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9 - Charged

i freaking love this chapter.

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10 - Charged

Maya Sumedh

 

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Luke alone for the next four days, and on the fifth day our house was a whirlwind of suitcases and frantic packing.

 He seemed okay, though, but he spent most of his time with Sam. Layla came over a few times. I couldn’t talk to him when all of us were together anyway.

 We planned to leave Delhi early on Thursday morning and drive to Agra – it would take only about four hours by car – we were banking heavily on the efficiency of the Yamuna Expressway. And when I say early, I mean early. At like four in the morning, so we could check into the hotel by eight – ish. The wedding was on Thursday evening. Then we had Friday and Saturday all to ourselves, and we would drive back on Saturday night. Sam and Luke had school on Monday.

 It sounded fun, but I had my doubts. Weddings are boring without alcohol.

 Sam had a brilliant idea of staying up the whole night on Wednesday – he loved doing that. We’d do it at least twice every summer, every year. Luke was all for it. They both had ulterior motives though. Sam had to pack – he’d assured Ma that he’d do all his packing himself but then left it to the last minute. As a result half his clothing was in different piles in our linen room. Luke was all packed and ready to go. For him our night out would be an excuse to guzzle coffee by the litre. I hadn’t realized before, but he really liked coffee. I wondered how he’d been getting sleep all these days.

 I did it because I thought it might be fun. And I still had to pack a few things and iron some of my clothes which had just been washed. And I had to pack my underwear.

 So after dinner on Wednesday we formed a little camp in the living room. We spread mattresses on the living room floor – purely for comfort, of course – and Luke lolled about on them in his pyjamas, flicking channels on the TV.

 He looked adorable.

  Sam and I brought our piles of clothes that needed ironing from the linen room and set up the ironing board. Sam’s suitcase lay open on one end of the couch. A large thermos of coffee sat steaming on the centre table; along with a plate of apples because they’re apparently more effective in keeping you awake than coffee – according to Sam, anyway.

 Sam wanted the ironing board first, so I happily flopped down next to Luke on my stomach, my knees bent and legs in the air. He turned his head a little and gave me a crooked smile.

 “Hey.”

 I smiled back at him.

 “Hey.”

 We lay there, flicking through the channels on TV. A part of me was itching to grab the remote from Luke’s hand, switch the damn thing off and ask him if he was okay. But I didn’t. Another part of me was wondering why he didn’t just find me when I was alone and talk to me. Maybe he actually didn’t want to talk about it?

 I tried not to feel hurt about it. I mean, he was entitled to disclose what he wanted. I shouldn’t have really cared.

 He eventually stopped on Neo Sports - cricket. It was an old ODI, India versus England. I knew it was pretty old because the uniforms were different – we were still wearing the nice sky-blue thing we used to have, not the dark, ugly ones we have now.