Accepting Reality

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Misdirection leading everywhere but there

ACHooo

Achooo

Achoo

Oh my damn.

“Ash, you okay?” Asks Sunni, who is looking very concerned standing at my door. “Yeah, I’ve never been better” I say sarcastically, cuddled up with tissues of my own snot. “I thought as much, you did go to see Karthik a couple days ago, he probably spread the virus” she says winking at me. “Ugh, Sunni shut up will you?” I said covering my head with a pillow trying to cover my head in shame.

All I hear is a bang, well there goes the door. I’m too pissed off at life to care about feelings. Kidding, I’m not that much of a bitch. I’m just tired and sick of life. What I need right now is some pizza and chocolate to make me feel better and I’m definitely not getting that anymore. That’s it I’m taking things in my own hands and ordering. Now where’s that damn pizza menu. I’m ordering a deep dish and with Sunni’s cash too, she left her wallet. It’s her fault for being so damn irresponsible. I was always the responsible one and the most boring to people. But I’ll be the caring one and buy another pizza for her too. The things I do for my friends, I’m so kind aye?

“I’ll get it” I said rushing to the door for my food. I don’t know why I said it, I mean no one is at home but me, who else is going to get it? Whatever old habits die hard. I open the door and lo and behold I see Chinese in front of me.

I spend all day not thinking about this person and they end up on my doorstep. I narrow my eyes at this person. The person gives me a nervous shrug as if saying ‘this is really happening’. I break the silence by saying “is that sweet and sour chicken?” “Yup, sweet and sour chicken with extra fortune cookies too” Arnav says hopeful. I grab the bag as though I am inspecting it and close the door. Now ladies and hopefully gentlemen if you asked me if I was going to be seeing my MIA brother anytime soon this year, I’d say you were bullshitting me. Thank gosh we didn’t bet on it.

I expected him to bang on the door like previous times he has done things to piss me off. But sadly, that didn’t come. Why is everything so unexpected these days, I don’t know what to expect these days. Now that’s freaky.

After I scarf down my chicken and am opening the fortunes, the first says this:

Seek out the significance of your problem at this time. Try to understand.

Talk about plain crazy.  I don’t believe in fortunes. I just read them for fun. You can hold my surprise when the next one says this:

Soon a visitor shall delight you.

That’s it, I’m going back to bed, and this is all too much for my sick mind to handle.

Soon enough I wake up to the smell of pizza, that’s weird. I don’t remember waking up to answer the door for pizza. Whatever I probably was just sleep walking again, won’t be the first time that’s happened. I follow the smell of pizza to the kitchen. The house is as quiet as ever and as I open the pizza box … I am disappointed. There’s no cheese. Only mushroom and peppers left. We got some pizza thieves up in here. Couldn’t these pizza thieves at least leave me just one slice of cheese pizza?  I let out a holler.

“BITCHES, I know you’re here” I yell. “Shut up, we saw the Chinese under your bed you bitch” those two say together as though they’ve been practicing all along. “Ganging up on the poor sick girl huh?” I retort. “We left you some slices” Tara said. “Yeah, all mushrooms and peppers” I retort. “Oops, my bad” Sunni adds. Those bitches did it on purpose for sure. Ever since that prank I pulled on them, they been getting even. But correct me if I am wrong. I did one prank on the both of them. They’ve been getting even with me way more than once this past week. I at least thought my poor pizza would be safe from their greedy hands. Apparently not so much.

I sulk back to my room, when I spot something that catches my eye. Somethng… purple?  “Sunni? Did Sid buy you flowers again? I ask. “If he did I sure didn’t notice.” She says walking into the living room of our apartment. “Oh those? Karthik sent those, he said something about ‘remembering’.” Sunni said and walks back into her room.

I reach out and stroke a petal. He remembered.  I think back to our time at Sid’s apartment. We talked about simple things at first, kind of like breaking the ice a bit. Like in real life, you don’t go and talk about our deep darkest secrets right then and there. Kind of like the rule about not having sex on the first date. You kind of just have to ease into it. Sorry, my mind is kind of in the gutter. Very sorry, to be of such inconvience. But this is my mind and not yours so either sit back and enjoy or simply get out of my head.

So he asked me: my favorite color, my favorite food, what I want to major in and so on. You know, just generally getting to know one another. But not like a date, if you haven’t noticed, the only reason I didn’t high tail it out of there was because he wasn’t himself. I don’t make sense again. This happens a lot. I mean one thing and say some other bullshit. Anyways, it is kind of nice he sent me flowers. My favorite color too. I take the flowers back into my room and set them by the window. Smiling wide as I drift off to a world full of unlimited pizza and books. Maybe in my dreams I can get a hold of that new Sarah Dessen book. The moon and more.

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Btw, if you’re wondering what Karthik’s favorite color is….guess. Comment below your guesses. I'll dedicate the next chapter to the first one who guesses the color right.