Heal the Heart

12.

Days moved fast. Or as fast as it could when all I did was go to classes, man the desk at the rehab centre, dry-swallow pills, run at the crack of dawn, drink myself to unconsciousness, lounge on Deep and Krishna's couch, dry-swallow more pills, curse the weather every single day, watch cricket matches while screaming at the screen, cry myself to sleep and dry-swallow even more pills so my stomach could open a dispensary one day.

My third term finished with me barely getting the grades to sustain my scholarship, and my fourth ended with a trip to the Intro to Statistics prof's office to beg her to up my grade. An hour into my pleading efforts, and she gave in just so I could relieve her from seeing my face for another hour. She increased my grade, and no one died, so I considered that a success.

It was a bittersweet moment returning home. More bitter than sweet, actually. Like those sugar-free brownies my mom makes for my grandparents. Bitter, bitter, bitter, one sweet bite to coax the soul, and then more bitter, bitter, bitter. Maybe because this wasn't really home home. My parents, sometime in January out of the blue, decided to leave Hyderabad and move to Mumbai. No care for me. No care for my sister. They just packed our bags and ordered our asses to move it.

No. That wasn't it. I wish it was, though. Would've been easier to hate them and drop all the blame on their shoulders. I wasn't even present for the move. Or when my mom offered to FaceTime me as she boxed up my room. It wasn't even a sudden decision. They had been mentioning it for a while. Dropping subtle hints to my sister and me that our time in Hyderabad was not infinite. My mother grew up in Mumbai. My parents met there. They got married in a small church in Andheri East and bought their first apartment in Powai. My sister and I spent a substantial amount of our toddlerhood in that house, till my father got a transfer to Hyderabad.

Now it was time to go back. My parents said they were growing old, and it was better to stay near family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings. Was that why my grandparents lived all the way down in Goa? What about the fact that we spent more time with friends in Hyderabad than we did with our blood ties in Mumbai? I didn't voice my questions. I knew it was because of me.

The last time I was in Hyderabad, I had stepped out of the house a grand total of six times in three months. I didn't want to talk to anyone, look at anyone, or do anything. Most of all, I didn't want to bump into Arya or the people who knew him. And everyone knew Arya.

So, Mumbai...

New start.

More like the continuation of an old movie left midway.

I didn't mind it for the most part. The apartment was bigger. The running track in the colony was smoother. There were batting nets too, and a mini cricket field where I played with some of the other resident during the weekends. I was worse than a rusty, fifty-year-old truck with engine problems. But by the third week, I'd like to think I had gained back some of my momentum. And aggression.

Soon, holding a bat didn't feel out of place. And getting that long running start before I bowled came naturally. Who knew that all I needed to bring back some familiarity were a couple of unknowing individuals and a totally different setting to practice in?

I smiled and laughed and roared and screamed and returned home on a dopamine rush.

I didn't miss the hushed whispers of my parents at night. The house might have been bigger, but we hadn't unpacked entirely, causing an eerie echo to resound when all was thought to be quiet. I hated that they still doubted whether this was a good decision on their part. I was happy, wasn't I? I hadn't learnt how to live without cricket being an integral part of my being yet, but I was trying to. And they needed to stop second guessing every single word they said to me. That way, I could stop second guessing every choice I made in trying to move forward.