Tera Zikr

Chapter - 9

The next day we stayed at the hotel it self. No roaming on streets of Goa, no shopping, it was a day for rest and chill at the beach. I didn't sleep last night, the whole night I kept on thinking about Malhaar. It was not our kiss about which I thought, but her brother's story which she told me. I was sure that the church she told about was the same church I wanted to take her to, and that's why I scared asking her about it. I still wanted to go there, but asking her to go with me to the place with which she has so many bad memories attached, didn't seem nice to me. After thinking the whole night, I finally decided that I won't talk to her about that church instead I will go alone. I wanted to talk to Malhaar and know if she was fine but I didn't know where she was. "Hey! Where are you?", I dropped her a message and went to the washroom. After almost ten minutes I came out and checked my phone. She hadn't replied. She would always reply to my messages within five minutes but this time she didn't. I called her but she didn't pick up. What I scared happened. She had started avoiding me. I know that what happened last night was totally unexpected and it happened all of a sudden but she can't avoid me like this, and why is she doing that? Is that because she doesn't love me? Or because she loves me but thinks that I don't? Well maybe, because I also didn't tell her that I love her. Everything was complicated. I badly wanted to talk to her but here I was, getting ignored by her. I went to her room and pressed the bell. No one opened the door. I pressed again and still no one opened. "Malhaar", I called out and knocked the door but I didn't get any reply. Now more than being ignored, I was worried about where she was. She was not in her room, was not replying to messages and was neither picking up call. I went to the beach. Many people of our group were there, even her friends were, but she wasn't. I looked all around but couldn't find her. I went towards her friends, "Hey guys", I said. "Hi Darshan", Priya said. "Hey. Do you know where's Malhaar?", I asked. "She's in her room", she replied. "No, I came from her room only. No one was there", I said. "Ya, she just know went inside", she replied. "Okay, thank you", I said with a smile and turned around to leave. "Hey", I said and again turned towards Priya. "She's fine na? I mean her behavior", I asked. "Umm ya, she was fine but then just before you came, she was something and went to her room. She looked disturbed. I hope everything's fine between you two", she told. Something dropped inside my stomach because that 'something' about which Priya was talking was probably me and she left when she saw me coming, and the only question in my mind was, why was she doing this? Why was she avoiding me so much? Was that one kiss so inappropriate that she behaved so differently?