I know I can be a bit crazy, but I must have lost my mind when I said I had someone I liked. Low-key, I was hurt knowing that he was not interested in relationships. No matter how much I thought about his ideas about love, I could only say one thing, he was not a person to put love first on his priority list. I doubt if love was even on his list. I was disappointed, maybe I was also discouraged. At that moment, I felt so lonely for the first time in all these years.
"Had fun, baby?", Swara grinned with one hand swiping her mobile screen. I nodded and headed to the room following Prakash. I told him that I was tired and washed up first to go to bed early. I laid there for about an hour with my eyes closed, but I couldn't sleep. He was awake too, playing games and maybe chatting in between. I was bored and so I decided to talk. But, should I act as if I had just woken up or what? I didn't know he already knew that I was not asleep until he initiated a conversation. "You seem to be struggling to sleep!"
"Nothing like that."
"I see.", he stopped there. So I started again. "When are you graduating?"
"In two to three months.", he suddenly got up and looked serious, so did I and asked him what had happened. He asked me if I was getting bored and didn't wait for me to answer. He started to go through his room, searching for something. Then his laptop caught his eyes and he said, "Use this as long as you are here."
I took his laptop, "You sure are so brave, lending me your laptop."
He rolled his eyes and said, "Should I not lend you then?"
I bowed and took my words back. I needed something to distract my thoughts which were the fruit of nothing but boredom. I was so grateful to him for taking care of me. I placed the laptop on his bed and sat on the floor. I played some music first to break the awful silence. He did not seem to be bothered, so I kept on playing it and browsed for some time. I logged on to my social media account. I had no messages from friends or family. There was only one person who had texted me. It was from Reema. Although she had flown out of the country, she still kept in contact with me. She would call me now and then.
"YOU! ALIVE ???"
I texted back saying I had been busy and lied her that I lost my mobile. Even though I wanted to tell her the truth, who would believe? Huh!
"Do you contact Reema?", I asked the guy over the bed.
"Hmm?", he was overindulged in his game. I repeated the question to him. "Was it a month ago? She texted."
"She did her post-graduation here, right?"
"Yeah"
"You two must have spent lots of time together!"
"Nope! We had our own friends. I was not her only friend, but one of her friends." and he murmured, "She even caused troubles over here."
"Trouble?"
He had just realised that he said something unnecessary. He told me to ignore what he had said. Of course, it was possible, she could have made some mistakes. She looked ridiculously free-spirited and it seemed reckless to some eyes. I couldn't leave it at it. I wanted to hear what actually happened when she was here. Because I could sense a change in her when I met her before her departure. So I asked him again, "I wanna know more."
He sighed and sat straight. "She was in a relationship here. And it was not a safe one."
"Unsafe? Like how?"
"I don't know, I didn't see them in person. I am just saying what I heard. By the time I arrived at Hyderabad, she had only a year left to be here. Meanwhile, I was too busy adapting to the place to mind her business."
He had nothing to say about the incident, I couldn't ask Reema about it too. Maybe I should forget about it, was what I was thinking until I saw a post of Reema hugging a guy so happily.
"Hey!", I turned the screen to show Prakash what I saw, and asked, "Isn't this that poet from the cafe?"
"Ashmit, yes!", he looked not so happy about me finding that picture. "It's too late, stop thinking non-sense and sleep."
"How could he be in a toxic relationship?", I sealed my mouth with my hands, "Oops! I don't mean toxic but not so good relationship."
"Maybe the one who was reckless made it unsafe.", he cleared his throat.
He put his phone down and went back to sleep. My mind wasn't shutting down yet. I was shocked, Ashmit Swaminathan was Reema's ex?