Wilted Petals

Chapter 5: The Trio Reunites

"The amount of times that I visit your house is kind of unhealthy, Ashwini," Anwar shoots, as I hand him his glass of water.

Now that I think about it, if his dad and my uncle weren't childhood best friends, then having my best friend's fiance in my apartment would shoot a thousand messages. And none of them would have a positive connotation. "Hey, you know I love having you over. Though yeah, having your best friend's fiance over doesn't look that great to some people."

Anwar snickers a little bit, as he takes a sip of his water. I sit down right next to Anwar, as he eyes the apartment. I try to get a better understanding of what he's eyeing, because I don't know if he's just normally looking around or judging the whole layout and thinking that I lack any sort of taste.

After he finishes sipping his water, he turns back to me. "Seriously though. Fuck all the people who give us the sly eye when we chat over some food. I feel like people automatically ship male and female friends when they hang out."

That relates on a spiritual level, because I remember going out for ice cream with one of my guy friends as a sophomore in high school and people giving us the glances like we were dating and going to the lake to have sex afterwards. "Especially the Indian aunties."

Anwar lets out a loud scoff, as I hear him choke a little bit on the water he's sipping. He sits up a little bit higher to tell me one of his many interesting stories that he has up his sleeve. "I remember my aunt telling my mom about how I was talking to a girl and how that was a giant sin in her book. Like I had just robbed a bank and walked out like nothing had happened."

I snicker a little bit, but this is something I can't relate to. Considering my parents didn't instill in me that breathing around opposite sex was a one way ticket to hell, I ultimately can't feel Anwar's pain. "That's just irrational. Teens talk to girls all the time."

"Jaya, I was in the first grade."

My jaw falls open at that. High school is one thing. But doing that when they're in elementary school is crazy on so many levels. And not the good type of crazy, either.

Just when Anwar says that, the doorbell rings. Expecting it to be Jen, I start to walk over to the door. "Please tell me your mom told her to shut the fuck up."

Anwar nods his head vigorously. "Believe me, she did. I know some other parents that would've whooped their kids."

I chuckle a little bit, as I unlock the door and swing it open. As expected, I'm greeted by a breeze of Jen's blissful aura. Her bouncy chestnut hair is swept up into a high ponytail, while her strong eyebrows are furrowed into a look of frustration at whatever she had to deal with.

On one hand, she's clutching her purse, while on the other hand her fingers grasp her car keys. "Some people are absolute dunces when it comes to driving," Jen huffs, as she stomps over to the couch to rant about what she had to deal with in the parking lot.

I close the door behind her so nobody freezes to death. "You just realized? We've lived in the Bay Area all our life."

Anwar starts to snicker, as Jen brushes a wispy strand of hair prickling her temple behind her ear. I sit down on the chair right next to the couch. "The person next to my car parked literally a centimeter away from the right hand parking line. Nobody here has a sense of vision."

Jen is still huffing and puffing from the stress of parking in such a tight spot, like she ran a complete marathon before coming to my apartment. "I mean, after someone nearly killed you in that unprotected left turn, did you really expect anything?" Anwar asks, with a raised eyebrow.

Jen shrugs, as I shudder at that. Unprotected left turns were my worst enemy when I was learning how to drive, and Anwar bringing that up just unlocked a whole new set of memories I don't want to relive.

"Whatever. I'll just pull out again and see what happens," Jen states.

Because Anwar and I are 13 years old mentally, we both mutter, "That's what she said." Once we hear each other say that, we explode into another fit of laughter. The contagiousness eventually infects Jen, who can't help but burst into a fit of child-like giggles as well.

Once the laughter dies down a little bit, Jen leans in towards me a little bit to be filled in on what I have to say.  "Anyways, what did I miss?" she asks, as I cross my legs to balance my posture a little bit.

Once I remember what random shit Anwar and I were talking about, I say, "We're talking about how some parents are stupidly strict. Ours weren't like that, considering how close Manish and I were, but some were too much."

When I mention Manish, I can see Jen perk up a little bit like someone shouted, "Free ice cream!" Once she leans back and relaxes next to Anwar, she leans in like she has a machine gun of questions ready to start firing. "So, I heard you went out with Manish for coffee. Tell me, has he gotten hotter over the years?"

I scoff, as Anwar furrows his eyebrows and his eyes narrow in an attempt to really focus. I can tell he's trying to sort through his memory so he remembers exactly who Manish is. "Manish is the first guy you fell in love with, right?"

I give Anwar an affirmative nod, as he sits back to start hearing my answers. My eyes dart back to Jen so that I can start narrating to Jen what happened during our coffee date. "He still looks the same, Jen. To me, he's still the same Manish I fell in love with 10 years ago. Sweet, funny, and wouldn't hurt a fly. He just got older. That's the only difference."

Jen starts to lose bullets to fire towards me, and sinks back into the couch. It's almost as if she's raising the white flag and surrendering in this battle.

Anwar, on the other hand, is armed with a whole new caliber of questions. "Jaya, you still talk about him really fondly. Are you still in love with him?"

Ah, the question that is bigger than my medical school bill. Anwar decided to ditch the gun and use a cannon to fire that question.

I contemplate that answer for a few seconds, but the most honest thing that I can choke out is, "I don't know."

Anwar and Jen look at each other for a few seconds, like they're contemplating how to punish their misbehaving child. Anwar looks back at me, but this time there's an even bigger itch of a question that he wants to scratch. I can almost see the "fuck it," thought flicker in his eyes before he spits out what's bothering him. "So, are you going to tell him that you fell in love with him years ago?"

My reaction to that is almost immediate. I shake my head and say, "No, of course not. I don't want to make things awkward between us. I just got him back."

Jen leans in so that she can attempt to reason with me. "You know you have to tell him eventually, right? You're only making this harder on yourself by keeping it from him."

I let out a sigh, mainly because I know Jen's right. Like termites on wood, this secret has been eating away at me for the past 10 years. More than that, the pure regret of everything was what was acting like a slow poison inside of me, gradually driving me to the edge of emotional death. I never stopped making myself feel guilty over the fact that if I had realized my love for Manish a little bit earlier, then I wouldn't have lost him.

Jen, like she's part bloodhound, sniffs out my regret like it's a pound of cocaine. "Jaya, it's not your fault that you didn't tell him. Don't beat yourself up over it. Look, tell him when you're ready. We're not going to push you."

I give her a reassuring smile, but I still feel the regret stinging in the bottom of my chest. I try to swallow it back because I don't need my day to be ruined by that. Maybe I'd tell him eventually.

But now is far from the right time.

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Jaya's got a point though. When do you guys think it's the right time to tell? Let me know.

Hey everyone! I thought I'd include something with Anwar and Ashwini. Some people were also curious as to what's the relationship between Anwar and Ashwini. Now you guys know! I hope you guys liked the chapter.

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Love you guys,

Shree