It All Started With Amnesia.
A Wattpad Novel by thebookiee
|| The Beginning Of The End ||
Everyone has a story. And, for that story to be narrated it must have a beginning. Everything has a beginning. And, since I’m included in that everything, my story too begins somewhere.
For most of the people who’ve narrated their life story, it begins either on an extraordinary day or an ordinary one. Sometimes, it’s one’s birthday, or the first time you meet someone or maybe even ‘the one’.
My story begins on an ordinary day. It was a warm day, not unexpected in the heat of Mumbai. But, yet the day had a calm, serene feel to it which my gut instinct said would be soon destroyed.
Sure enough, my happy-go-lucky feeling of that day was destroyed when I heard about the accident.
James’ accident.
The one that changed everything.
Every single thing.
____
“Dad!” I yelled over the loud music that was pounding through our walls, courtesy my fifteen year old neighbor. Apparently, for some idiots, puberty is a lost cause.
I sighed. I’m sure he couldn’t hear me. I had to go and tell him. I was contemplating if I should go to dad’s study or not. And, for general knowledge, I wasn’t deliberating that particular decision as if it would affect the teenagers of the world as the loss of internet would because I was afraid of my dad scolding me for disturbing him.
Oh no, that wasn’t why.
It was because I was currently seated on the couch, leisurely tying the laces of my converse and was much too comfortable to make the effort to raise my ass.
Finally, my laziness paid off. That idiot Rohan finally shut his music off, probably because his parents were coming home soon and then he’ll transform into a swotty little brat who is a complete suck up.
I yelled again. “Dad!”
“What is it Kiara?” he answered back, speaking calmly unlike me, I sounded like I was trying to rip out my own larynx. His voice was loud enough to travel without straining it.
I envied his powerful voice.
“I'm leaving. I'll be home by eight thirty, alright? Keith will drop me home. So, don’t worry, kay?” I told him.
But, I knew he’d still worry. All caring fathers do. It’s written in their job description. The one they get when they have a daughter, or in my dad’s case two daughters.
I left after picking up my keys and my purse. It wasn’t a fancy one, a simple one to hold some cash and that was only because I was wearing a top and leggings and neither had pockets.
I walked down the stairs, choosing not to take the elevator. I caught a glance of my reflection in the elevator that was moving downwards. I noticed my face had gotten even more tanned because of all the outdoor practices we’d been doing.
I checked if my hair was still proper, it had a history of having its own mind most of the days. Today, my mix of curly and straight hair was fine. It was straight from the roots till mid length and then boom, it’s curly.
As if my light brown eyes weren’t weird enough.
But, when you look at my face you don’t see that instead of the cute, naïve girl I’m supposed to be, I’m exactly the opposite.
I'm that girl who will do anything and everything just because I want to. Basically I'm a crazy fun loving girl.
When I reached the ground floor, I found my four best friends Samir, Anushka, Carollyn and Keith, waiting for me in the lobby.
So, let me introduce them all to you.
Carollyn Rivers was my classmate in college like the others, but I knew her since seventh grade, when she shifted to Mumbai from Delhi. She was an athlete and was on a sports scholarship at our college, Johnson College of Arts and Commerce.
Keith D’Silva used to live in my building but he shifted to a nearby area last year. We had been friends for seven years.
Carollyn, Keith and I met Anushka and Samir at college on the first day when all of us were pretty nervous about beginning college, and that’s when Anushka with Samir beside her, had pointed towards Keith’s Backstreet Boys t-shirt and eagerly started talking about music, which, according to me was an awesome ice breaker.
Anushka, plainly put, was into all things musical. She was really good with tunes and played quite a few instruments too.
Samir on the other hand, was Anuska’s exact opposite. Where Anushka was a talkative, vivacious girl, Samir was a quiet homey guy who spoke wise words.
“Finally, her royal highness decided to grace us with her presence” said a smirking Anushka when I finally reached them.
“T’was my good nature, and your good luck, my subjects.” I replied in a fake British accent, making an elaborate hand gesture. Like I said, I'm completely crazy.
The others laughed. These antics were pretty usual for them, you see.
Anushka opened her mouth to reply but Keith beat her to it.
“Guys, let's go” he said, almost on the verge of whining, “Or the others will start without us!”
The five of us were going to CCD – Café Coffee Day, along with a couple of other friends of ours from college. Not really good friends, but they were good to hang out with.
“Alright, alright let's make a move people” said Carollyn.
I walked at a slow pace with Keith. “So, I heard that Arya has a crush on you”.
“Who told you that?” he asked, with a hint of laughter in his voice, as if he already knew the answer.
“Oh, Richa told Gianna who told Priya who told Fardeen who told me”.
“Wow, you girls really have a great communication system. Maybe the people in the olden times should have sent messages through girls instead of pigeons” said a grinning Keith.
“Ha-Ha”, I replied in an exaggerated bored voice, “Anyway, what I meant to ask you was, what are you going to do about it? Ask her out?”
“Uh, I'm not sure actually. She's a nice girl but I don't want to tie myself down in a relationship so soon. I like to keep my options open you know” he said. “Do you have any advice, ‘Relationship Guru’?”
