Somewhere Only We Go

Chapter 30

Kabir

"Wait is that the tapri we used to come to?" Disha says pointing to a tea stall at the side of the road. We decided to come to India Gate before returning home since it was still quite early for a September morning. It wasn't getting cold or anything but it wasn't hot either.

"Yeah, I think it's the same one. He is still here." Rishabh says or more like asks.

I catch Avi looking in the same direction but he didn't add anything. Maybe it was a sibling thing.

"We haven't been here since Ishan bhaiya..." Okay, so it's not a sibling thing. Avi's expression changes at the mention of his brother, it's so subtle that one would easily miss it. One day he is going to able to talk or think about his brother without dying inside, I'll help him get there.

"So you guys want to eat something?" I ask praying they didn't say they want to have the tea from the tapri. I wanted to change the topic but I might have taken them one step forward.

"There is a coffee house nearby. Let's go there. They also serve breakfast."

Avi nodded. Disha looked a little disappointed but she didn't say anything.

Almost two hours later after eating enough food to last us the entire day we started opening the few boxes we had carried. In hindsight, we shouldn't have eaten the way we did, or at least three of us did. Avi didn't eat much. He kept playing with the two pieces of toast on his plate. When I asked him why he isn't eating more he said he never does heavy breakfast. Which isn't wrong but I saw him sneaking glances at our plates multiple times. He wanted to taste more at the very least but was putting a restrain on himself.

Avi and Rishabh walked into the room carrying what looked like a heavy box pulling me out of my thoughts. We only brought all my camera equipment with us last night, I didn't want to risk breaking them amongst other boxes. But I still have enough stuff that it's going to take a while and now I felt bad about making them do this. Even if it was Avi who asked for help. Who would have thought that I'd get three people with multiple trust funds in their name to do free labor for me?

"So how are you?" Disha asked.

"I am fine." I know what she is asking about. Avi told me only Rishabh and Disha knew why we left early.

"It's a big thing to deal with, I am not the best person to understand it maybe, but if there is one person in our family who was most protected it was me. I think that is the biggest reason I can easily talk about Ishan Bhaiya. Sometimes spending less time with someone can be a blessing."

She is right about that. It would have definitely hurt less if I didn't have so many good years with my parents. Disha would have been affected by his cousin's death but maybe it's a little easier for her than the other two.

"I am fine truly. I mean I don't know what I would have done if I was alone but I don't have to worry about that. Avi hasn't left my side since that day; he worked from home and made sure I was eating enough. I couldn't have asked for more."

"That's how he is," Disha said with a distant look in her eyes and a faint smile like she was remembering something. "Once I fell in school and scrapped my knee badly, bhai was the one who stayed with me the entire weekend. Rishabh and Ishan were checking on me but they were always so loud and creating trouble, neither of them wanted to stay at home for longer than the hours they needed sleep and food. Avi stayed with me and played video games with me. And not those cool games boys used to play, he played all those silly games I loved so much."

I could imagine Avi doing that. I could picture him like that taking care of the people he loved.

"It's good to see him like this again. I don't even know what happened after the accident but he just changed. That day when Rishabh told me about the bathtub incident, I was so scared. I thought I would lose him too and this time it would hurt ten times worse." She sniffed and I realized she was crying.