Arranged HATE

[24] Care for the cause

" Hey, Nandini! " A man in his early twenties, wearing a blue t-shirt approaches her.
Nandini blankly stares at him.

" Let's be friends. " He smiles offering her a small bunch of yellow roses.
Nandini hesitantly takes the flowers in her hands and looks back at him, confused.

" Nandiniiii !! "
Holding the flowers she immediately turns around and finds a person shouting her name from a distance. He runs as fast as he can to reach her.

" I want to be your friend. " He says panting for air.

" Huh? " Nandini tilts her head in confusion.

" Hey, Nandu! " A teenage girl runs to her shouting all the way, " let's be friends! "

Nandini doens't understand what was happening. She was already sick of making new friends and now people were approaching her to be friends with then too.

" Nandini! Let's be friends! "

" Nandu, I want to be your friend. "

" Friends forever ! "

" Let's be good friends! "

Strangers from all the directions come running to her, shouting her name. Within few seconds Nandini was circled by a huge crowd. She looks around, confused and tensed.
Everyone speaks at once making it unclear and clumsy.
"Let's be friends! ' their words echo in her head.

Her hands sweat and her heart beats faster, the yellow flowers slowly slip from her hand and fall on the ground. " I don't want friends anymore!! "
She screams at them.

Nandini shot opens her eyes.

She wakes up from a nightmare, sweating profusely, gasping for air. She instantly looks around and her pulse falls to normal when she realises that she was in her room.

" wah?! Woahh" she coughs and searches for water, " people haunting me with friendship deals? " she takes the jug from the nightstand and gulps down the water, " never knew I could get such nightmares! " she says, pressing fingers to her eyes.

Breathing in and out, she calms down herself.
She slowly gets down the bed and walks out of the room. Finding no one around, she goes downstairs.
As she walks down she finds the house empty with no one around. Doubting, she checks the time on the clock.
' 9:30a.m ' it reads.
Assuming that Abhimanyu might have went to college she decides to go back to her room. When she swiftly turns around, her arm by mistakenly hits a free standing cabinet. Nandini quickly catches a wooden framed photo which was about to fall from the swaying cabinet.

" that was smooth~ phew! " she breathes out. Before placing the photo back back she takes a glance of it.
She deeply stares into the photo. Slowly.. she begins to hear a child squealing out of excitement.

" Really? Really? " five year old Nandini jumps in excitement.

" Yes. " A 9 year old Abimanyu  swiftly nods.
She runs and hugs her brother. She looks up at him with her big, round, puppy eyes, brightly smiling as Abhimanyu smiles back at his little sister.

**

The car stops infront of the gate of a huge mansion. The door opens and Nandini jumps out.
" Careful! " Abhimanyu gets down behind her.
He holds his sisters' hand with his and rings the bell.
A security person opens the gate for the kids. He escorts them to the main door.

Abhimanyu stands tall on his tiny feet and rings the bell again.

A woman in her thirties opens the door.