Inquest (Completed)

Reboot

Dhruv stood waiting for a bus to go home. Thrice, he subtly eyed the path he had just trotted on, hoping that the doctor had not followed him. The doctor didn't appear, but a bus did, down the street. Dhruv found a seat, sat down and when the bus started accelerating, he smiled. He had successfully escaped unscathed. 

Dhruv recollected few moments of the conversation, laughed at himself for acting somewhat ludicrously. 'Why didn't I simply change the topic if I didn't want talk about it?' he thought. 

The Bus-attendant couldn't help returning Dhruv's smile while handing him the ticket. Dhruv gazed out at the night-view, illuminated by yellow-orange streetlights. Dhruv checked his phone for any messages. Apparently, Krupa had sent him few on Whatsapp. She had informed that she had reached home and expressed her gratitude to him for inviting her. Dhruv looked around him, adjusted his hair and pushed his specs up his nose. After meticulously formulating a response in his mind, he sent her a message thanking her for accompanying him in this endeavour. Krupa had to go offline, so the two decided to chat later on.

Krupa wanted to know what Dhruv was going through, but he wasn't ready to share yet. She had already felt odd about his behaviour in the past few meetings. But one day she will find out, she knew it.

When he reached home, he didn't reveal details such as the two persons he had gone to meet, but he described his experience -- 'entertaining and engaging, quite fun!' -- to his parents, and sister. He was hungry as well, so he changed clothes and had dinner with the family. Later, he went to his room. Diwali vacations had officially started for Dhruv. He unpacked his bag and kept his books on the study-table. He opened his bookshelf and decided to bring order into the mess. He constructed several small book-towers on the bed. Just as he was busy constructing few more, he laid his hands on a familiar hand-sized notebook: a diary.

Diaries were quite a rage during childhood days, but Dhruv hadn't written more than 6 pages: 3 pages contained a general introduction about his likes and dislikes, for instance he didn't like capsicum at all, as a kid, but he stopped disliking it during recent times; the rest three contained entries of three days from the first few days of eighth grade. The diary, named as 'Julian', tempted him to read it, and he checked whether his parents or his sister were anywhere near his room, but they weren't, so he seated himself and began reading the pages. There were few sentences about himself that seemed to talk about a complete stranger: a person Dhruv vaguely remembered. He looked at the book cover: "2011". 'Why didn't I ever write after eighth grade?' he wondered.

He decided to celebrate his life's first 'Date', by sharing what had happened with 'Julian'. He wrote the date, recalling the format of Diary-writing that he had learned back in school. He stared at the date, kept a vigilant ear at the door which was almost shut, and then got lost in thoughts. Suddenly, hearing a knock on the door and its movement, he quickly held a booklet over his diary. His sister entered halfway in, smiled at Dhruv, pointed towards the socket, unplugged her phone and the charger, and left, leaving the door half open. Dhruv rolled his eyes and closed the door as much as allowed. He started writing a condensed account of today's experience. And then, added how he felt about each part of the experience. He didn't use pseudonyms for either person.

Dhruv wrote 5 pages, excluding writing how he felt about his sister entering his room like this. That stayed in his mind. He safely hid the diary under the bed. He felt happy.

___

Diwali vacations passed by playing video games and meeting neighbourhood friends and occasionally chatting with Krupa. Dhruv thought she was still chatting with him in hope of meeting the doctor again, through him. He knew he will disappoint her about that. But he didn't say anything. He had asked her why she had shared her contact number with the doctor, because then his irrational fears of the doctor and Krupa conspiring against him would enter his mind again. She had explained,