I smiled as I heard the nickname my friends had given me. Most of the people in college, well, that’s exaggerating it, people in my class was more like it, came to me asking stuff about their relationship problems. This began when a girl had come crying and had sat down next to me. When I explained to her that her boyfriend was not her pet and that he deserved freedom and she should trust him, she smiled and hugged me and then went on spreading the news that I could solve every relationship problem.
As if.
I had enough relationship problems myself.
And, there you had it. By accident as though it may be, I had the reputation of helping people and their partners. I even had a blog about it!
“Alright, let's see. Do you like her? ‘Like’ as in 'want to propose and carry on with her?' Or is this just an 'I want to have a fling with her' ‘like’?” I asked Keith, jerking out of my reverie.
“Um, I'm not really sure. I think it's the second one”.
He thought for a moment and then in a definite tone said, “Yup, it's the second one. I have no intention of committing myself to anyone right now”.
“Okay, then tomorrow in college go and tell her that you aren't going to commit to a relationship anytime soon. If she wants to have a fling with you, then go for it. She deserves to know that her crush isn't going to ask her out. She ought to keep her options open too right?” I mused.
“I'll do that. Thanks, Kiara. I wasn’t sure if I could do that without hurting her feelings. But you’ve given me a way to tell her the truth without making me sound like a jerk.” said Keith, grinning at me.
As, I smiled back at him, it's not hard to see why Arya fell for Keith. Tall and handsome with caramel colored skin, spiky hair and piercing brown eyes, Keith was definitely one of the hottest boys in their year in our college.
“Oi, you idiots, walk a bit faster, can you? We've still got a long way to go” shouted Carollyn from ahead.
Keith and I both laughed. Anushka, Carollyn and Samir slowed down so that we could catch up.
The five of us had finally reached Café Coffee Day which we all abbreviated to CCD when we talked about it. We found our college friends Dylan and Misty waiting for us outside the Cafe.
“Did you get the cake? Ishaan will be here any minute with Gianna” said an anxious Misty. All of us had gathered together to give Gianna a treat for her birthday.
Ishaan and Misty were old friends, it was really nice that we’d all ended up in the same college. Although, we studied in different fields.
“Yep” said Carollyn, showing Misty the caramel chocolate cake we'd bought earlier - Gianna's favorite.
Gianna was turning sixteen today. It was a big thing. All the sweet sixteen birthday madness and all that. Personally, I think the sixteenth birthday is overrated. I was never fond of birthdays anyway.
“Alright- alright here they come. Get inside! Quick!!” whispered Dylan urgently seeing Ishaan and Gianna come our way.
We all went inside to hide. Gianna’s other friends had come earlier and had decorated the place with the Manager’s permission.
Gianna arrived with Ishaan who had got her to come with the promise of a strawberry latte. That girl is a complete sucker for strawberry lattes. I'm sure she'd get willingly kidnapped if she was offered her beloved strawberry latte.
We had the usual birthday fanfare. Singing the birthday song, even the other customers joined in grinning, while Gianna cut the cake and then thumping her back for 'birthday bumps' and snacks. Later, Gianna swore that she could feel her back breaking, although she was grinning when she said it.
I reached home at quarter past eight. Dad was on the phone when I entered the hall. He had a very grim expression. I did wonder what was going on, but I left it assuming it was a work-related call and went to have my bath.
Later, just before I could go to have dinner, dad called to me his study.
He still has that grim expression from the phone call. I wondered what was so serious, usually his mood was pretty calm.
Dad started, “Kiara that was Mrs. Fernandes. James has been in an accident. He was on his bike when a drunk driver in a car hit him. He's in the hospital right now. Mrs. Fernandes has asked me to come for help. She mentioned that though his condition is on the verge of stable, it can slip into critical any moment.”
What? Where? All those ‘wh’ questions passed through my mind at the speed of light.
I stared at him in shock. Finally after some time when I had regained my composure I asked “Where's mom? Is she with Aunty?”
“Yes. She'll be coming home once I reach the hospital. Eat dinner and wait for her to come, okay?”
“Okay” I agreed in a shaky voice.
“Bye dear, take care”, dad said while taking the car keys.
I couldn’t believe James of all people was in an accident! He was such a careful driver. Whoa.
Let me tell you why this was such a big thing, why this affected me so much.
James Fernandes was a boy who stayed in my building, two floors below me. Our parents were pretty close. He was quite young, only a couple of years older than me. His father had died of cancer when he was very small, and so he lived with his mother who raised him single-handed. When we moved into this building, we had become instant friends, and had been so for nine long years before we drifted apart recently.
James was my best friend, before he went to college and before, I thought bitterly, he started ignoring me for no apparent fault of mine.
He started ignoring me after that party.
That Christmas party.
But, that night, I forgot all those petty things and tried to concentrate on the fact that I’d nearly lost James today.
I had nearly lost my best friend that night.
That night I went to sleep subconsciously praying for James' safety.
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Author’s Note - Hey people, this is the completely edited version of the first chapter. I’ve introduced the characters much better this time and I’ve managed a decent flow as well.
Dedicated to @leedbookie because she was the one to pester me to write this.
The external link leads to a character description of Kiara on my Wordpress blog – thebookieewrites.wordpress.com.
Picture to the right is Kiara. Check the cast lists for the other members of the cast too.
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Cheers, Liz xoxo.