Wrong Impressions

Chapter 6

Illinois, Chicago

Song playing: Beating Heart - Ellie Goulding

Tejasswi laughed as she chucked three shots of kamikazes back to back along with the rest of the party who stood in line at the front of the bar. The song had changed to something soothing, the starting beats slowly sinking into her mind and she started swaying to it. Teja wasn't drunk yet, she had a decent tolerance when it came to alcohol and Kamikaze wasn't as strong a shot comparatively but tiny effects had started happening, making everything around her a little less hyper and noisy. She blinked and looked at the people she was with, smiling as they all seemed to be enjoying the music, laughing, dancing, talking. Her best friend, Ashrita who had come all the way from India, hugged her from around her waist and they giggled while dancing to the music.

It had been eight months... eight months since she flew down to Chicago, just a day before the lockdown was imposed on India. Teja remembered staring at her laptop screen at the ticket reservation, the cursor going back and forth from the paying to the canceling option. Almost all of her signed projects with an exception of one had been wrapped up - a song for which she could request the shooting to be preponed in case she made the decision. In usual circumstances, Teja wouldn't care about staying at home. She was a homebody so any excuse to stay indoors with her parents, read all the books on her shelf, learn something new, shoot more vlogs, and whatnot. The options were endless. But after a difficult few months she had, she didn't think it was a good idea. Teja had just started coming out of it and knew if she let herself be alone for a longer period, she'd lose it. It was what had made her reserve her tickets in the first place when they were told that all the projects were wrapping up quickly due to the rumored lockdown which could be for god knows how long. What sealed the deal was her mother's insistence on her going to America to visit her brother and cousins, while she and her father had decided to go South to visit their extended family for a while. And here she was... eight months later, finally out of the house as US restrictions toned down a little, celebrating her birthday with her best friend who had flown to Chicago with her husband for the occasion. This particular bar and grill had live music, brilliant food, and a total chill atmosphere - a perfect place to go to after eight months of living on takeaways and home food. And Teja was having a hell of a time!

The area they were all crammed in was the noisiest. Well, what else did you expect from a table with eleven people as crazy as the other? Her brother was a little calm in life along with one of her cousins but when they all gathered together, calm wasn't a word in their vocabulary. They were a family of crazy and you could guarantee having a time of their life no matter where they went. People were shooting them strange glances, some smiling at their antics, some annoyed at the amount of noise they were making but none of them seemed to even notice it as they did their own thing. Teja was slightly intoxicated by that point and had no idea who was doing what when suddenly her name was called out loudly from the stage.

"Oops... sorry... hii everyone." Teja turned in surprise to notice her best friend staggering as she jumped on the stage, taking the mic from the singer who shot her an annoyed look but couldn't stop her from taking the mic away. "It's my best friend's birthday, who keeps telling me to prove if I still love her so I am going to use this opportunity to sing for her in my terrible voice but hey, that counts as love, right?" She giggled clearly drunk, pointing at her and Teja laughed, clapping her hands together excitedly. She loved attention, well the good kind, and this sort of made her day. "Happy birthday Tejasswi Prakash Wayangankar! And this is the first and the last time you will ever find me singing in public... JUST FOR YOU. You better not ask me to prove my love again." And she started singing as the entire bar started laughing and cheering for her. One of the servers even took Teja's hand and made her stand on a vacant table, twirling her as her friend sang, accompanied by the band and the rest of the people in the bar.