Always Is Not Forever (Breaking Myself - Part II)

35. The One Where I Friend Zoned Him

[ A L I N A ' S P O V ]

Words. Too many words. Too many sentences and yet my eyes couldn't concentrate and grasp any of it.

Narrowing my eyes, I made myself comfortable with the book, leaned back and took a deep breath. Start again. Forcing myself, I tried to pay attention to the letters inscribed in the second para of the book and was reading through it when again, my concentration halted and I drifted off to some other part, some other nightmare.

Why she did it? If she never loved me, she could've said it. Why couldn't she show her real face like Rishi had done? It would have been such a relief to see the reality than the lie hidden beneath it.

Had I done something to offend her? Had I come off as a spoiled girl that she wanted to ruin me? Her words reeled back, her actions ran through. Again and again, she turned the blind eye, and again and again, I acted as if she was my mother.

Was my love too false? At the back of my head, I knew the truth. Why couldn't I get a bad feeling from her like I used to get from everyone else? Why couldn't I push her off when she tends me when I would be sick? Why couldn't I see the mask she wore of love in front of me? How disgusting one could get for money?

Money.

Everything always ended up with money. People could be bought with money, crimes could be hidden with money, life could be made back with money.

Just that fucking money.

"Bookworm?" His voice made me turn my attention to the side. I didn't notice him slipping next to me in the garden. "Reading?" He peered at the book. "Weren't you reading the same book a week ago?"

And the same since the last two months. I had tried changing the book, hoping it was the boringness but nothing changed. I went through twenty-five novels, and none could hold my attention to them anymore.

For two months, I hadn't read and write. What was happening to me? Even when I was doing medical, I would at least read. Now it didn't even interest me a bit. I tried harder, but the words blurred, my attention went to some other place.

"Too long," I lied, closing the book shut. "Do you want something?"

He licked his lower lip. "Did you like the flowers?" I nodded, turning my head to the vast of grass spread through the ground, to the students occupying different spaces and me sitting alone with him interrupting my time. "And the books?"

"Thank you." I opened my book and tried to read again. I had to read. I had to write. Why couldn't I do it anymore? Why would my hands shake whenever I try to write? Why from past two months all I had been able was to write a line? "Will you leave me alone?"

"Alina-"

"Kabir, I'm not your girlfriend," I said harshly. "Neither your friend. Leave me alone for a while, okay? I know I have to go for the dress and I will but leave me alone."

But instead of listening to me, he didn't get up from the seat and leaned back against the bark of the tree, staring at me curiously. "You're in an awful mood."

"What is your problem, Kabir?" I shut my book, too annoyed at my own behavior. "Give me time, okay? I cannot forgive you just like that. You're too much for me. Please, leave."

How couldn't he see that his presence was further pushing me to read but yet I couldn't? That even if I was trying to forgive him and move on, I was reminded of the time when he left me stranded alone in our apartment as if I meant nothing in the first place.

He twisted his lips, assessed me for a couple of minutes before standing up and walking out of the yard. Breathing a sigh, I opened the book again, tried to read through it but my mind wouldn't stop thinking about the memories of the past, the betrayal that I had left there.