WITHERING ROSES

Secrets

"ARE YOU TWO LOVE BIRDS COMING!!!???"

Trust Catherine to ruin a perfectly good first time in my life situation. We went to the teashop, me and Ankita were walking beside each other not knowing what to say. Catherine was walking/dancing in front of us looking no less than a toddler who hit puberty. We reached the shop.

"how much?" I asked.
"uh 60 rupees Kalyan!" Catherine said.
"I ate six of those thingies......hehehe"

     Catherine was trying not to look at me. I was still in awe, one of things was bigger than your whole palm and she had 6 and was still jumping high. I was about to ask her about it when I noticed Ankita looking longingly at a pack of cigarettes. I didn't want to believe the fact that she used cigarettes in the past.

"Ankita?"
"huh...?"
"are you ok?"
"*nods head no*"
"there are a lot of men smoking here, do you wanna go somewhere else?"

               She looked around, there were 3 men smoking cigarettes. Me and Catherine looked at each other. Then she looked at me.
"let's go somewhere else." She said.
    She had tears in her eyes, I didn't know why. I hated it when people cried in front of me and I couldn't do anything. I wanted to comfort Ankita and be there for her......... again. She called her driver. We waited at a bus stand at the side of the road. We were sitting quietly, me in the middle, Ankita to my right and Catherine to my left. Ankita was looking down, she had become more quiet and cried more since I last saw her a year ago. I could tell she was constantly thinking about something, a tear was about to fall from her eye. Catherine nudged me with her elbow signaling me to talk to her. A tear rolled down her nose, I wiped it. That made her look at me.

"Ankita look, since I've seen you. From the first moment today till now...... you've been crying. And I don't like seeing you cry. And I don't like sitting and watching you cry not being able to do anything about it. I want things to go back the way they were. When we shared everything, when even the worst secrets would do nothing to hurt our relationship. When I was there for you and you were there for me. I want times to go back when we shared our pain, when we...... we lived to show our love"
"aint you a romantic drama king" Catherine whispered.

       Ankita looked at me, I could say, she was going through a lot. Her eyes...they weren't the same, they were begging for help. She wiped her eyes quickly.

"Kalyan*sniff* even I honestly want those times back. I want us to be us again. But I*starts crying* I-I'm scared..."

        She started crying again.  Was crying her new hobby? Did she ever smile? Am I the reason for her crying so much from the moment she met me? I didn't like being the reason, directly or indirectly. And why was she scared? What was it that was scaring her? Or who?