Fasaana

TWELVE

When we first dropped our bags
on apartment floors
Took our broken hearts,
put them in a drawer
Everybody here was someone else before.

****************

Kian took a huge bite of the samosa and frowned instantly. "They are cold."

Zoya touched her samosa and rolled her eyes. "Just because it is not piping hot doesn't make it cold."

"I'll be back." He picked up both their plates of samosas and marched towards the canteen counter. Zoya shook her head at the crazy boy and went back to writing her assignment. He returned ten minutes later and put down two new plates of samosas. Zoya could literally see the hot steam coming out of it. She was sure he would have gone there and convinced the canteen uncle to give him freshly fried samosas. That's Kian for you. He had a way with words. He could convince anyone, for anything. Maybe that was the reason why he and Zoya were friends today. It had been three months since they first met on the first day of college. Zoya never planned to make any relationships here, she just wanted to study hard and get good grades. But Kian just never gave up, and she didn't even realize when they became friends.

But that didn't mean she was comfortable sharing her life story with him. He knew nothing about her past, not even about Sehrish. She trusted him, but she just wasn't ready to tell him yet. Several weeks ago, he had casually asked her about her family and she had instantly changed the topic. She thought that she was successful in distracting him, but little did she know that he had understood her discomfort on that topic and didn't push her. Since then, he had never brought up her family again, in hope that one day, she would tell him on her own.

But that didn't mean that he didn’t tell her about himself. His family, his school and graduation friends, his crushes, his ex-girlfriends, Zoya knew it all. Being an absolute extrovert, he had a hard time shutting his mouth. That was the reason why he was friends with their entire batch. Hell, he had also become acquaintances with a lot of students that weren't from their batch. Zoya often wondered why he was even friends with her when he had so many other people in the college to hang out with. She never asked him though. And he never bothered to tell her himself.

After college, Zoya came back home. Sehrish crawled super fast as soon as she saw her mother.

"How was your day, my princess?" Zoya asked while kissing Sehrish's hair.

Aarti, while breastfeeding Avni, said, "Sehru had a very hectic day today. She helped me and Malti in planning her birthday."

"Birthday?" Zoya frowned.

"She's turning one next week." Aarti replied.

Realization hit Zoya. She knew that Sehrish's birthday was about to come, but with her hectic college, she hadn't paid attention to the fact that her birthday was in six days.

"Right." Zoya cleared her throat. "So, what did you all plan?"

Aarti saw Zoya’s changed expression. "I was thinking that maybe we can have a little party. We can decorate the living room and invite Sehrish's friends from the neighborhood and cut the cake." Zoya took Sehrish and Avni to the park inside their society at least thrice a week. There Sehrish had acquainted with a few children her age. They obviously didn’t speak to each other because they can't talk yet, but they sat together and played with their toys.

"That sounds good." Zoya nodded her head.

"Guess what, Sehru picked out her cake on her own." Aarti excitedly said.

"Really?" Zoya was surprised.

Aarti opened something on her phone and gave it to Sehrish. "Sweetie, show maa which cake you want."

Sehrish grabbed the phone with her two chubby hands. There were many cakes displayed on the screen, but she pointed at a particular unicorn cake.

"That's the one you want, baby?" Zoya asked, and Sehrish smiled.

That evening, Zoya took both the kids to the park. All the children played together while Zoya invited the other moms for the birthday party. After coming back home, everyone had their dinner together. Zoya then put Sehrish and Avni to bed in their cots in the nursery. Making sure the child monitor was working, she came back to her room. She was tired and wanted to sleep, but her professor had given them a hell lot of assignments to complete. And the semester exams were coming up as well, so she needed to study for that as well.

She sat on her table, but before starting with the work, she thought of checking her phone once. There were a few useless notifications, along with Mahmood’s missed call and Kian's message.

Since it was too late and her father must have slept, she decided to call him back the next day. She opened Kian's message. It was a selfie of him in which he was pretending to be dead with the assignment scattered all around. He had written below that, "If I die finishing these projects, tell the professors that my wandering soul will never let them live peacefully."

Zoya laughed out loud reading that.

"Will do." She replied to him with a few laughing emojis and set the phone aside.

Looking at the papers in front of her, she could totally relate to Kian. They would surely end up dead finishing this. Nonetheless, she started. It was safe to say that she had a really long night.

Hence, the dark circles under eyes which took almost ten minutes to conceal the next morning. She was running really late, so she requested Rohit to drop her. Giving a very quick goodbye kiss to Sehrish and Avni, she ran out of the home.

She didn't get time to eat breakfast at home, so when Kian passed her her favorite brownie between the first class, she passed him her grateful smile.

"How did you know I was hungry?" She whispered to him while taking a bite and making sure the professor wasn't looking.

"I didn't. I just went to the canteen to get myself a coffee and thought of getting you something as well." He shrugged.

Zoya looked ahead of the class while taking careful bites of the chocolatey goodness to avoid getting caught. And Kian kept looking at her from the corner of his eyes, to avoid getting caught.

🔸️🔸️🔸️🔸️🔸️🔸️🔸️🔸️🔸️

I think the glitch in app is fixed now. Let me know if you all are getting the notifications.

So, what did you think about the chapter?

I love how subtle and effortless Kian and Zoya's relationship is.