Playing Her Lover

Part 18 - Trigger

The seminar room felt like a dead battleground. Siddhu was crying with his face hidden in his knees, Swara, Mirzab, Indu and Sameera surrounding him. If looks could kill, Sameera and Indu would have killed each other long ago. They glared at each other, accusing each other of the situation at hand.

The room had been quite normal only a few minutes ago. When they began practice, all had sat down comfortable, gone over their scripts, and begun rehearsing. Amongst them all, only Indu seemed off, so to speak. She was fidgety, and seemed visibly exhausted. Sameera began practicing her scene with Mirzab, since she'd been having a lot of trouble emoting properly. She began strong, but soon started to falter and skip over lines, and interrupting Mirzab during his lines. They went again, and re-did the scene. Same result. They did it again. Still no change. If anything, Sameera only became worse, feeling extremely conscious. Indu sat on the side, becoming progressively more irritated with Sameera's mess-ups, trying her best to ignore the overwhelming need to get up and get away from the place. Part of her knew that it wasn't anything Sameera was doing. But that part was refusing to make itself heard over the other part that wanted to blame Sameera for how she felt. The part that wanted the easy way out of this.

She watched as Sameera fumbled on the same line again, and let out an audible huff. Sameera looked over at her, her own annoyance taking over. 
"Indu, can you please go out?" She asked, her words a thin veil to her anger at Indu's hot and cold behaviour. Indu stubbornly refused to move, now that she'd been asked to.  She simply looked away, ignoring Sameera's words. This only managed to add ghee to the fire, making Sameera even angrier.

She took a deep breath and tried to go back to the scene, but her thoughts were going at a mile a minute, and not a single one was positive. She thought back to the previous day, and how different Indu had been. She couldn't understand why Indu couldn't just stick to one set of behaviours. She either had to be wonderful, understanding and caring, or she had to be this. Unwilling to listen, talk or have any sort of connection. And it wasn't like she herself wasn't having a tough time - she had just bared her soul out for the very fist time the previous day. To experience this after experiencing that was hurting her even more. 

She didn't even make it past the first line this time. She looked over and saw Indu rolling her eyes. That's it. Sameera walked towards her, towering over Indu for once. Her eyes delivered the sharp cuts before her words did. 
"Get out, or don't make the practice worse for me." She said, looking straight into Indu's eyes.
"Why?" Indu snapped back.
"Indu, I don't know what your deal is - but it's bothering me. I don't want to fight, so get out."
"Why don't you get out instead? Not like practicing is helping you in any way. This whole thing is turning out to be horrible anyways."

Swara and Mirzab tried to intervene now. "Oi, don't say that Indu. We just have a few scenes we're tumbling over. We'll be fine in a day or two," Mirzab tried to de-escalate the situation. But Indu's mouth had been let loose. 
"Yeah, practically every scene with this woman in it," she said, nodding at Sameera. Sameera had had enough. 
"Indu, don't you dare do that. I am trying my best here. You don't have the right to do that to me. Don't you dare." The last sentence was almost uttered as a threat.
"Try me." Indu said, her gaze steely.
"INDU!" Sameera lost control and was ready to pounce on Indu. Mirzab immediately stepped in to hold Sameera back.

In that same instant, they heard another sound. A small cry, not from Indu, but from Siddhu, who was sitting right beside her. All colour had drained from his face, and he had moved away, almost like he was  trying to run away. The tears were flowing freely, his red eyes the only colour on his ashen face. Sameera instantly stopped, and they gathered around him, trying to console him, unaware of why he was so scared by the fight that was between Indu and Sameera. Swara bent down, rubbing his back, and Mirzab took his hands into his own. Indu stood up, and both her and Sameera looked at him, and then at each other, silently blaming each other for the situation. 

Siddhu had brought his knees to his face now, still unable to control his crying. He was also apologising to them in between short breaths, and trying to take deep breaths to stop the crying, but erupting into a fresh bout of sobs only seconds later. 
"It's okay Siddhu, cry. Cry it out," Swara softly whispered, looking at Mirzab with concern written deep into the wrinkles on her forehead. Mirzab looked back and mouthed, "It'll be okay, it'll be okay" with such assurance, that it calmed Swara's racing heart and mind, albeit only a little. 

