The Unforeseen Path

Part 2 : Chapter Seven

"In terms of embarrassing outcomes
for deceleration of love,
horrified kindness was
just as bad as it came."
- Tamara Morgan

The next day I got up, hopped on to the picnic bus like nothing had happened. I sang songs with everyone in the bus, I hooted during the right parts, I laughed along with everyone, I just did everything that I was supposed to do.

I went through most of the trip like anyone else, except the part where I dodged Mohit whenever I could. I didn't have the guts to come face to face with him. I was too mortified and embarrassed.

Tanya noticed this and asked me what really was going on. And I gave her a small gist without really delving into the details. She said,

"Why did you have to say anything to him?"

She said that in an annoyed tone and we left it at that.

I didn't say anything much cause the idea, of telling someone, anyone the details of my confession scared me because it made me vulnerable. Maybe that was the reason I didn't tell anything to anyone.Not even to my sister.

This wasn't me.Whenever something happened, I would rush up to my friends and tell them everything. Not that I had a plethora of them.But I had very few who I could count on for anything. And they'd help me through it. Yet I wasn't able to say anything.

I just went through all the rides in the amusement park and for the most part I even enjoyed the thrilling experience of it. As the day ended I thought I had got over it already. I didn't really understand how optimistic I was being.

Then next day came and there were no thrilling, captivating rides for me to forget what really had happened. Unfortunately I ended up reaching early to class and so did he.The only other person with us was Jai. Jai Ho!! Thank god for Jai.

As he came inside, he directly came up to patted my back and said,

"Its okay Pia.I understand."

He looked me in the eye and gave me a nod like he perfectly understood what I was going through and that just made me like him even more.

I didn't understand it. He was supposed to hate me for this. He was supposed to ignore me like I ignored Nikhil.He wasn't supposed to be all helpful and kind. It confused the hell out of me. Why couldn't the asshole do what was expected of him?

It all became messy in my head. I had this perfect plan to erase all my feelings when I heard the magical 'NO'. I would go back to studying the way I used to without any distractions. But I guess the best laid plans too get trampled.

***

Days were passing and I mostly went through the motions as usual.

College. Class. Home. Repeat.

I went through the motions but they didn't treat me kindly. In class, for almost a month I had trouble even meeting Mohit's eyes. Vikram once asked me why I couldn't turn around, look at him and answer his questions, when really I was avoiding looking at Mohit, who was sitting right next to him.

The thing that torched me the most was in college when he passed my classroom and went to his classroom that was right next to mine and I could look at him through the window, as I sat right next to it, and he wouldn't even notice me, like I wasn't noticeable, which really was the truth. Sometimes he caught me staring at him and it was even more mortifying.

Whenever I stopped going through the motions, even for a minute, I felt like I couldn't breathe and my heart had swollen with pain and agony. Like something really precious had been taken away from me. Like I was robbed off something. I felt my heart become heavy. I knew I couldn't talk to anyone without appearing disturbed. Everything played in my mind again and again like a movie and it just didn't stop. I didn't want to feel sad, I wanted the feeling to go away. But then in the moments that I felt happy and smiled, I'd remind myself or get reminded of everything again and feel sad all over again. It almost felt like I myself didn't want to be happy.

Sometimes I would go days without feeling the aching sadness and I'd think maybe I was cured of it.

I guess even I wasn't that lucky. Who am I kidding, I wasn't lucky at all.

I had seen the beautiful side of having feelings for someone. The euphoria, the magic of it, the raising heart beats whenever you were near that person, the building of dreams, the happiness of that person just breathing in the same room as you.

Nothing had prepared me for this ugly side of it. What every romance novel tells you is how perfect it is between two people who love each other. But nobody talks about unrequited feelings.

Not that the dark cloud of a month didn't have its fleeting moments. Sometimes he'd say something hilarious, directed at me and we'd laugh. Sometimes he'd nudge me in a lecture, when he sat behind, mostly on purpose and the good part of it would come back.

Mostly, it was all off balance. Especially the perfect plan of studying constantly that I had.

If I couldn't concentrate on studying before, now I just couldn't bear it. I couldn't fathom sitting down and pouring all my attention to books. My mind wondered and went to places I did not like.

So, I avoided studying. Instead I bing watched F.R.I.E.N.D.S or How I Met Your Mother. Basically anything that made me laugh and forget.

Eventually, things got bearable and I could look him in the eye. Eventually our relationship improved. We talked we laughed. We got to know each other more than we knew before.

But when some things normalized, other things hit its downfall.