Not-So-Girly-Girlfriends #MissionDesi #YourStoryIndia

#12

Myra
We woke up on the beach when the sun had started to burn us up. "What time is it," Zara mumbled still in sleep. "I dunno," I said.
"Check your fucking phone!" Zara said as she tried to stretch her muscles.
"No phones today, remember," Vicky mumbled, her eyes still shut. By what I assume it's almost around noon. The beach is no more stranded. There are families and couples out here. Some giving us awkward looks. Well, who cares?
"Let's go eat something," Zara said.
"Eat what?" Vicky asked.
"Let's go get some coconuts. There are ample number of stalls and we still haven't had a coconut. That's so lame," I told them.
We all got up and had to literally pull Vicky up in order to take her with us.
We sat in the make shift shade the vendor had built and drank the coconut water. "What do we do the rest of the day," I asked.
"Well had any of you thought about it," Vicky asked. Nobody said a word. "Thought so. I've packed a sack with one pair of shorts n t-shirt for all of us, and a cream and few other stuff necessary for a nature walk. So shall we go hike on the island?"
The idea was cool, because we would definitely need something to kill the time since it won't have any mercy on us if we are sitting around without any gadgets doing nothing. So, after changing in the beach side changing huts, we left for the hike on the jungle part of the island. It definitely wasn't unexplored since we could see all the trails leading to someplace. So we followed one of the path and then took several others. The island was blessed with beautiful flora. I controlled my urge to running away in the lodge to get my camera or phone cause trust me, everything was worth a picture. We then reached a small waterfall on the inside of the island where we got into our previous day's clothes and took a dip. The water was cool, but bearable and it definitely was refreshing. After spending some more time in the pool we got out and dried ourself in the sun and changed back into our fresh clothes.
The walk was continued and at a point we even got lost. Luckily Myra had noticed the weird bush flower we saw just when we had started our trail and hence we got back on track. Getting lost on the island when we don't even have our cellphones is a very bad idea. We then headed out to the beach where we decided to hit the waves. Vicky came in for a while and then headed back outside. She had a book in the sack and started reading it while we splashed water at each other and basically pushed each other inside the water. This lasted for a lot of time until the sun was about to set. I guess Vicky had read more than half of the book she was reading as she kept it aside when all of us tiredly crashed beside her on the spreader mattress.
We drank water and some fruits she had brought a while ago. "So what about dinner? We skipped lunch but after this heavy workout called 'fun' that we had has got me hell tired, and trust me I need food," said Alisha.
Vicky looked thoughtfully at the sun sinking in the sea and said, "I had a talk with a few tourists. They recommended an urban cottage like restaurant, a 5 minutes walk away, across the hotel put up by the locals and mentioned that the food was mouthwatering. What say?"
"You've done quite some work this time," Zara said.
"Just kept myself busy," she said.
"Isn't the sunset beautiful," Alisha said.
And I looked at it too. This time I actually looked at it. We  weren't posing, we weren't busy looking for the right angle to click a picture or seeing if we can get some silhouettes but we were just looking at the sun sinking in the sea as waves gently hit the shore. Such a pretty sight.
As the stars showed up in the sky though it was nothing close to the dark blue we started heading to the restaurant. We ordered a good meal of veg and non veg.
This was supposedly the last day of our trip. All these days have been such a bizarre. Wow. It's like we had just started and now we are already at the end. In the beginning, I don't know why, I felt a little sick. I mean, I'm so used to travelling. And I've been to so many places but every time I'm out on the road, I always feel a little sick. And I hope for it to end soon. This time, in the first 3 days I felt such urge for it to end. And now that it's coming to an end, I want to pause and rewind so that I can live it all again. Well if I ever get a chance to rewind then maybe I'll go way back to our school days when I had just met the three of the most wonderful ladies sitting beside me so that we could live it all once again and maybe do a few things differently. But then it won't ever happen. This is it. And everything's gonna change.
I'm brought back from my thoughts when the food arrives at the table. I look at Zara and she is ogling at the grilled chicken. It's as if she is having lust in her eyes. "You should try that," is what I said. Vicky and Alisha grinned.
"No, thanks," she said looking at her vegetarian food.
"Seriously, dude! You should," Vicky said.
"Remember the time when you once told us how you craved to eat chicken cause it looked and smelled so delicious that you had to sit on another table to stop your hand from picking it up and stuffing your mouth?"
"That was a long time ago," she said.
I rolled my eyes.
"You're still the same girl Zara, and once you crave for something, you always crave for that something unless you've tried it."
"It's against my religion," she said.
I pressed my lips,"well agreed, it's against your religion. But dude, it's still your life. You can do anything that you want to do. No boundaries made by your religion or caste should bound you from doing something that you want to do. You wanna eat the chicken, eat the fucking chicken! Who cares! Not like the world is going to hate you or something."
"Look, we won't force you or anything, but remember how you said that you'd like to try everything before you die and eating chicken 'someday' is one of it? Well you won't get another chance like this, my friend. You won't be thousand miles away from home, with all your girlfriends, sitting in the middle of an island, in an urban restaurant, eating chicken, ever again. It's not going to happen everyday."
