||~~The Brewer's Girl~~||

👼Cotton Ball👼

☺Chapter - 2☺

❤Dedicated to shwetabais for her honest and entertaining reviews! She's the Flash and I love her👻❤

❤Cotton Ball❤

Aashna

I'm still waiting for Yash to come with some news. Probably his phone's battery died. The Brewer's girl whose name I don't know is sleeping peacefully on the couch and I am sitting near her on the floor. She feels so soft just by looking at her, I can feel the innocence and also the warmth radiating from her small figure. I am feeling more things.

Some things I shouldn't feel at this moment. There is someone else's daughter under my roof for God's sake and her parents must be going batshit crazy not finding her. I should feel the urgency or panic and even the restlessness I felt a few hours before. But all I am feeling now is waves of calmness crossing over me. The type of calm I've not felt in the last five years ever since I brought this tragedy onto myself.

Breaking someone who was already shattered came easy but not the guilt after I was done.

The little girl shivers in her sleep and I shift the blanket to cover her properly. Next I turn down the dial on the AC. As soon as I hear the ding sound of the lift outside, I rush to the main door, opening it for Yash. His breath comes out in huffs even though he must have taken the lift and it's clear he has done a lot of going around. "Where were you? Any news?" I ask him in hushed tones as he steps inside. His expression is screaming 'we are in trouble'.

"I saw people looking around for her. Here," he hands me a piece of paper, "We need to take her here."

"The Brewer's Girl", I read aloud. Beneath it, is the address written in a rushed handwriting. Porterhouse Brewery.

"Yeah that's what they were calling her when I asked around. Do you know the place?" he inquires, while helping me put on my Jacket.

It's impossible to not walk by Temple bar in Dublin and notice Porterhouse. I made sure every time I went there in the last month with Yash, we never stepped inside that particular brewery. I have some old acquaintances there. I'm sure Kabir's friends hate me by now. Just like him. He hates me and I deserve it. It hurts me to think about it. Nothing can be done. Or undone. I've even lost contact with Lily who used to be my good friend. People fall apart easily in the millennial world we're living in.

I stare at the girl for a long minute. I can't understand what connection this little one has with the mentioned place. It's strange but then I remember the chain she's wearing and chide myself for it isn't the time to ponder more about it. We need to make a move. "Yes I know exactly where this place is." Yash raises his eyebrows at my heavy emotion laden voice. I wonder whether my face is giving away that I've been there before with a certain someone Yash knows about.

Why are a bunch of old memories hitting hard at me on this day? First that strange feeling at that corner and then feeling that I feel with this unknown child and then the place we're going to be at. I pocket the slip of paper inside the jeans I'm wearing, wishing I could somehow pocket or gather my memories as well and throw them away. But I'm selfish. I'm keeping those memories for me even if they hurt because if I threw them away I would be empty.

But pain made me capable of feeling something. Anything and so much more that I still feel.

Yash clears his throat, closely accessing the play of emotions on my face. "Are you okay?" I gain control of myself, it's after a long time that all those overwhelming feelings are unleashing from the shackles of my heart. There is something strange about today but I can't tell what.