She can't count the number of times she have turned at corners and prayed for it to be him, the number of times she visited Day Star School to get his address and returned with, it's confidential. She has gone to DPS Manali and gotten as far as, he did not show up for the exam, to desperately contacting a passed out student from Day Star 2020 batch on Instagram, which thankfully once visited his home for a school project before. So she had shamelessly followed that student to the supposed house for him and found to her dismal that he had left the house 20 days earlier, sold the house. She had pathetically cried on that road, cursed at herself for not finding it earlier, and stared at that chalet house for an hour as if that would miraculously bring him there.
She had known he wouldn't be there on the science campus, how could he be, when he had not given the entrance exam, even then she had checked the entrance cut off list. The guilt ate at her every moment, so every day she visited the science department and sat near the fountain.
It made her cry, and feel hopeless and pathetic but it was the punishment she deserved.
But now, she can't believe her eyes.
He keeps looking at her and his lips form into a little smile, and she wants to run into him, wants to hug him so tight, and tell him that she is so, so sorry. But all she can do is stand from her seat and wait for him, because her legs feel like jelly, and her heart would fall out of her mouth any moment.
And he starts walking towards her.
Misha's heartbeat goes up a notch, with every step he takes.
And he comes closer, and closer.
And then, all the blood drains out from Misha's face when he passes beside Misha without even glancing in her direction once, as if she didn't even exist.
"I was waiting for you, from almost an hour." A girl speaks excitedly from Misha's behind and Misha's head snaps to the direction to face a lithe, beautiful girl in a leather brown jacket and warm blue jeans with the face of Selena Gomez with extra long lashes and perfect inky black straight hair, get up from the vinyl booth and hug Aakash with so much enthusiasm that she could pass her whole semester if she were so enthusiastic about her exams.
Misha looks at Aakash's back, she sees the girl's arm wrapping around his waist, and her throat and her chest starts hurting so hard that her hand wraps in a tight fist, but she understands, how wouldn't she? She made him feel the same he is just angry, she thinks to herself.
Someone clears their throat and Misha turns to find Sammy at her table carrying a glass of cappuccino on a tray. She understands the look when Sammy beckons her black pointed eyes towards the seat she was sitting earlier, so she gulps her words and her heart and takes her previous seat.
Sammy doesn't waste a second, puts the tray on the table, and plants her derriere on the opposite booth of Misha in no less than ten seconds, bending down to the centre of the table to whisper ardently, "You are looking like a like a lioness ready to pounce at him, have patience girl, you are not the only one to see that hot guy walk in, look around you."
Misha turns her head up and see Sammy's words coming true; girls are half hanging off the booth with wide eyes, their eyes stapled on the booth behind Misha.
Sammy flips her pink hair with her silver metallic painted nails, her eyes narrowing, "Why am I seeing him here for the first time" she giggles a throaty giggle and her face turns all dreamy and delightful and she thumps her hand on the table, "I didn't know you had so much of courage in you, you looked like you would scratch that guy away from that girl with your long golden fiery nails."
Misha doesn't know what to say. Her hand is dampening, and her heart is accelerating with altogether uncongenial speed. She does the only thing she can think of doing, to explain to Sammy, because god knows, she needs someone to understand.
Her hand reaches to the zipper of the bag, with a shudder she takes out the single image she has of them ever being together given by her Gem, the one she has started to carry with her all the time, she looks at it, it's a colourful picture of them, she is wearing a pink baggy sweater with a pink beanie and black tracks and he is wearing a green cardigan over a white t-shirt with black denims. They both are barefoot and they both are smiling at the camera, standing close to her grandmother's cabin window so that the sunshine reflects on them.
Aakash is very different from the picture now, but he still has traces of the twelve years Aakash in the picture. He is wearing a cream cashmere overcoat over a black turtleneck instead of the green cardigan in picture; he is much taller than the Aakash in picture, his face more arched and stubborn instead of the goofy smiling Aakash in picture. But some things were still same, his inimitable black and gold eyes, his purely ethereal dimpled smile, his messy brown curls, and all these things, she thinks, looked even more beautiful on him now. He is beautiful, she thinks with an eldritch heartache.
She hands over the picture to Sammy, and perks up her ears to eavesdrop in the conversation happening at her behind while watching the expressions of surprise play on Sammy's face.
She watches Sammy's pupils widening at the picture, and the incredulous look she gives when she looks up at above her from the picture, her winged liner, makes her look like some shocked opera singer. Wordlessly Sammy points a finger at the booth behind Misha in question and Misha nods in answer.
"Go" Sammy mouths at Misha forthrightly.