My Favourite Dream

7. The Appointment

Parineet's POV

"Dil ne ye kaha hai dil se.." this song and his reaction! I was laughing like a mad person seeing a well read, calm and composed doctor like that. He was so conscious in front of me when his phone rang loudly in that silent environment. I gasped in horror and laughed. How could I have controlled my laugh. Dr Taran was trying his best to cut the call but the phone hanged. I just laughed so much that I almost went breathless and tears started forming in my eyes.
Tears of realisation that I am far away from words like laugh, smile and happiness. I don't know how, when and why it happened that today after so long, I giggled so much. My eyes glistened and I immediately turned my back to bhaiya and Dr Taran. They didn't notice because they were engaged in some conversation. I don't know for how long they talked, my eyes and brain were hazy, everything seemed to blur in front of me since tears took over and my mind went back to the memories of Neeti and Rajeev! I used to be happy back then. Neeti has always been the constant reason behind my smile while the latter became the reason why I don't smile anymore.

I tried. It's not that I gave up on myself. I tried harder. To overcome the grief. To move on in life. To close that gloomy chapter of my life for forever. But nothing worked. Nothing seems to help. I have become a robot. I don't own my emotions, my feelings nowadays. I smile when someone smiles, I cry when no one's watching me. I have stopped feeling anything for my sake. Parineet Kakkar is not any longer living.
These two months post my suicide attempt passed in a blur. I didn't know how I spent them. Initially I tried various methods to distract my mind from Rajeev and Neeti. It was not easy as it seemed from Dr Taran. He said I should do meditation, yoga or music. Music helped alot but I couldn't listen to music twenty four seven. Can I?
Time to time, Neeti made constant attempts to talk to me. Uncountable messages, calls, video calls - all unattended! I didn't pick up a single call but read all the messages she sent.

"Pari what has happened to us? Why are you ignoring me? I am very tensed please reply Pari. I can't handle this. Our friendship is most important thing to me than anything else in this world and you know that! Kya hua hai pari? Mujhse baat kar.."

How can I tell her what has happened? Because if I do, I can't tell what will happen to us, to her, to me. It's a reck! Her constant efforts of reaching out to me, did affect me so badly. I haven't slept soundly since ages. I don't remember when I last slept, smiled with all my heart, or even lived.
Life has become mechanical over the past three months. I don't tell bhaiya about my state because I can't worry him for me. Whenever he's around, or looks at me, I force a smile on my face for him. He has done alot for me and is still doing so much hardwork for me when I just sit ideally with tears in my eyes, crying behind the closed doors for someone who doesn't deserve my attention. When bhaiya asks about the bags and dark circles under my eyes, i just come up with an excuse but how longer he will believe me? He must have heard me cry through the walls. I don't sleep, I dont eat. The latter one has become a big issue in his life. Bhaiya keeps on asking why am I not eating and I just lie. in the last three months, i learnt nothing but mastered the art of lying by looking directly in the eyes of people. I have become good at hiding my state of mind and my emo-
No I don't feel anymore.

I very well understand that I should not cry over what happened in my past but these tears of mine, just don't get it. Every night, after following my daily routine of doing chores and each day when bhaiya leaves me alone at our house to go office, I am just overcome by grief. I don't know what am I grieving for. It's that bad. I just cry. Absurd questions, thoughts and feelings arise in my mind about Neeti and her husband. 

I get bizarre hallucinations of them having their own gala time, Neeti having what I never ever could have thought of, them laughing at me when I know Neeti would never do that to me. I think about every moment I spent with that cheater despite of trying my very best to forget everything and leave him behind but it is not working. And when sometimes sleep takes over me, I dream of both of them cheating on me, mocking me, leaving me all alone. I get nightmares of me being stranded alone in crowds, of sounds and noises of strangers who only mock me. I feel like a corpse moving in and out of rooms, walking like a mannequin, who smiles when i am under someone's gaze, who fakes every emotion because I can't see Vicky bhaiya being sad because of me. It's a mess!