Sameera sat down as well.
"I'm sorry Siddhu, I shouldn't have screamed. I-"
Siddhu shook his head vigorously, trying again, to speak between incessant sobs. 
"No, no- not your fault-" he said, before bursting into a fresh bout of sobs. 
"What happened?" Indu asked, patting his arm. This did nothing but make Siddhu's sobbing even more profuse. They could do nothing but sit and comfort him.

Eventually it was time to leave, and thankfully, Siddhu seemed to have outwardly composed himself. If nothing, he had stopped sobbing - but he refused to reveal why he had had such a strong reaction in the first place. He went to the washroom, washed his face, and when he came back, his face was dull and expressionless. The others all looked at each other's faces, their foreheads a mass of wrinkles. They walked to the buses and nobody spoke. Not a single sound came out of any of them. Siddhu knew he didn't want to speak, and the others were scared of triggering him. 

Swara was probably the one who was the most scared amongst all of them. As Siddhu got onto his bus, she looked at him, almost about to cry herself. Seeing her, Mirzab gently put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing it, reassuring her. As they walked to their own buses, he put his hand forward, a silent request to provide her comfort. She took it, and held it tight till they reached his bus, when he pulled her into a hug, and whispered, "We'll call him in the evening and see what happened, okay? He'll be fine, we'll make sure of that." Swara nodded, a small sniff escaping her.
"Thank you," she whispered back. "At 6?" she asked him.
"Yes, 6 is good"

Indu and Sameera had gotten onto their buses, but their sourness hadn't subsided. Indu sat far away from Sameera, and the latter felt the sadness creep up. She regretted coming out to Indu out of all people. Thankfully, she spoke to barely anyone. She was at least sure that she wouldn't be outed. But still, the hurt lingered. 
'I poured my heart out to her yesterday. And this is what I get today?' she bitterly cursed. She thought too of Siddhu, and his confusing behaviour. Yes, she should not have screamed, but that bad of a reaction? She wondered what had happened to him. He was always the sweetest, bubbliest person around. He got everyone to treat him like a baby, and frankly, nobody minded doing that. In fact, she was sure that he himself wasn't aware of how much of a baby he was. Swara was the one who had begun to parent him the most. She had seen Swara making sure he'd had his water, that he'd finished his food, and that he was good with his work at school. 

Before she knew it, Sameera had reached home. She lugged her bag, and trudged home. Once she had reached her room, she immediately texted Siddhu, asking if was alright, and apologising once more for screaming that day. She knew that she probably should have texted Indu that apology, but she was in no state to do that. She wanted Indu's apology first. She sat down at her table, ready to study, though she knew she would get practically nothing done, but she had to try anyways.  She also knew that the text she had sent would probably not even be seen my Siddhu.

In another part of the city, Swara was on her phone, waiting for the time at the top to display 6:00. It had barely been a second, when she called almost called Mirzab. She stopped just short of calling him. 'Usually when people say 6, they mean a few minutes after 6, right?' She thought. She had just decided that she would wait till 6:02. As soon as she thought that, her phone began to ring. With a sigh of relief, she saw Mirzab's name on her screen. She picked up the call immediately.

"Heyy! Were you waiting for me to call you? Picked up within two rings, huh?" Mirzab teased her. 
"Hey! I'm worried sick about Siddhu - of course I was waiting for your call," Swara retorted. Mirzab's smile faded ever so slightly on the other side of the line, before he said, "You can call anytime you want Swara - you don't have to worry about waiting for me to call. I won't mind, I promise."
The corners of Swara's lips turned up, and she breathed a little easier.
"Okay, you call him, I don't know how his parents will react to seeing a girl calling him," Swara said.
"Alright ma'am" Mirzab said, straightening his back, trying his best to keep the atmosphere light, because something in him knew that the following conversation would be extremely difficult.