An Outlet: Part 7

29 July, 2019.

Today I went to the gym but much later than the past few days. I did cardio yet again. Alex said his body needed rest after the full body workout he did the last time so he accompanied me in doing cardio.

On our way back home, our rick nearly collided with a speeding car. The car's driver, breaks and tires saved us. I couldn't even register what had happened. Our rick guy ignored the entire incident. He might as well have said "yeah roz ki baat hai".

After taking a bath and freshening up, I left to meet Paloma and Nigel. Our plan was to go to Nigel's house for a drinking session like last time but I had decided not to have much. I needed a long break before I drank properly again.

I was to meet Paloma near her place and then we both would travel together to Nigel's. It started raining heavily while I waited for Paloma to meet me. She came after quite some time and we quickly caught a cab.

I think I've mentioned this before but Nigel is a super hospitable host. As soon as we entered, he began listing out things that we could eat. Ultimately we settled for home-made chaat. And that wasn't it. After some time he got some fried samosas and potato cheese cutlets as well. And some imported chocolate too! And guess what? That wasn't even our lunch!!

We were supposed to order pizzas but neither the site nor the app was functional even after 2 hours of waiting so we settled for our usual Chinese in the end. If you're with Paloma and Nigel, it will a number of arguments and taunts before the final order is placed and today was no different.

After having lunch, we drank a little. I only had one shot of some drink while Paloma had multiple. We spoke and laughed a lot! We had a full on Karaoke session where we sang a lot of old songs including Miley Cyrus' Party In The USA. We danced a lot too! Paloma was very tipsy throughout and I think around 6PM, she became drunk as well. Cause we were having a chill time when she started crying all of a sudden. I couldn't even have guessed what caused her to break down like that.

I've been friends with her since 2014 now but I've never seen her cry this much. It was unstoppable. From our previous conversations I figured that one reason for her breakdown was because of her strict parents and her feeling trapped in her own house. But I didn't know that her condition was more due to her supposed ex. Paloma's always been very inconsistent when talking about her "love life". There are a lot of guys who have had a crush on her and even though she did hint at actually dating someone, the relationship never seemed solid. I had no idea how much being or not being with the guy affected her.

We tried calming her down but to no avail. We had gone to Nigel's since morning and it was already 7PM by them. It was raining heavily and we needed to head back home. At one point Paloma's mom called and we didn't know how to handle it. Even I needed to go home but I also didn't want to leave Paloma in such a state. I called my mom to tell her that I'll be late and she thankfully didn't question much. At around 8:15PM, Nigel dropped Paloma at her house. Neither of us could face her parents cause we had ignored all of her mom's calls. Paloma was still complaining about a headache but we couldn't stall any longer.

Nigel dropped me at the station and I came back home post dinner time. Due to our late lunch, I ended up not having my dinner. 

Recently mom's not being extra strict as far as my social plans are concerned so I decided to tell her exactly what happened, minus the alcohol part.

Now I understand why Paloma said that I'm strong when I narrated my "guy problems" story the other day.