"Erm okay. Do you not think that you are going a bit too far?" Irene leaned on the railing, once she was able to keep aside her unexpressed gratitude.
"Am I?"
"You don't think so? I mean, what do you even know about me?"
"Nothing but still a lot of things."
She let out a sigh. "Can you, for once, talk clearly? Why do you have to put riddles in front of me every time? Wait. Hello? Hello?" She brought the phone at the front only to see that the call was already disconnected.
She stared at her phone screen for two long seconds before she kicked the wall. What the heck was this guy up to? Did he just hang up on her?
"Urgh!" The frustration that was building inside her was making her want to punch someone in the face. 'When did I grow this aggressive?'
The more she tried to contain the frustrated within herself, the more furiously it screamed to drive her crazy.
"Urgh. You need to start meditation for real. Enough of your excuses now."
Shifting her gaze at the moon, she recalled what Ilyan had just said and continued to rant. "One moment he makes me feel incredibly grateful by uttering those... words and the next moment he riles me up by hanging up on me. Like seriously! Here, I, despite being so low, did not hang up on him and he..."
Frustration seeped into her voice. She couldn't quite decide if she was more mad at him or herself. She felt awful coming face to face with the kind of person she had become over the period of time.
Getting so ridiculously mad at something as petty as that, assured her that she had lost her sane mind. Perhaps, Ayden was the reason, she thought but the next moment, she chided herself for the same.
"Stop blaming everything upon him, will you? Because of one terrible thing, he did to you, you don't get to hold him accountable for every damn thing," she muttered, frowning at her stupid thoughts.
Before she could go on with them, she heard that shrill ringtone again. Obviously, since her mind was a pathetic mess, she was going to throw a fit at everything in sight.
Deciding to change it to something else, something that she liked as soon as she could manage, she lifted the phone up and answered without bothering to check who it was.
Once she heard the voice, her tensed up muscles slowly began to relax.
"I am sorry. I didn't realize that my phone was low on battery."
She bit her lower lip.
'So he had not willingly hung up on me! And I just read an angry essay on him! Wow, Irene! You are just as great as you could be! Slow claps for you.'
The guilt of misunderstanding him did not let a word escape her mouth. She just stood there, holding the phone to her ear, contemplating how to proceed.
"You there?"
Her shaky hand tucked the strand of her hair behind her ear, as she nervously hummed.
"What is it?"
"Wh...what?"
"Don't tell me that you thought I purposely hung up on you and it got you upset? Haha. Really?"
Her gaze dropped to her feet, embarrassed.
"Huh? You are just assuming things." She was not going to accept it. Definitely not that readily!
"Am I?"
She heard his laugh from the other end. It seemed like he did not even need any confirmation from her side. He already knew everything. She stomped her foot, already on her way to give up.
"Please explain why you would even think that I would hang up on you."
"I don't know," she whispered, absent-mindedly.
"There. You just accepted that you did get upset thinking that I hung up on you."
'What the...' Her eyes widened as his chuckle snapped her out of her slightly lost self and she realized, what a blunder she had just made!
"Fine." She rolled her eyes once before shifting to her right and leaning against the wall.
"Calm down. Why so angry?"
"I don't know," she murmured, slowly catching up on her normal breathing.
"It's okay. Wait. Give me a moment."
Her brain had been overworking a bit too much lately. She closed her eyes, trying to throw every thought out of her mind for a while but the more she tried that, the more thoughts clouded her mind.
The phone was still near her ear. A moment later, music hit her ears.
He played a song and he himself went quiet.
'I messed up tonight, I lost another fight.
I still mess up but I'll just start again.
I keep falling down, I keep on hitting the ground.
I always get up now to see what's next.
Birds don't just fly, they fall down and get up.
Nobody learns without getting it wrong.'
Surprisingly, when that song fell in her ears and the lyrics touched her heart, her mind no longer felt the prisoner of the unwanted distressing thoughts.
'Look how far you've come, you filled your heart with love.
Baby, you've done enough, take a deep breath.
Don't beat yourself up, don't need to run so fast.
Sometimes we come last, but we did our best.'
A thin layer of tears caused her eyelashes to get wet. She had indeed come very far.
Despite the devastating incidents life had made her witness, she had not let her heart get bitter.
'I won't give up, no I won't give in.
Till I reach the end and then I'll start again.'
Inhaling a deep breath, she wiped her eyes. The song had ended but she had gained the strength. The strength to hold on and stand tall.
Ilyan, despite doing barely anything, did a lot. Ever since she had met him, all that he had done was... help. In the most indirect and unexpected ways!
Neither did he know her nor did he know her issues but still, in some way or the other, he was helping her feel better and it... mattered to her. She was not even his friend to start with. He practically had no reason to invest his energy in her. But he did and she quite did not know what to even say to him!
"Get some sleep. I feel, you need it and don't forget about my pastries. I'll wait for you. Good night."
And he disconnected the call and she... was flabbergasted as usual.
Did he know that she was at the loss of words?
'Is he an alien with some mind-reading powers or anything?' She found herself questioning while saving his number.
Life is surely weird. You just cannot know what it has in store for you. Sometimes, when you are busy cursing life for snatching something you held dear from you, life is busy planning to bring something more beautiful to you! You might not understand it at the present moment, but as time passes, the realization dawns upon you that... you never expected life to be so kind to you.