Forget-Me-Not: Taste of Freedom

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Five

      When the door opened, Vidhi was surprised to see that it was Geet who answered it, not Dia. One look at her friend's solemn expression sent her into a flurry of doubt and concern. Like a mother hen, Geet must have been clucking all over the place, helping Dia stay calm. However, it didn't change the fact that things had gone wrong.

      "What's going on?" Vidhi murmured. From somewhere inside, she could hear the sound of the TV going.

      "Nothing much... Dia looks bad."

       "Did she tell you what happened?"

      "No, we were waiting for you to come over. Let's go inside... and I'd better warn you, don't mention anything. Let her talk about it on her own. I tried when I got here; it only made her worse."

      "Oh dear god," Vidhi said, taking Geet's hand as they walked inside.

      Dia's room looked like a ward in a rehab center. She was sprawled on her bed, wearing her pajamas, staring blankly at the television screen. A number of wadded tissue papers were strewn on the bedside table. As Vidhi and Geet took their places beside her on the bed, Dia looked up and regarded them with an empty, almost hopeless expression. For a moment, it scared Vidhi. She'd never seen Dia look so daunted before, so heartbroken.

      "Hey," she said, placing a hand on hers. "What happened to you?"

      "I've been the most stupid person in the history of all stupid persons," Dia muttered, her voice low and bemused. In the background, the television blared, the sounds of a baby's laughter filling the room. Dia clicked the TV off, and fell back against her pile of cushions. Then she let out a whiff of air.

      "What did you do?" Vidhi asked.

      She bit her lip, staring at the two of them. Her mouth opened and shut. Then she threw up her hands. "I drove him away. He went off to Goa with his ex."

      "What?" Geet said, stunned. "What do you mean, his ex?"

      "When we went to visit his parents, he met her again. In fact, he introduced us. And now he's in Goa, and she's gone with him, and I feel like such an idiot..."

      "But Dia, why would he do that?"

      "Because I... I screwed everything up."

       "Okay, wait. We don't know what's going on here, so please. Start at the beginning. Tell us everything that happened last weekend, after I dropped you home from Abhay's place," Vidhi said.

      Dia let out a slow breath, and started at the beginning. She told them about dinner with her parents that night and Sanaa (how could she forget Sanaa?), about how she'd tried to kiss Varun but he'd pulled back. She told them about his mother's false message the next morning and how it had pissed him off. So much, so that he'd ordered her out of the car and kissed her right in the middle of the road. She told them about the time she'd spent with his family, and about meeting Anokhi. Vidhi and Geet kept staring at her, stunned. It felt so weird, to relive everything, to remember what had happened while she accounted it to her friends. This whole weekend had been like such a dream. But now, it didn't feel like a dream at all. Her dream had turned into a nightmare, and all she wanted was to escape it.

      After she'd finished telling them about the meeting with Anokhi and what happened afterwards, Geet and Vidhi both stared at her.

      "So you kissed him," Vidhi stated, still stunned.