Broken Strings

How are you feeling?

.

"How are feeling? You must be missing him already." Swecha asked looking up at me with big chocolate brown eyes.

"Put on your seat belt." I said maneuvering the car out of the parking lot.

She sighed and did she was told.

"You didn't like Maanav leaving. Did you?" She asked looking up me as if ready expecting me to flip her off.

I shook my head.

"I don't." I said.

"Why?" She asked her voice too low.

I didn't answer her immediately and she waited without protesting or forcing me. When I finally answered her, I surprised myself by telling her the truth.

"I knew Maanav since we were 10. Let's just say that during all these years he was the only family I have ever had. But Maanav's family.....Its complicated. "

"I know. I have heard about his step brothers."

"It's not his step brothers that I am afraid of. It is his father. You must have heard about his reputation. He can be ruthless if wants something done. And Maanav has seen that side more often than his brothers did. It is not like I blame his father, because I know that he just wants to make Maanav fit enough to run one of his companies. But what Maanav wants is completely different from what his father wants him to become."

"Maanav said that he wanted to become a photographer when he is young. And that you wanted to become a cyber security officer."

I nodded with a smile.

"We did. They have been our dreams until life hit us."

"I wanted to become a cartoonist when I was kid." She smiling up at him.

"Why?" I asked.

She shrugged.

"It was a world where anything could happen. I wanted to create a world where everyone were happy and there was enough love for everyone. It seemed like a good thing until my dad disapproved of it."

She said and not the first time I wondered what happened while she was in New York that she was forced to study over here away from her family. I didn't voice those questions. I understand how uncomfortable and answerless those question could be.

"Your father must have had a reason." I said.

She laughed.

"Your way comforting truly sucks, Pi. But true. He always has a reason. For everything he did and for everything he let happen. It is comforting that way."

I smiled at her as she fidgeted with her fingers in her lap.

We were silent the rest of the way. When I stopped the car in front of her house she said

"Don't you think that as we grow up we are forgetting the little things that used to make us happy? Like how our dreams are changing not because of our desire but because we are growing up? That somehow we are becoming more and more unhappy as we grow up."

She said out in a rush as if she were stopping herself till now from saying them out loud. I looked at her and raised my eyebrow at her.

"You have been thinking about all the way here, weren't you?" I asked.

She looked down at her fingers and gave infinitely small nod.

"I just think that it is really unfair and cruel." She said still not looking up.

My eyes softened a little and I placed my hand on her head, brushing lightly. She stiffened. I stiffened.

Why the fuck did I even try to pat her head?

I took back my hand awkwardly and stepped out of my car as she did the same.

She came around and stood in front of me and I coughed a little.

"Don't think too much about it. You are depressing yourself. And not all the happiness is lost as you grow up. It is just your choice." I said.

She smiled awkwardly up at me and nodded.

"But why are you in talkative mood today."

"Huh?"

"Usually you never talk and it is a grilling job to make you open your mouth. But you are very forthcoming today. Why?"

"I don't know. No one ever asked about my opinions. Maybe that is the reason I never talk. They never ask the right questions."

"Maanav too"

I shrugged.

"Sometimes. He doesn't want to offend me by asking questions about how I feel because he believes that I would feel bad about not responding the same way as other people do. He is always careful about his questions around me that sometimes it gets me too riled up and lose my temper around him."

"Then you should have talked to him about it."

I shrugged.

"I don't want to. I want him to realize it himself. Go now. It is getting late."

And so she left grinning and waving up at me till she reached her door.

And standing there, in the cold night, I understood what it feels like to miss someone and what it feels like to have someone who asks "How are feeling?".