Pocket Full of Lies

45- The Unknown Lady

Photos!

A light bulb lit in my mind. Although it wasn't possible to get a photo from the memory, it was definitely possible to check through the old photos and see if it matched.

"Instead of random folders, open the ones with photos." I suggested. "Even better if you can find the old ones."

"Do you think there will be a photo of that mysterious lady here?" Rehaan questioned, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

I nodded, before explaining my thought process, "You don't feel betrayal from strangers. So if she was someone you knew and trusted, then there's a great chance that she might be in some of the old photos."

"Point." He agreed and immediately started looking for photos.

If he had them in the first place.

Because the Rehaan after the fire never clicked one.

"By the way, any idea about my work?" Rehaan asked as he came across some weird coding while skimming through the folders.

"Not really," I said, scratching the back of my head.

"And they said she knows everything about me," he muttered under his breath, earning a rightful glare from me.

"Well, I know that you earned most of your money by investing in stocks. But I also heard you getting calls from some clients and you even went on some small business trips. So probably some freelancing business. You definitely weren't working under someone."

"Work from home is a thing, you know? How can you be so sure that I wasn't working for someone?" He snorted.

"Barking orders is more of your thing. Taking orders from someone, hah! They will kick you on the first day for disobedience. You, my friend, are not meant to be an employee."

"Friend?" He raised his one eyebrow, taunting me silently.

"There were a lot more words to focus on." I tsked at him.

He chuckled at my annoyance, before focusing back on looking through the folders.

"Can't you directly search for pictures? They have a separate portion for that," I asked, pointing at the default folder.

"I went through that already, but there's nothing but the sample pictures the company provides. I guess I might have saved them in some other folder, if they are any to begin with." He sighed at last, fearing the same thing as me.

"There might be some. Hopefully." I tried to sound positive, but I didn't have much hope.

Given that the whole house was burned down, we hadn't retrieved anything inside. We could only find something if Rehaan had clicked it on the phone he had in his school days.

Only if the kid Rehaan was different from the old Rehaan.

Old Rehaan, New Rehaan, Kid Rehaan; I seriously need to find better nicknames to differentiate him.

"Let's not give up, before we even try our best," I said, pumping my fists in the air.

"You are somehow good at giving pep talks," he complimented me, before diving back onto his work.

I patiently waited by his side as he continued looking through his folders. But at one point, my legs started going numb. I looked at the screen and knew that he was nowhere near done.

It was going to take a lot of time to search for those photos in between the thousand folders he had. More time than I had imagined. So instead of wasting time by idly sitting around here, I decided to do something productive and something I was good at.

"Keep searching, while I will prepare some food for us," I said, after standing up, which took a lot of time if I was being honest.

It was a good thing he didn't notice my weird ass moments while I tried to stand up on the legs that had long fallen asleep.

"Huh? Did you say something?" He asked, blinking his eyes as he removed his focus from the screen he had been staring so hard at.

"I am pretty useless here, so I would go and make food for us in the meantime," I said, pointing in the direction of the kitchen.

A pleasing smile came to his face upon the mention of food, making me chuckle.

Despite all the changes in him, his love for food remained the same.

His smile suddenly vanished and his eyebrows furrowed as he thought hard about something.

"Everything alright?" I asked, from the doorway.

"I don't know...why thinking of food reminded me of...," he trailed off, before shaking his head and giving me a small smile. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

"If you say so."

Shrugging, I moved towards the kitchen to think of a simple dish that wouldn't take up many ingredients.

★★★★★

"Muskaan! Muskaan!" Rehaan called me, his voice filled with urgency.

Switching off the gas, and hastily wiping off my hands on the apron, I rushed towards the study.

"Wha—" I stopped my question midway as I saw he was pointing his finger at the laptop screen.

All the panic left my body and instead I was filled with instant warmth as soon as my eyes fell on the photo.

"Damn! Mom looks so beautiful," I said wistfully, as tears gathered in my eyes.

I wonder how she must have looked now if she was alive.

She was just so pretty. A type of pretty that would look good even after aging.

"Mo...Mom?" Rehaan stuttered, as he looked at me with wide eyes.

"Did you remember something about her?" I asked in a hopeful tone, "She was the one who cooked all those favourite dishes of yours."

"No wonder," he muttered, running his hand through his hair. "No wonder her face immediately came to my mind at the mention of food."

"Really?" I asked out in wonder, before my eyebrows furrowed in question. "You got a memory of your parents after seeing their photo. But we talked about food before you found this photo. Then how...?

"Ah never mind." I waved off my own question. It was not necessary for his memory to follow the same pattern while remembering.

He stood up hastily, looking too tense. "This is...this is your Mom?" He asked again, looking like someone told him that the world was ending.

It was that moment I realized that he didn't share the same sentiments as me upon seeing the photo.

He wasn't happy or excited. He was panicking.

"Yeah...why? What's wrong?" I asked, dread setting in my tone. "Rehaan?"

"She is the lady from my memory. The unknown lady in a simple saree," he said, dropping a bomb on me.