MODERN CINDERELLA

CHAPTER-28

                      Aahana was standing backstage, wearing the creation which she and Kait pulled off in just last two nights; they had been working non-stop without blink of an eye till this morning. And now she was standing here, side of the backstage, peeking into the crowd and getting all nervous. She, till now, couldn't believe herself that she would be modeling in front of that crowd, prestigious judges and in the middle of these professional models—whenever this thought popped in her head, her throat getting dry. She was continuously fidgeting her hands around the 'pallu' of her saree. How did it happen to her... now all were a memory to her.

On Wednesday, after the conversation with Kait, she went to her desk and messaged Nick to send her a photo of his mother, but before any reply had to come from his side, Kait called her again. She picked up her phone. "What is it Kait?"

"Aahana!!" The fear could be heard from the other side of the phone clearly.

"What happened, Kait? Are you okay?" Aahana went to the washroom while hanging the phone on her right ear.

"Aahana! My dress!" Kait was crying.

"What happened? Please Kait.. calm down. Tell me what happened...." Aahana tried to calm her down through the phone.

"Th-The-They cut my dress.." Kait answered through her hiccups. "They ruined my dress, Aahana. What do I do, now? My competition is in 2 days. I don't have any time to work on the dress from the scratch. What I'm gonna do?"

"What? Who did it? And did you complain to your teacher or mentor?"

"I can't." She sniffled. "'Cause the one who did it, is the daughter of one of the trustees. They have upper hands. If I complain about it or something else, they'll cancel my studies and can ruin my whole career before it has started. What will I do now, Aahana?"

Aahana was walking back-and-forth while thinking what to do now. "Okay. First thing first. How many dresses are ruined?" She asked worriedly.

Kait sniffled on the other end and answered, "Just one, but they cut the dress so badly that I can't recover it again."

"Okay. Where are your other dresses? Are that okay?"

"Yeah. I already kept the other dresses at home. I was working on this final dress for days, but they ruined it." She started to cry again.

"Shh shh.. Don't cry. Do one thing. Pack your all things from there along with the ruined dress and come back home. I'll be coming too. Let me see first that dress then we'll think together what we can do, together. Okay? Sounds great?"

"Okay..", she whispered.

Aahana cut the call and went to Mr. Jackson's cabin to apply her paid leave. Mr. Matthew didn't ask her anything, just gave her the permission. She thanked her and went to pick her essentials from her desk and came out from the building. She reached to her apartment after a short ride. She saw that Kait was already there. After seeing Aahana, Kait ran towards her and started to cry while hugging for her dear life. Aahana also hugged her back and tried to calm her down by rubbing her back soothingly. When Kait was a bit calm down, they came to sit down on couch. Aahana poured her a glass of water, Kait took it and gulped down the water in one go. After that, Aahana wanted to see the dress which was ruined. Kait slowly pulled out the dress from her backpack. Aahana looked the dress.. the dress was being cut here and there devastatingly and also coffee and wine staines were there. Whoever ruined the dress, didn't take any risk to ruin it. Aahana glanced at Kait; she looked tired. After one worked non-stop for days, poured everything to the creation and then someone ruined it just because they felt attacked by the opponent's beautiful creation--- of course, she would look rather tired than anything else.