Social Distancing (COMPLETED)

Chapter 1

A few pings on the phone woke Amulya up the next morning. She groaned rolling in the bed. The bed was too soft which woke her up with a start. That’s when she realised two things.

One she was not in her bed, or in her room.

And two, she had a severe headache that almost made her want to go back to sleep.

But her stomach turned. She rushed into the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet bowl before puking.

How much did she drink last night?

Why can't she remember anything after she started playing the game?

Groaning she got up and washed her mouth with some mouthwash that was in the bathroom, before washing her face so she didn’t look like a zombie.

She ventured out of the room, realising she was in Shannon’s house. She has only been there twice, including last night.

The house keeper looked at Amulya, and immediately handed her a glass of warm water and pain medicine, which Amulya gladly took.

After refusing breakfast, because she still didn’t feel any good, Amulya gathered her things and started to leave, letting Shannon sleep, as she knew that girl was hung-over too.

It took her almost one hour to reach her apartment complex, and by the time she went home, she wanted nothing but to sleep off her pain. A shower and coffee (because she still felt sick) later Amulya settled in her bed, with her phone, ready to sleep off.

But as soon as she opened her phone, she froze. She had a few notifications from a website she would never dare register when sober.

What the hell happened last night? How much did I drink? She thought to herself.

She hurriedly opened the recently downloaded app, and looked through the messages. She had indeed downloaded tinder, and had swiped right on few guys.

Seven, to be exact.

She could almost see her mother look at her with disappointment, at what she did. Tears burnt in her eyes. It was something her mother told her many times not to do.

Don’t be reckless, Amulya the elderly lady used to tell her. One day when you are older, you will be married to a guy and we don’t want anything that is going to spoil our name. So if I learn that you are speaking to guys, you can forget finishing your studies.

Now it didn’t matter, she was hundreds, thousands of kilometres away from her mother, from the country she was raised in, she can do as she pleased, right?
There was no way her mother was going to learn about this.

There was no way he was going to learn about this.

This was just a drunken deed, it doesn’t mean any harm. I am supposed to love him and I will.
She repeated to herself.

But what if−

Her thoughts were cut off by her phone ringing. A Skype call from home. From her mother. It was like the fate telling her that last night was just a mistake and it is going to stay that way.

“Hi ma” she smiled hoping her mother would believe that she was tired from studying all night, but not hung-over.

Alaric couldn’t believe that he actually managed to write the first chapter. That too, in a week. He still had one more week before the deadline. Normally it would take him a few days to write just a page, let alone a whole chapter. His sister would be very proud.

It was some meaningless cliché love story, where a guy and girl meet and fall in love. Break up. And then get back together, because they couldn’t live without each other.

This is what people wanted to read. So that is what he wrote. His first book was his favourite. He wrote a mystery, about a crime that happened that changed the country, he included some made up national secrets, and adventurous scenarios. And the book was a hit. Everyone loved it. Except his publisher. She was stressing him out, saying that book was too deep for people to love, and he had to write something lighter.

Which lead him to write his second book. A story about a coffee shop love. Again a cliché. But people loved it. It was written perfectly, with all the right feelings and the right words. People loved this more than they loved the first book. His publisher was happy.

Now it was on him to write the third book that is going to either make his future as a writer or break it. So he again chose a story line that he knew people are going to love.

A ping on his phone broke his thoughts. He looked away from his laptop towards his phone, which lit up with a notification from tinder.

His eyebrows met in confusion. He almost forgot about downloading that app. It has been quite since a few days after new year, when he got a few matches, none of which he was interested in.

Except for maybe two of them.

Reagan, as he recalled speaking to, was a sweet woman. She had gorgeous red hair, which was cut into a short bob, perfectly framing her freckled face. He talked to her for two days, before they decided to meet up at the badminton court, when he learnt she loved to play.
Within minutes of meeting he didn’t feel it with her. That and he was not looking to date someone. He just created a profile to get out of writers block and he was halfway through the first chapter when they met.

The other one was Amy. There was no last name.

Amy S.  That’s all.

He knew it was easy to get cat fished, especially through dating sites, but he found her profile intriguing. It was a picture of a girl, her long black hair was all over the picture, barely showing her face, except for a hint of her honey eyes. Her bio wasn’t even that exciting. She just said she was a doctor, looking forward to nurse people back to health. Along with two wink faces, in the end.

He stared at her profile for a few more minutes, before touching his finger to reply to the message.

~*~

07.04.20