Lost And Found

11. Communication was the key, but I only had a lock .

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We sat in seats and the train gave a loud hoot.
I pushed my bag below my seat and slumped in my seat.
I had lost contact with Riyan and that was slowly making me lose my mind.

We were going to Nainital for my cousin Amisha's wedding.

But nothing could excite me anymore.

The journey would take three days and another week for the wedding then another three days to be back at home. It made thirteen days.
Thirteen days without knowing what's going on in his mind.

Maybe I could sneak away from the wedding, take a flight perhaps to Goa , go to Valpoi and be back again before Mum came to know.
Ugh. That wasn't going to work.

I sat and racked my brains.
Nothing.
Abso-frustrating-lutely nothing.

I sat tensed , watching the scenes change by the window in a blur.

Everything was beautiful outside but my mind remained static.

Stuck on how to solve that idiocy I had committed.

My mom's phone rang. She was talking to dad and the phone kept ringing irritatingly.

She peeked in the phone to realise the number was unknown and ignored the caller.

The phone rang persistently.

Finally giving up , she picked the phone ,looked at me suspiciously and handed me the phone wordlessly.

I took the phone equally suspicious.

She often made me talk to people I didn't knew.

'Hello... Hello... Is it Sarah?',It was Riyan.

I quickly got up from my seat and moved away to a secluded corridor.

'Yes Riyan it's me. How did you get my Mum's number? ', I asked elated, surprised and relieved.

' Why is your number switched off? Do you realise how much worried I was?',He sounded furious.

'I thought you didn't want...', I couldn't complete my statement.
It was that stupid.

' Didn't want what? Do you have any idea how difficult it was to get your Mother's number? I had to go to the orphanage and beg for hours before she handed me your contact. I'm so angry right now that I don't want to talk to you.'

I laughed.
'But you are talking.'

Annoyed at laugh, he cut the call.

But I quickly saved his contact.

I did a quick dance and returned to my seat.

Everything felt better once again.
The scenery out of my window felt amazing , the food from train's pantry tasted good , even the coffee that looked like mucky water was tasting heavenly.

I knew Riyan was angry then.
I could only imagine how much trouble he had to undergo to get in touch with me.
But that meant he cared!

I didn't dare call him then. He atleast needed few days to cool off.
I sent him a text however.
'Hi. Sarah here. Lost my old sim card.',I lied.
I quickly recieved a 'okay' from him.

But that was it.

Next morning came and went and all I could think of was him.

The scenery was great, pantry food amazing and the coffee kept tasting good.

He hadn't called yet but from the look on my face you might think we were texting secretly like all the teenagers do , hiding their phones under their books so that their parents didn't knew they weren't studying.

The reason I believed was that we weren't average teenagers.
We hadn't even spoke of our affections to each other or made huge promises.

We were just happy and contented.
That's why we didn't need reassurances every other second.

Yes initially I did get suspicious but I was naive that I listened to Samara.

So the scenery remained beautiful throughout my journey and the food remained eatable. I hardly complained.

But it had more to do with my mood than with the actual food.

Honestly the food was disgusting.

When we reached our destination, my dad unloaded our luggage onto the platform. Somebody was going to come to us to help us with the luggage upto the hotel that all of us were going to crash in for the entire stay.
I stepped down and a cold breeze of air sliced my face.
The temperatures were running low.
My breaths were leaving soft whiffs of air.
I covered my nose and mouth to protect against the scathing cold.

We had informed Amisha about our arrival but had to wait for quite sometime before we saw a boy approach us through the thick fog .

'Sarah I'm sending someone over to get you'll here. You can come in the second car trailing him.', she had told me briefly.

He had his face covered too and my dad went ahead and double checked with him to be sure we were not handing our stuff to a thug.

He loaded the luggage alone , he was quite muscular, and set off alone in his own car.

Without a single word.

He reminded me of Riyan so much that I almost felt a pang he wasn't there with me.

We took another car that Amisha had sent for us.

Amisha's brother's friend's brother was at the front wheel.
He got chatty the second we touched the seat. So I had to drop my assumption. Not all boys are so tragically quiet.

I sighed. Well mine was.

And then sighed again when I realised I had called him mine.

Did he ever think that way too?
I wondered.
And then thought how difficult it would be to make him confess that even if he felt that way.
He was exceptionally unvocal.

People who said communication was the key, I wanted to ask them what did one do if there were few locks which were practically keyless.