this topic being discussed over and over again, and hence he would sometimes just snap at his friends when they would breach the topic.

He remembered how once he and Abhilash were engaged in a serious talk when Abhilash had asked him about it.

"Haan toh mujhe kya pata tha yaar woh itna time lagayegi...." Randeep had scowled at Abhilash.