In Every Story of Mine (A Jassi-Hardik story)

Different ways

On the way back to his room, Jassi stumbled across a very random and terrifying news article titled 'Hardik Pandya and Natasha Stankovic to part ways soon?'

His first thought was—what?

His second thought was—the media was always cooking up some nonsense or the other.

His third thought, by the time he'd scrolled down the article owing to a devilish curiosity, was—when was the last time Natasha travel with us?

He couldn't recall.

He couldn't recall.

Horror washed over Jassi.

Though he still wouldn't let himself fully believe in the news, he couldn't stop his thoughts from straying to the scenario of the media having gotten it right. In all the mess during the past weeks, he had assumed and taken for granted that their families were their solace. He had completely resorted to his own family. Ritika bhabi and Sammy were always around...Devisha had always been around...

Maybe he hadn't thought of Hardik consciously with regards to this, but he had thought that any time things became too much, they could just return to their room, and find peace.

The more he thought, the clearer it became to him that Natasha and Agastya hadn't been around for any of the matches.

Was the news true, then?

Had he actually not noticed such a big occurrence in Hardik's life?

Was he blind?

How on earth had he not noticed?

Jassi knew the answer deep inside, of course, even if he didn't want to acknowledge it. It was possible that he had not bothered giving a single look towards the person he called his best friend for two months.

_______________

As he was walking towards his room came the guilt-fuelled fury.

Hardik had assumed Jassi didn't trust him. Hardik had believed Jassi blamed him for everything. How could Hardik know him for so many years and believe Jassi was thinking of him as some kind of criminal?

He knew Jassi withdrew.

During all his injuries, he'd done the same. After knockout losses, he'd done the same. This had been bigger in magnitude, so maybe he'd done it a little more than usual.

Did Hardik know him at all? Did he not deserve to be told when Hardik was going through such a crisis in his life? How on earth was he supposed to know if no one told him, anyway?

At that point, he entered his own room and it struck him how comforting a child-customized room looked. Sanjana lying on her back, doing something on her phone. Angad crawling on the cartoon-painted mat, making his elephant and horse toys fight. Chocolate wrappers (and also milk powder wrappers, so Rohit bhaiya must have dropped in earlier) piled on the table.

Hardik's room used to be exactly the same. And Hardik loved buying things for Agastya and customizing his rooms, he loved taking his friends to his room, too, and show them every time Agastya reached a milestone, and hard as it was to believe, he had outgrown partying because he always simply wanted to return home.

For what did he return to his room anymore?

He didn't even come to other people's rooms anymore—so he must go to his empty room.

And there it was again.

How did I not know?

Before Sanjana could even look up, Jassi was striding towards Hardik's room.