Everything Was Fine Until...

The Beginning- Part I

PROLOGUE

15th May, 1981

It was a bright afternoon, the sun rays were seeping through the windows into the living room of Anshuman's house.

The summer vacation has just started and all his friends had either gone for a holiday or were already at their grandparents house.

Anshuman loved vacations, specifically going to his grandparents house. If it weren't for his school, he'd spent the entire year there. But for now he was daydreaming about it. He was bored and hungry and couldn't do anything about either , thanks to the guests that were about to arrive.

He had pleaded countless times for food but his mother had told him to wait until the so called guests arrived .Probably some of his mother's friends or his father's acquaintances would come and talk about nonsensical things and well how sorry they were at the news of his father's demise, how he was a great man who didn't deserve to die so early and so on . None of them meant it  they weren't sorry either, its was all for show and he absolutely hated it .

His mother was already hurting and these guests added to her misery. He didn't need their pity nor did his mother, they had gotten used to it now, the silence and the pain. And yet every few days new people would come and throw more pitiful glances, both at him and his mother for how was she to take care of him all alone now .He didn't want this, he didn't want to hear any of it anymore. His father was gone , forever, and thinking about it only caused him more pain.

The thought about his father brought a wave of sadness over him. He couldn't fathom that his father had suddenly disappeared, never to come back. It was really hard for him, more so for his mother. Yet she always tried to put a brave front and told that everything will be easy with time.

He felt a bit better when his mother said that. That and her smug replies when people crossed boundaries, were what brought him comfort.

The doorbell brought him out of his thoughts ,alerting him of their guests but he was in no mood to go and receive them, his mother could do that. He was waiting only for the food.

He  heard his mother greeting some other woman and her kid.

"ANSHU! Come outside and see who is here." Amrita shouted loudly.

He grumbled and came outside and saw a woman he had never seen in his whole life and a little girl with long black hair who probably was a year or two older than him.

"This is my son Anshuman." Amrita introduced him and slapped his back lightly .

Amrita then flung her arm around Neela and introduced her to his son. He could see Neela getting stiff under her mother's hold.

"This is Neela aunty." His mother said to him. The woman give a awkward smile to him and he couldn't blame her, because his mother's forwardness and actions has put many people in awkward places.

"And that is Neela's daughter, why don't you both go to your room and play with your toys." She nudged him towards the shy girl.

"Come." he said and she followed.

They went upstairs to Anshuman's room, she quietly stood in one corner and said nothing and kept looking at the ground. To break the silence he said, "You don't have to be so uptight here. I won't eat you, you can be chill and play these games with me or you can stand there with your head down and we will keep staring at each other as we've been doing for the past ten minutes."

At this the girl looked up and smiled at him. Anshuman gave her a toothy smile in return. Soon both of them interacted with each other and for now Anshuman was able to forget all the bad things that had been happening to him.

21st June, 1989

A girl aged no more than 14 years was currently sitting on the front steps waiting for 'Anshu' as she called him. This has been going for some years sometimes she goes and visits him and other times he comes and visits her. This time he is coming for 4 days to stay over and the she has planned how she's going to make the most of it.

She liked spending time with him because he is only person she knows who has never made fun of her. Just because she is introverted and looks a little weird because of all the acne on her face, which many people thought was a topic to make fun of.

He is the most kind and fun loving person she has ever met. He was her first friend. So she cherished him a lot.

As the years passed by she had noticed changes in him, puberty had started hitting him, he has grown taller than her and he has become more handsome, his face had become angular, his jaw had become more prominent, his light brown eyes complimented his brown hair falling on his forehead and covering his eyes a bit, his nose which was slender has become more prominent. All in all he had become more smart. Puberty had done a good job on him.

But all this didn't matter she liked him when he was a scrawny boy with a finger in his nose.

After meeting him she transferred to his school to spend more time with him, yes even though she was just a year older than him and both were practically kids she had become rather too fond of him.

He became the most popular boy in the class and many girls developed a crush on him.

But the feelings she has in her heart are more than some silly crush. Because no girl would fail a grade just to be in the same guy as the guy she fancied, but she did. She failed a grade just to be with him.

She realized this last year, the feelings she harboured for Anshuman were not platonic and from then there was no stopping her.

Her mother told her a few years ago that Anshuman is her half-brother and she knows that the feelings she has in her heart are wrong, but she cant help it. The moment she sees him, she looses it, her brain looses all the logical thinking that she possessed.

And she has no damn clue, how to suppressed these feelings, the moment she sees Anshuman rather than feeling just butterflies in her stomach she feels the whole damn zoo, the fuzzy feeling in her heart won't stop.

Her thoughts were cut off with the sound of a car approaching her house and her face broke into a huge smile when she saw him coming out of the car. There's this feeling, the fuzzy feeling, butterflies- no the whole damn zoo.

She sprinted towards Anshuman and engulfed him into a hug, Anshuman embraced her back. It was a bit weird since she never embraced him this happily.