Blue

Chapter Seven

"Harder, harder." I was saying.

"Ow, ow, ow. It hurts." Aditi cried.

"Its only gonna hurt in the beginning. You'll be good once you get the hang of it."

"I can't. I can't do this." She said and put the guitar back on the bed.

"I'm telling you, it'll only hurt in the beginning. You can't play guitar if you can't press it hard enough." I said picking up the guitar and strumming a few times.

"So, I won't ever be able to play it." She said and pouted.

"Its just a matter a time, you'll be good in a few days. But one thing..." I paused and licked my lips.

"What?" She said looking at me.

"You need to kiss your soft fingers goodbye." I said taking her left hand in mine and pressing her fingertips.

"What do you mean?" She said pressing her fingertips with her thumb.

"Feel this." I said and held out my left hand to her. "...and now this." I said and held out my right hand. She rubbed her thumb over all of my fingertips and looked at me.

"Feel the difference?" I said and pulled my hand back.

"So, you mean, the skin on the top will get rough?"

"Yeah, and not just rough, the skin wears off at first. And it starts getting darker every time you play guitar."

"I can live with that. If only I could just press it hard enough." She said and pulled the guitar back on her lab.

"So, this is G-chord right?" She asked pressing some random strings.

I corrected her fingers and gestured her to strum. She couldn't.

"I suck at this." She finally gave up.

I took the guitar back played some notes on the G-string.

Mom and Sayal were not home and I was free to bring anyone I liked. And I did not like bringing anyone except Aditi. I was teaching her few basic stuff about guitar for the last three days. The first day I gave her a list of many songs that I insisted her to listen and talked about many great guitarists. The second day I explained to her how guitar worked. I explained to her everything from why the strings were of different thickness to how chords were pressed. She listened attentively to everything I said and even took some notes. It was not hard teaching her those stuff, but my motive was entirely different and I was not too hard on her thinking she might quit.

I didn't know why I still wasn't asking Aditi out.

Did I not like her?

Of course, I did.

Was I not good at talking to girls?

I was not bad.

Was I too chicken to ask her out?

Probably. But I wasn't entirely sure if it was fear keeping me back. It was more like suspicion.

There were a few things fishy about her. Roman, for instance. She had no reason to avoid or hate him; well, as far as I knew. But for some reason she did.

She always ceased texting whenever I mentioned Aditya and later give an excuse for it.

She hated a green color like you hate a villain who always ruins the hero's plan. This was not a matter to be concerned about but since green was my favourite color I wanted to know more about why she hated it so much.