REWINDING US

Ch8: Dodging through the dark

I was running and running without looking back. I didn't have any idea where I was going. The campus was so large and now I was in the darkest corner somewhere.
It was the first time since I've lost my memory that I wanted to just go far far away from the world. I didn't want anyone to find me, to recognize me, to know me.

My head hurt due to the over flowing 'forced' memories. My heart ached feeling the 'unknown' pain of all those people. What do I do? I have no bloody idea about what they mean or what they are feeling and here I am, who's so empty from within. Mom was right. I am not ready for this. No I'm not.

"Nandini? Is that you?", I heard a gruff voice of someone coming from the dark.

I heard footsteps of the person coming close and slowly the face became clear. It was Aryaman.

I quickly wiped off my tears and gave a simulated smile.
"Hey! Voh..I went to the washroom and then I got lost!", I said without making an eye contact.

"Nandini it's you who has lost your memory, not me. You don't have to pretend in front of me. I know you enough to make out when you're lying and when you're not. So don't fake this smile of yours!"

He stepped closer and held my shoulders with his hands and continued to speak,
"Nandini. You can trust me as much as you trust Mukti. You can say anything to me and I promise I'll help you and be with you."

Tears again started flowing from my eyes.

"How Aryaman? Please tell me how am I supposed to trust you or anyone for that matter. You know, back there I had only a few people around me, and on top of that it was my family, it was easy to trust them but here, here there are so many of you who know me so well. I can see it in your eyes how much you all expect me to believe you. But it's not easy. All of you, you, Cabir, Mukti and..and Manik !"

I paused and Aryaman's eyes widened listening to Manik's name but he didn't say anything so I continued,

"have so much of pain inside you, so many questions and confusions that have begun to rag me now. Why? Why is everything so complicated?"

I was sobbing the whole time. It was surely something about Aryaman that made me comfortable in sharing everything with him.

"Shhh.. bas. Stop crying. You've cried enough for the day, okay?Not any more and now, listen to me very very carefully!"

Aryaman said and began narrating the story,

"We all were very young when someone broke your heart. It took you almost two years to move on. That's when your brother, Rishab bhaiya and Tani Bhabhi decided to move to Canada. We all knew that you would also move once they are settled. You promised each of us that we'll have a grand party before you go and you'll always stay in touch with all of us and that we'll continue to talk everyday through the social media.

Then, after our board exams, we had our delayed farewell party. It was supposed to happen before the exams but one of our senior teachers died so the farewell party was postponed! Mukti, Cabir, you and I, all of us were in the student council so we had prepared a great bash. Each of us were very happy that day.

But, the very next day you were gone! I called you up to ask something but your phone was switched off. I ignored it then but soon we noticed all your accounts on social network were also deactivated. We tried calling you on all your numbers for days but all in vain. We visited your house but it was locked. No one had any idea where you suddenly disappeared. For months, we kept looking for you but then a point came when we stopped. We had to believe that you were gone! But then Cabir received your Rakhi on Rakshabandhan making all of us so happy and excited to finally find you but only your name was written on the envelop. No address, contact number or any kind of message was there. That's when we realized that you have purposely done this. You've left each of us by your own choice.