"I guess trying won't hurt," she said pressing her palms against each other firmly. I'm sure she still has second thoughts. So before she has changed her mind, I put two pieces of chicken on her plate. We all excitedly stare at her as she picks up her fork. "God you're making me nervous," she says as she digs the fork in the piece. Eager smiles appear on our faces. "This better taste good or I'm going to throw up." Alisha literally moved her seat little behind since she was sitting right in front of her. We giggled at her reflex. Then Zara stared at the small piece for a while.
"Okay you're making the excitement vanish away and not to forget, we are hungry as well," I told. Instantly the piece went inside her mouth as her eyes squeezed shut and she started to chew it rapidly. "Oh my god," she said while chewing it. I then took the fork from her hand and before she had completely finished the piece in her mouth stuffed her with another one.
"This is good, it was weird in the beginning but this is definitely good! I love this thing. Oh my god! I've never tasted anything like this before!"
"Another non vegetarian in the group," Alisha raised her glass of water to call a toast, we all did the same.
We then ordered some seafood and had Zara try it all. She ate down everything as if she was starving for days. I'm sure she's in love with non veg by now. Also I'm sure that if her parents get to know what we've done to their child then we're doomed for good. But nonetheless, she loves it, that is what matters.
So after dinner we walked back to our hotel. We Asked for a few candles from the manager. We Are not planning to use electricity too. You know, cause, why not?
So after reaching the room we lighted the candles in every corner and kept a few spare, just in case.
Alisha lied on the bed staring at the motionless fan on the ceiling. Vicky sat in the small space between the wall and the bed and looked at her fingers. Zara sat on a chair by the window staring at the dark sky. I sat on a shelf looking at all these people.
"Say something," I said breaking the silence. Different versions of "I'm giving up on you," were sung. We all broke into giggles. I expected that comeback from them.
"Guys seriously, if we aren't doing anything then I'll be tempted to pick up my phone and do something rather than just sitting around doing nothing because right now I can literally feel every nanosecond passing by and trust me, it's not as fast as it should be," I said nearly frustrated.
"No," Alisha sat straight. "We've come far this long. Let's not mess it up for an hour or so."
"So what do we do," Zara said.
"What we do the best. Talk," Alisha said as she got off the bed and took a chair and sat at the table with her hands neatly folded on it. Zara shifted her chairs towards it while I and Vicky grabbed one each and filled the remaining two sides of the table.
"So what do we talk about," Vicky asks.
"Let's summarise our list first?" I suggested. Vicky went over to her bag to get out her journal in which she had neatly placed the folded sheet of paper. She came back to the table with it.
"Fall in love," she said. "Done," came the answer in unison.
"Fall out of love," she said. Her smile went crooked for a second but then she recovered. "Done," she said. "Yep," Alisha followed. Zara said nothing but then Vicky answered for us both, "I'm so glad u both r still in love. I mean, don't fall out of love just to complete this silly list, okay? I'm so happy for u both!" Zara slyly smiled while mine was a genuine one.
"Live alone," she then said. "Checked. View the back of a waterfall, get up on stage, swim with the Dolphins, Done. Spend a night at the haunted house, Run a marathon, drink past your limits, done. Visit comic con in a costume, go on a zip line, stargaze all night, done. Miss a train, learn a new sport and spend a day without technology, done. What we are left is with, Volunteer for a social cause and Attend a concert."
"I don't know about volunteering but I did find a concert and guess what, it's Hardwell. But the problem is that it is on your wedding day," Zara told.
"It's okay.. Maybe some other time," she said hopefully while we all knew that some other time is not really coming any time soon.
"So what do we do now," I asked.
"Since we have been on this trip I don't remember we all having a group heart to heart convo. Maybe we are afraid to let out or maybe haven't got the chance. And now that I've come this far I understand that this won't be easy so let's play a game. Let's play truth. At least then I'll know what's happening in your lives at present," Alisha suggested. It seemed exciting in the beginning until she mentioned 'truth'. Now this is one game we promised to never ever lie. It's name is 'Truth' for Gods sake! And the way everyone's faces turned into mixed emotions, it became hard to read them. Mostly they seemed threatened but then who denies the to-be bride of something she demands on her spinster vacation. So we agreed.
Myra arranged a bottle to spin and we went over the rules for like the hundredth time in our lives. And hence the game begun. The first one was on Zara. "Did you really like the chicken? I mean seriously," Vicky asked.
"Of course I liked it! Duh, I mean, I don't lie about food and I at least don't eat the food that I do not like. Plus that was a really la,e question," she answered. So the first few rounds went by like this. But deep down I had a gut feeling that this game could actually turn ugly. That choosing to lie could only save us but then in the game of Truth, you just don't lie.
The bottle stopped on Alisha for like the 6th time now. The other end was at Zara. She pressed her lips as if she was having a doubt whether to ask it or not. But then the question came out.
"Did or did not Jay physically abuse you on the night when we left for Ladakh?"

Late update, I'm sorry! Well, it would have had been up a few days ago (which was on time) but then I lost nearly 800 words from 2600 words and now I can barely remember all of them :/ so here is an alternative with a lot of things missing from the previous version :( thanks to my great memory. So my tests took on and I could barely spare any time to rewrite it but here it is! Sorry for ending this chapter here! Hopefully the next chapter will be exciting!