THE MAN HELP - By Ocean Singh

- CHAPTER 16 -

- CHAPTER 16 -

FEW GOOD THINGS

Waking up in the morning by the knock on the door, Vaani hushes and runs to open it. She finds Sonakshi standing in front of her.

"Sonakshi...!"

"Hi di, good morning. Did you talk to Gautam bhaiya?"

"Aa... not yet baby, I will, soon! And I'll take you with me to meet him again."

"I really want to meet him now di. Ask Tushar bhaiya na, where is he?"

"He's... he's not come back yet. As soon as I meet him and get the update, I'll come to you and tell. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Yeah. And don't you have school today, you can't miss it two days in a row Sona!"

"I know, I'll go and get ready. Di?"

"Yes?"

"I want to thank Tushar bhaiya, he's given the best gift ever someone has given me in my life."

"Aww baby, I'll.. I'll make sure you both get to meet soon."

"Thank you di. Bye."

"Bye. Go safely."

Sonakshi leaves, and Vaani a moment later runs to Tushar's apartment. Disappointed once again after knocking on the door, she heads back to her own place and starts getting ready to head to her workplace. Not missing any chance to meet Tushar and get the update, she visits the same closed door for the last time before leaving the building. Still with one more disappointment, she takes a big sigh in worry and heads to the club.

In the evening, returning from the work, when Vaani steps in her building area, she sees the same car, she was looking for last night in the parking area. All excited for the news, she heads to Tushar's apartment. After just a few steps, she recalls her conversation with Sonakshi this morning and she goes to her apartment and takes her with herself and then finally reaches Tushar's apartment. She finds a few more girls heading to the same door. The two groups judges each - other for a second and then Vaani just knock hard on the door. Tushar opens it and welcome the other group of the girls and after telling them to head inside, he turns to Vaani and Sonakshi. Vaani getting the biggest disappointments in the chain of knocking this door tells Sonakshi to just leave and come back later, maybe on an appropriate time. Tushar without saying anything watches them leave and closes his door.

The whole night, Vaani couldn't sleep. In fact, she didn't even wanted to sleep, she just wanted to yell on Tushar and ask a hundred questions. All the thoughts for Gautam, for Sonakshi, for herself was running in her head like a rapid train with the highest noise and obscurity. She waited for a few hours and when she couldn't wait anymore and just wanted to stand in front of him asking all those questions, she headed to the same apartment one more time.

Walking to Tushar's place, she now has lost all the emotions of hope or sadness, regret or relief. She just wanted him to speak now. She knocks on the door of this person in the mid-night, whom she met just yesterday and didn't actually know anything about him. Before the door gets opened, she notices the music and the silence at the same time, in the apartment. Finally the door gets opened and she finds Tushar standing in front of her, asking her to come inside. She goes in and comments on the artist playing in the background.

"Nusrat!"

"Yeah, he gives me peace."

"To everyone he does, I feel."

"Yeah."

"So...! A little party?"

"Oh that was pending, had to get done with it."

"Nice you did it."

She says this and couldn't find anything else to say. She wanted to ask him about Gautam but she just couldn't.

"Sorry to disturb you earlier, she just wanted to say 'Thanks'."

"Thanks?"

"For giving her the best gift of her life."

"Oh! That's really sweet. And about Gautam, he's fine, I talked to him a few hours ago. In fact I went to tell you as soon as I came back, but you were at work I believe, I was feeling all anxious so to divert my mind I threw this party."

"Oh! Okay. So when can we meet him again?"

"We need to discuss about it deeply, and honestly.. I really am not in that phase right now, I need a little break to come back to normal at least, you know."

"Yeah."

"We can... have this discussion later, can we?"

"Oh yeah, sure!" - She moves to get up and leave.

"You don't have to leave, just the discussion can be done later, but we still can talk about something else."

"Oh! Yeah. We can I guess."

"Yeah, you'd like to have a beer? Let me just grab one for you."

"Cool."

Tushar goes and comes back with a beer and hands it over to Vaani. Vaani holding it starts the conversation.

"Well, it was kinda hard not able to contact you, when I wanted to know the status."

"Yeah! It was, man! Let's just share the numbers before anything else."

He takes out his phone and gives it to Vaani. Vaani types it down and gives back to him. Tushar takes the phone back and keeps it aside. Vaani notices and says.

"Don't feel awkward to dial it right away, we actually need each- other contacts."

Tushar chuckles and dials it. Vaani checks her phone and then saves his number. She then keeps her phone aside and move her eyes around the apartment.

"This was a house-warming party, I believe."

"Yeah, it was that only. It's been weeks I moved in and all the friends were repeatedly asking so..."

"It's nice. Hope you had good time."

Tushar passes an average smile and Vaani understanding it nods. Then she goes all quiet for a while. Tushar asks what's going on.

"So, where have the thoughts reached?"

"um... nowhere, here only, this place... this whole place. I don't think people who have spent their childhood here, have had a nice one. Whoever I can think of... just had to face strange difficult phases."

"I don't think... you need to blame this place. Everywhere things happen. I myself had a difficult childhood. No friends. Boarding school. All bullies. It was tough."

"You really had no friend!?" - Vaani asks being interested.

"Sadly, I didn't. But there were things which always made me happy. I had it all stored in my locker."

"And what all you had in your locker!?" - She asks again being curious.

"Well, there were letters from my hometown friends. All the candies, canteen uncle used to give me free and my Dad."

Vaani feels stunned.

"Aa... I'm.. sorry.."

"It's alright. You didn't know."

Vaani doesn't say anything and Tushar continues.

"And you don't have to sit all sad when I talk about my dad, he holds all the happy moments of my life. So cheer up."

Vaani smiles. They both keep talking for a few hours and being all tired and boozed up with beer, Vaani falls asleep sitting on the couch. Tushar covers her with a rug and goes to sleep himself in his room.

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