Whispers of Heart (Part 1 of the Hallway Love Series)

Chapter 10

       Naina and Aisha Murty are coming for a trip from London!

This thought made her turn and she looked at Manik who was staring back at her. Nandani's eyes held fear which went unnoticed by Manik and their eye lock broke as the bus started moving.

Nandani took a deep breath before looking back at her mother and saying,

Nandani: Did they reach?

Her mother nodded as they started walking to the house.

Nandani: did you meet them?

Her other mother nodded again making Nandani sigh.

Nandani: let's go then! We can't hide forever!

She said walking to her house.

Well as much as the twisted story tale she had with her cousins, her mother had with her sisters-in-law aka Nandani's aunts.

They all had a very weird thing of visiting their parents every now and then. As much as Nandani loved it when she was young she hates it now knowing the fact that they all meet just to bitch about their extended family or each other (sometimes). The arrival of Aisha and Naina Murty means that the entire family will be living here at Nandani's house until and unless the two ladies leave!

Nandani has been looking forward to this day for a month now but the day's event distracted her and she forgot.

The mother-daughter duo reached home to see the entire MURTY CLAN sitting. It took Nandani to greet and hug and take blessings from everyone 20 min before she proceed to go and change.

As she went upstairs she sat in her bed thinking,

Can't school be a little longer?

Having no answer she got up to freshen up and leave for her tuition.

The time passed so slowly but the month finally passed and it was soon the day Naina and Aisha Murty were leaving back for London!

Thankfully there was no major drama happening in the house or school for Nandani.

Aryaman and Nandani were thick friends and use to talk the entire time on the bus. Even Alya use to join them now and then, which use to irritate Cabir and Mukti to the guts.

Manik never paid heed to any of this and was busy looking outside all the time, though that is what everyone thought.

Nandani never gave heed to any of them. She use to have a conversation with Alya which was very cut-to-cut. Alya who had no idea what happened always used to think that Nandani has some great attitude issues.

Nandani was very much over her likeness towards Manik but there were some times when she use to find herself looking for him or looking out for him. They both had an unspoken agreement, in the morning Nandani will sit at the 2nd last seat, and in the afternoon Manik. As soon as the London-hites went back the summer vacation started. Nandani had no big plans this summer and was going to stay home the entire vacation.

A week went by and she completed 60% of her homework as per her habit every year. Now she had nothing interesting to do so she started watching the Kaisi Yeh Yaariyan again. After that, she started cycling every day in the evening. She had a path set where she use to go from, and of course, this path had Manik's house in his way.

Well, it's not her fault that he lives on one of the main roads of society.

She said to herself the first day when she saw him hanging on the balcony.

The entire day she had nothing to do but see KYY and then go cycling. This emerged the tiny bit of crush that she still had on Manik emerge. She always found Manik like Parth Samthaan and herself as Niti Taylor.

She tried to divert her mind from this, knowing that this was not gonna end well for her.

He is never going to be mine.

She use to think the same thing every time she use to picture them together. She had no one to talk to except Sanket. But how can she expect a boy to understand her dilemma?

She could not even in her wildest dreams share this with her mother, which rules out her father. This leads to something which she didn't understand. She started having chocolates all the time to get over her thoughts and before she knew she used to have at least 4-5 chocolates every day. Her thoughts started taking a toll on her when she saw that no one in her family noticed.

One day while watching one of the KYY episodes she saw the same condition as her being shown. She searched to know that she have been suffering from bulimia. She has got fatter from her chubby body. She had stretch marks across her body and when she noticed all this she couldn't help but cry and her condition.

She was out of control with her emotions all over the place, and that's when she recollected a dialogue from her favourite fantasy book,

"Collect all the emotions that you feel and force them into that one emotion"

She looked at herself and all that she could feel was terror. She was scared of what will happen if her mother came to know about this. She was already scared of her mother and now this? She will kill her!