When Dreams Consume Reality

06. Inaccurate Aim

I apologise for a not-so-polished chapter!

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It had been over an hour and I still sat there, pulling the weeds from the vegetable patch and debating whether or not I should blurt out the truth of what I had actually been up to the previous night, to uncle.

Thinking was all I had been doing, yet I couldn't grasp my thoughts. They seemed to lead me nowhere and at the same time, everywhere.

I wished we hadn't come to this place in the first place, eight years ago. I wished my parents were still alive. I wished I wasn't still a minor. I wished I was a very bright student so I could get away with an early degree or something. I wished what every orphan who has had a taste of being loved during the early years, wishes for.

So what, if my parents ran away? So what, if they didn't belong to same castes?

They were in love. That love was the first thing I saw when I drew my first breath. The love that stayed strong, years after a rash but necessary decision. I was the very fruit of their love. And love is what matters, or so I had been taught.

But I'm not naive. Love brings enemies. It kills people. It killed my parents even before they died.

And it wasn't until later when I realised how true my thoughts had been. If only I had learned to listen to my mind for once.

"I didn't send you outside to watch the grass grow. Can't you ever stop testing my patience?" Aunt's voice coming from the back porch yanked me out of my morning daze.

I quickly put away the mature vegetables inside the basket on my lap. I got up, dusted my pants and walked past the lanky figure of my aunt, into the kitchen and dumped the basket over the breakfast table without a word.

"I can see your mother didn't teach you how unladylike it is go throwing things around in the kitchen. I can't even imagine what kind of wild life you must've-"

The doorbell rang at that moment and I couldn't be happier for being saved from the big, fat, and not to mention taunting, lecture of my dearest aunt.

"Now would you please excuse me? Unlike you I've got more important stuff to do," I said in my cold, superior tone that was reserved for special people on special occasions and left the kitchen, without waiting around to catch my aunt's jabs.

As soon as I opened the front door, someone grabbed both of my hands and dragged me outside.

It was Madhu.

Why's this girl always so hyper?

"Can you please tell me where you're dragging me to?"

"You seriously didn't think I was going to let you spend your birthday inside your aunt's cozy hell, did you?" She kept dragging me towards her parked Scooty outside the front gate, not even bothering to spare me a glance.

"Okay! But you can stop pulling me, you know? I can walk just fine," I muttered, stumbling over the pebbles scattered on the front yard.

"Stop talking and get going!" Madhu turned around, peered over my shoulder and then hollered in her sickly sweet voice, "Hey Mrs. Joshi! I hope you won't mind if I borrow your niece for today. See ya later! Bye!"

I looked around to see Aunt standing on the veranda with hands on her hips. Even with the entire front yard between us coupled with my shortsightedness, I could see the look of disdain contorting her features. She obviously hated my 'wild' friends and if not for the tons of things she had planned to make me work upon, she would've hoped for Madhu to never bring me back to her house.