Sing to me

Sing to me: Chapter 5

I made Josh 2 years younger, I felt like he was too old. Again, I would love if you leave some feedback. This is kind of a filler chapter, but I wanted to make the next one longer and more happening. Please leave comments. 

For most of the next day, every time Josh would close his eyes, he would see the maimed skin of her inner arm and the guarded expression on Warda’s face. He was a doctor after all, he knew what those were. But he also knew that very few inflicted scars upon themselves which were so neat and so deliberate. He shuddered as he imagined her sitting somewhere alone, cutting her arm purposefully. He wanted to ask her, wanted to know why she would do that. Warda’s sunny personality was the complete opposite of what he had seen. And then there was the expression on her face. It was almost as if she was expecting him to be disgusted and then run.

Josh wasn’t disgusted, he was confused and angry. Why would life do something so bad to her that she would cut her own self? He messaged her in the evening, not knowing whether she would want to speak to him now. There was no reply. He went to bed that night wondering if he lost Warda before he even got to know her.

He was up early the next morning and there was still no word from Warda. He wondered for a moment whether he should go over or call but dispelled the idea. He missed her which he found strange. She was someone he had met thrice but he found himself thinking about her laugh and replaying their conversation in his head and smiling. Finally three days later, it was almost 2 in the morning when his phone beeped. He woke up groggily, not being able to figure out why there was noise at such an early hour. Shivering, he stretched his arm out to grab his phone and was fully awake the moment he was there were 3 new text messages from Warda.

He sat up against the head board and laughed out loud as he read the three long messages she had sent. ‘Hi Josh, I am sorry I haven’t replied. And before you say anything, no I am not choking or running, I was super busy’.

‘Some clients are a little wild, the one I finished with today wanted his unborn child’s room all done in Cheetah print, I mean the walls, the rugs, the cushions, everything. I am seriously considering calling child services.’ He laughed when he read that.

‘Is it very apparent how conversation starved I am? I am texting an almost stranger what I did all day, that too in the middle of the night”.

He typed out a reply. ‘Haha yes it is very apparent. Child services? I would say refer him to a psychiatrist’. Josh paused to think a moment and pressed send. He typed another text.

‘Hey Warda I am sorry about the other night. I did not want to make you uncomfortable’.

He set his phone down and ran his fingers through his hair. He was fully awake now. His phone beeped again.

‘Are you talking about the hug or what you saw’?

‘Both….?’ Josh replied.

‘Well it is okay…about both.’

‘Will you ever tell me’? Josh typed out.

‘Please be a little vaguer, I can understand you perfectly right now’. She answered.

Josh smiled and replied, ‘will you ever tell me why you cut yourself.’

‘I’ll tell you whenever you ask.

Will you ever tell me why you won’t talk about your father’?

Josh paused. She knew he was stalling when she asked in the restaurant and she hadn’t said anything. He typed a deliberately slow reply.

‘I’ll tell you whenever you ask.’                                        

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“So, how are you going to make up for the beach incident?” Warda was sitting cross legged on the beach, sipping water. Josh turned to smile at her. Warda had the evening free, so he had met her at the beach. Neither one of them mentioned the messages of last night.

“Do you want me to grovel?” he said and watched her eyes light up with the smile that had become so familiar. Every time he saw her smile, he wondered about the scars on her arm. She was a walking contradiction, he thought.

“If you are free tomorrow, I think I can do something to make it up to you”, Josh said breaking both his and her train of thought.

“Done”, said Warda, extending her hand.

Laughing, they shook hands like making an important deal and an easy silence fell on both of them.

“What is your last name?” Warda asked suddenly.

“Adams, Josh Adams”

“Warda Robertson”

Josh inclined his head a little, rolling her name on his tongue. He liked the way it sounded.

She continued. “I am 24 and I moved here a month ago”.

“I am 28, where did you move from”?

“London, she said, my family still lives there”.

“Why did you move”?

“You know when you find yourself in a circle you cannot get out of? And the only thing you can think of doing is running away, well, moving here was me running away from my life there.”

Josh did not know what to say to that. “You are full of surprises”.

“Do you want to me tell you all the gory details of my life so that you actually do run away?” she smiled but he could sense an underlying sadness.

He turned to look at her but she was looking at the water, so he did the same.

“So what happened to the Cheetah print guy?” Josh changed the topic.

“Oh dear God, he wouldn’t agree to anything else, I have seen so much Cheetah print in the last three days, I think it is going to trigger a migraine now”.

And just like that, Warda became her animated self. Her eyes twinkled and her dimples made the occasional appearance. He watched as she flicked her hair back and moved her hands and realized that no one had ever been as fascinating to him as she was.