Dark Secrets

8

I ALWAYS MISS YOU.

It was a message from Yuvansh in response to her's from last night. She checked the time. She had recieved it an hour ago. That meant he had been working late again and had gotten to bed only in the wee hours. Although she wanted to call him, she decided against disturbing his sleep,especially because last night she too had had a sleepless night.
Writing'white' instead of 'red' preyed on her mind and made her toss and turn all night. A diary is the documentation of one's innermost thoughts, a record of things that one can't share with another person,and nobody fibs to one's own diary. So why would she write a different colour unless it was a bizarre error? Shreshtha could not justify it at all. First thing the next morning ,she crossed out the word'white' in her diary and wrote 'red' over it.

When she went downstairs, her mother told her that her father has gone to Baddi with Kishori lal to buy supplies for the cafe. Helping her mother with lunch later that day, Shreshtha asked her,'Why don't you guys tell me what actually happened to me?'

Mrs Srivastava merely shrugged.
'The "incident"- that's what you and papa keep referring to. It was a bad " incident". But what was this bad "incident"?
'Of course,we have told you,'Mrs Srivastava looked shifty-eyed before adopting an ultra casual facade,'it was an accident.'

'At first ,you guys kept referring to it as an " incident ",then a " bad incident" and then finally you say it was an "accident". If it was an accident ,then how did ut happen ? That is something you ve never told me.'

'Why is it so important? By God's grace you survived. That's all we need to be happy about. Forget the rest of it.'
'I don't remember much. I know my messed-up memory is because of the accident,but today i want you to describe this" accident " to me.' Shreshtha sounded annoyed.
 
  Realising that there was no way that she could distract Shreshtha from this topic,her mother said,'All right. You were on your way home from college and a car hit you. It was a hit-and-run. You were discovered by the police and taken in ICU for half a month before regaining consciousness. There, are you happ now?'
 
Shreshtha made a mental note of the fact that her mother had mentioned that she was returning from college. It meant the accident must have happened in Solan for she had been doing her engineering in JUIT,Solan, and was put up in it's hostel.
   
'What car was it?'Shreshtha asked.

'The car didn't even stop,so we never found out anything about it. Now, no more questions. Have your lunch,beta ,have your medicines and take a nap.'

When Shreshtha woke up in the evening, she found that she had a missed call from Sanam and some pictures of her on her phone. All the pictures were of her in the nude. Shreshtha called Sanam.

  'Please tell me you 've not sent those pictures!' Shreshtha demanded knowing fully well why her bestie had sent them to her.

'I haven't. I was waiting for you to choose the best one.'

'Firstly use photoshop and remove your face from them before sending these out. It's too risky. More importantly, why is it so necessary to share nudes?' Shreshtha asked.

'You'll never understand. Not everyone is as boring as your boyfriend'.

'Just because Yuvansh doesn't asked for nudes doesn't mean she's boring.'

'Yeah,whatever. Now tell me which one.'
'I don't know. Whatever you prefer.' Shreshtha said shortly and hung up. Sanam would often get on her nerves like this.

Sanam called again.
Now she'll be sorry,Shreshtha thought,and picked up the phone. 'What now?'
'I'm sorry',said Sanam predictably.
'It's okay. Send the tied picture but not before blurring or cutting out the face.'

'No. I'm not sending any nudes. Let him come here first,then we'll see.'
'Mm mm,much better.'

'Come over to my place. I ve nicked a beer from my dad's bar at home. We'll share it.'
'Awesome. Give me ten minutes.' Shreshtha threw on a dress and was about to head out when her mother called out to her.
'Shreshtha ,your friend is here.'
She frowned. Sanam had invited her over. So why would she come here. She went down and found herself face-to-face with a girl. It took her a few seconds to remember her name. Vinaya. Vinaya had studied with Shreshtha in college.
'Hi,Shreshtha, how are you? the girl smiled.
'Hi,Vinaya,'Shreshtha hazarded a guess. When the girl didn't react or look startled, Shreshtha was relieved. The name she remembered was correct.'I'm good. Nice to see you.'
Shreshtha could not remember how close they were. She made her sit down in the living room.

Her mother bustled around ,clucking  like a mother hen until Shreshtha protested,'Mom,please!' Mrs Srivastava flashed an awkward smile at the girls before retreating into the kitchen.

Vinayak started talking about old times in college which Shreshtha vaguely remembered. Vinaya took out an envelope from her bag and gave it to Shreshtha.
Even before she extracted the card from the envelope, Shreshtha knew what it was.
'Congratulations, Vinaya,' Shreshtha said smiling.
Thanks. D'you remember we always told everybody that even though we were the only girls in the college without boyfriends, we would find our life-partners before everyone else. Not that this is a live marriage. My parents agreed to this alliance because-'
Shreshtha interrupted Vinaya,' Was I single when we were in college?'
'We were the only ones who were single in our entire batch.'
'Right' Shreshtha could feel a knot in her stomach. As Vinaya  spoke of those days,her conviction scared Shreshtha in a strange way.
Mrs Srivastava brought in a plate of onion pakoda and coffee for the girls and left the girls alone after exchanging a few pleasantries with Vinaya. Shreshtha quickly messaged Sanam:

CAN'T COME NOW. SOME WORK IN CAFE.CALL YOU LATER.

Vinaya left half an hour later. The moment she left, Shreshtha went to her room and took out her diary from the study table and sath down with it on her bed. She leafed through the pages to the initial entries. According to her entries,she had met Yuvansh when she was in her third year of college. They were a couple bybthe time she graduated in B.Tech,computer science. Then why the hell did Vinaya say she was single in college? Shreshtha could feel the inexplicable knot in her stomach tighten.