The Friend-Zoned Lover

Chapter 6

Disguised Identity

Genuinely I had no idea how to take this friendship to the next level. I couldn't imagine myself admitting to something absurd that will make me lose my face in front of him.

Wait a minute, you have not met him Ruby, so how would you lose your face? You are right subconscious mind!

The fact is I am afraid of losing his friendship. My level of self-confidence was so appalling that I wasn't prepared to meet him in person. Perhaps I should call him over the phone and start conversing. But it seems to be rather awkward, what if he finds me boring and hung up the phone? It was one of the thousand and one scenarios that were running in my mind. I needed a concrete plan before I start talking to him.

Unfortunately that month my hand phone bill reached nearly few hundred dollars. My parents were unhappy and unwilling to pay for it. It served me right for having dumb conversations with my friends bitching about others for hours. With no choice left, my line was temporarily cut off and I had to save up to pay the damn phone bills.

For the time being, I bought a prepaid number. I never inform most of my friends including Ishaan about the new line. I didn't want to risk of depleting the few credits that was left in my prepaid card. Randomly an insane idea came to my mind. I could vouch it was the most stupid idea ever, but how bad could it go? Therefore, I decided to go along with it.

******

It was Independence Day, it's a habit for my family to unwind and spend time watching the parade on television every year. When I said family, they were not some imperceptible people in my life. I just fail to introduce them earlier on.

My dad, Mr Bhatt owes a provision store at our old neighbourhood. He is a stubby and corpulent man who permanently wears a grumpy face. He was known for his stern nature. People who shop at our store only dare to approach my uncle than my dad. On the other my mother, Mrs Bhatt is a fair and lean lady who always carries her smile as bright as her saris. My mother is a very traditional and conservative type of person. I've never seen her wear anything other than the 8-metre long piece of cloth she drapes around. I could never imagine myself wearing a sari for at least ten minutes. Only she could pull off that traditional apparel so effortlessly.

I have three older brothers and I m the youngest and only girl. Yeah! Yeah! You can judge me as the pampered little thing. On the contrary I am the wiser one among my siblings. My first two brothers Iraj and Sarjit were married and living with their family. I had two nephews from my first brother, Ajeesh and Ajit whom I adore with all my heart. My third brother and I were still young so we lived with our parents. Amjat and I were 5 years apart. Compared to the two other brothers he was the closest and most annoying one.

I hate it when my friends tease me by calling me as the 'accidental' baby. Like hello? I wasn't! My parents wanted a girl and they had me. I am positively not the perfect little Indian girl they would have imagined. Nevertheless I was imperfectly perfect in my own ways. Being the last child in the family was not about getting all the privileges, my first two brothers hardly ever interacted with me due to the huge age gap we shared. My parents were getting older as I grew. I couldn't blame them; they just overlooked me a few times in life. I felt like I grew on my own. Be it with my education or making any decisions in life, I had the control for myself. That doesn't mean my family neglected me. It's just that they weren't the next best option that I could share everything with. When I was young I grew up like a tomboy. Moreover my parents didn't stop feeding me and I kept growing rounder. My memories in kindergarten were unpleasant ones due to the amount of bulling I got for my physical appearance. I didn't care till recently when I started liking someone. From time to time the harsh memories of boys taunting me kept haunting me back.

Now why did I get so emotional and going out of topic?

I shall come back to the part about the Bhatt family enjoying their day off at home. It was an hour into the telecast of the live ceremony. The military and various uniform groups were displaying their marching skills. The camera swiftly pans to show the audience cheering at them. Then I saw a familiar face in the crowd it looked like Siddarth. I was curious to know if the Malhotra family went to watch the parade. I knew Ishaan was always in awe of the massive fighter planes that do stunts in the mid air during the celebration.

I could have directly texted him to check but I recall the ingenious idea that I had few days back. The 'brilliant scheme' that I was referring to was to use my prepaid number to text Ishaan with a different identity. I felt this would be the perfect occasion and at the same time I could check if it was really Siddharth whom I saw on TV. But how do I start it off? Maybe I should pretend like it was someone else I am suppose to text?

I typed out, " Hey Matthew! I saw you on TV! Are you at the Independence day parade? It's been long since I last saw you. Text me back when you can".

The message was perfect and it didn't seem to be suspicious!

I hit the send button.

I was impatiently waiting for his reply. I checked the time for every fifteen minute. I was getting restless in the end. Three hours have gone past but no sign of reply from him. I felt he would have completely ignored a random text message that was sent to him.

It was around eleven at night, my phone beeped. Finally a message from Ishaan, I squeaked at the sight of it. My heart started to thump so hard.

"Hi this is not Matthew. May I know who is this?"

I need to figure out a fake name to respond to his reply.

"Don't lie Matthew! Sanjana here. We studied in the same primary school. I saw you on TV! Were you at the parade?"

My fake identity had a name.

"Hi Sanjana I guess you got the wrong number. I am not Matthew."

"Than who are you?" I replied.

It was a dumb question to ask. But without having any idea on how to pursue this ridiculous conversation any further, I had to.

"This is Ishaan here, I am afraid I am not the person you are looking for. You should check the number you have sent again."

I took a longer time to reply and this time I should agree it was a mistake.

"Oh I just realized I mixed 2 numbers wrongly, I am so sorry." I answered.

"hmmm. Its ok"

I am sure he wasn't convinced with my stupid reply.

"I am extremely sorry about this. Happy National Day ;)"

"Thank you." He replied.

Damn it Ruby! He sounds annoyed. I had to blew this up, didn't I? Now how am I ever going to text him again? This is the most bullshit idea and I officially can't give him this number as myself.

Well-done! I smacked my dimwit head.

--

Author's note:

Hey lovely people! Thank you so so much for reading this story :D Sorry for the late update and I could only update 2 chapters for this weekend :(. This book is going to be really long, so it's just the beginning! The important parts and characters are yet to come! Please bare with me! :D Have a great week