Broken Without You

3. The Invitation

Note for my non-indian readers - Bhaiya means elder brother.
Bhai means brother.
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Chapter 3

The Invitation

I woke up with the constant ringing of my phone. I stretched my hand towards the night stand to grab the phone but it fell on the floor with a thud.

Heart attack...

I pushed the duvet aside and bend down to pick my phone up. It was still ringing. Thankfully. And nothing had happened to the screen.

I breathed a sigh of relief and answered the call. It was my elder brother, Armaan.

"Hi bhaiya," I greeted him in a croaky voice. "Good morning,"

"Happy New Year princess," he beamed.

"I'm not a princess," I replied smilingly.

"Technically you are," he stated.

"Whatever," I mumbled. "By the way, Happy New Year to you too bhaiya,"

"Thank you sweetheart," he thanked.

"So? Any plans for today?" I enquired rolling out of my bed and standing on my feet.

"Nope. What about you?" He questioned.

"Nah!" I replied. "I think I will work a little and binge watch something with Ishika, "

"And Alina?" He asked.

"She has to go to the Hotel. Her internship nonsense,"

"Oh okay...Ishika is there with you?" He asked casually after a pause of two-three seconds.

"Yeah! Why?" I asked while I strolled into my walk-in-closet.

"No-nothing...just asking," he shrugged.

I nodded and said, "Ok," and walked into my washroom.

"Aisha," he called.

"Yeah?"

"It's mom's birthday day after tomorrow. You haven't forgotten right?"

"What? Of course not," I asserted while I put the tap of my bathtub on and added some bubble drops into it.

"Yeah...If she was alive today, we would have been celebrating her fiftieth birthday," his voice was laced with sadness.

"Right, but no worries. You know she's with us all the time. She still takes care of us, I know," I assured him as I took my brush and applied some paste on it.

"See you soon then princess," he concluded.

"Yes bhaiya and please don't call me that," I laughed and hung the call.

I don't remember much about my real mother. Like, I have pictures of her (and she was exceptionally beautiful) and a journal which according to bhaiya, I had to read when I turned twenty one but I couldn't read it then. Why? I'll discuss that soon.
I don't remember staying with her for long.

I don't know if what I have stored in my memory is true or just a piece of hallucination but I was scared of flights for the longest time possible until I went to college because of my mother.

My memory tells me that I was five or six when my mother met with an accident. A terrible one. She sustained so much of injuries that she had to be kept on life support for seven months and five surgeries were performed on her back to back within a span of a three months.