I'll Be Around

Chapter 2 : Vault of Old Memories

The morning had grown quite chilly. The sun brought a little respite. After Farhad went away, I sat down on the rooftop for a while. My head was pounding like it was about to burst. My heartbeat was faster than ever. I felt so confused about what to do. Moreover, whatever physical energy was keeping me up was withering away just like my hopes. Time seemed to have stopped then and there. Each second felt like an hour to me. I closed my eyes to let my brain rest for a while.

When I finally opened my eyes, I realised that I had dozed off. The sun was high up in the sky. My head was still hurting. I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my jacket hoping to see a message from Farhad. There was none. It was best to go home. I smelt worse than natto.

Where could he have gone? Farhad didn’t have a lot of friends. He was a social person but he wasn’t close to a lot of people. It was shocking to most at first including me. He confessed it in our second meeting which was in itself a coincidence. Our college campus had a lot of lakes. In a campus so big, it was fair enough to build lakes just to fill up the landscape. Near one of these lakes was a tea shop popularly called ‘Bhaski’. It was my favourite place for tea in those winter nights. I would go there almost every night. I would mostly sit under a tree with my legs dangling above the lake waters. I would buy some biscuits and feed the fishes. I did the same that day. I would break a small piece of the biscuit and throw it in the water. It would create ripples in the lake which would shine like diamonds under the moonlight. I heard a sound behind me and realized that somebody was trying to get up to the spot under the tree. The climb to that spot was a bit tricky. I turned around to look at him. He was looking down and his hair covered his face. I offered my hand to him.

“Here!” I said.

He looked up and his locks gave way to the face. It was Farhad. My body suddenly froze. The air seemed so cold in that moment. All I could think was,’How could this be?’ For a moment I though I was dreaming but it was so real. He was Farhad.

“Hey!” He took my hand and climbed to sit beside me. “So, we finally could shake hands.”

He remembered me from the afternoon thankfully. I was again nervous. I realised that I had been silent again since a while. So, I muttered,”How are you?”

He looked at me for a while. Maybe he was shocked to see that I could speak too.

“I’m good, Ansel. Is it?”

“Yeah! Ansel, the guided one.” Stupid me. He didn’t even ask for it. What was I thinking? I wanted to jump into the lake out of embarrassment. I wanted to hide somewhere.

“It’s a beautiful name.” He said while throwing pebbles into the lake. My cheeks were pink out of embarrassment now. I started sipping on my now cold tea to fill in the silence.

“Now I understand why this place is so talked about.” Farhad said.

“And why do you think it is so?” I looked into his face to address him. He had the most beautiful skin and a jawline to die for. I faced away from the fear of getting caught staring at him and started to sip on my tea again. The tea tasted horrible now but I had no choice.

“Well! It’s so calm and beautiful. It’s peace here. That’s how you people say it right? Peace. And also because you are here.”

I almost choked on his last sentence. What could it mean? He moved closer to me and held my shoulder with one hand and started patting my back with the other.