Aashi| 09
Neel emerges from a sea of students possessing and crowding the cafetaria for their per weekday fill of chicken burgers, smoothies and OJs.
Neel's eyes are everything. Everything that a girl would want to drown in.
And from what I can see through my hazy vision of leaking tears. . .there is a very different side of him that he usually lets me see.
*Neel's fire. He's igniting and rekindling. He's scorching. He's a phoenix rising from the ashes.*
With the intensified flare that's he has fixated on Rohit's stature, Neel is practically smoldering him. And from the looks of it, Rohit is toast.
"What the fuck is my problem? Mine!? What's yours, Neel? Why the sudden interest in Aashi?"
"Because she's mine."
A cold silence follows, and everyone's icy glare is piercing me, but I don't care, tears are still streaking my flushed face. A white noise of chattering and judging overwhelms the cafetaria, but it doesn't break the boys' resolve to get into this fight further. They are continually shooting intense glares at each other, and everyone's sitting back to see how this drama unfolds.
*Yes, he's making me flustered as I cry. How can someone do that? Isn't it forbidden?*
Ria coughs and caves from the scene, taking a hold of me and dragging me by the hands. I shake my head. I'm not the one who runs. I'm not the one who caves. I'm the one who stands up for herself.
"Which sweet loving are you talking about, Rohit?" I say, rubbing the incoming snot with the back of my sleeves as the cafetaria falls completely silent at my reaction, "The one which was followed by premature ejaculation or the one where your dick was limp."
Neel throws me a varied mix of a chuckle and a smile as he steps close, too close for comfort, runs his palms around my waist, holding it, "And everyone knows that I give you the best orgasms. Don't I, baby?"
I instantaneously smirk, deciding to play along, and thinking of hurting Rohit where he hurts the most. "You do, baby. You last far longer, too," I say, touching the buttons of his shirt, to make myself remember that this is happening for real.
The cafetaria erupts into laughter. The icy silence is disrupted with hoarse, animalistic noises of shrieking and snorting and I laugh too, as Neel's wiping off my tears with the slight stroke from the pads of his thumb, whispering to my ear to stay strong in front of him. I nod at him.
"Let's go, baby, " Neel takes my palm into his, squeezing it lightly and walking me out of the cafetaria. I walk alongside him, with Ria following us with our book- bags.
The cafetaria door closes, and we fall into squeals of laughter, tears brimming at the corner of our eyes.
"Omg, you had him, Aashi. Neel you made him suck it." Ria says in between haphazard prolonged laughs, trying to stop herself from snorting.
I gesture for my book- bag which is on her arm, and she willingly gives it to me, "I needed to say that."
"You did. I'm so proud of you, Ashu," Neel says, rubbing the corner of his eye and grinning at us like he just won a marathon, "that douchebag deserves that, not you. I told you," he shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest.
*He's forming an invisible wall to protect him. Hell, he's giving me nicknames. Umm. . . Who's this guy? What is happening to the jerk I've known forever?*
I arch my eyebrows, "you told me what?"
He's again flaring, hiding that flicker of heat behind his eyes, invading my personal space, "That you'll be very, very appreciative."
"Of what?"
He's close again, warming my cheek with his hot breath, "Don't worry, you'll find out sooner than you think."
"I don't think so." I try to imitate the action of rolling my eyes, but the intensity behind his eyes is holding me in them, violating me.
"Oh, you'll be thanking me soon enough." He gulps, the slow roll of his throat makes me feel that he feels my presence too.
"Ahh. . . Hello. . .o. .o. .guys, I'm still here, " Ria awkwardly coughs and we land back into the present, ongoing series of events.
"Yeah. . . yea. . .there's still fifteen minutes of lunch left, let's go to the library."
"That's a good idea," Neel smirks, "you two go ahead, I have something to take care of."
"As you please," I take Ria's hand to drag her with me to the library and with the corner of my eye, I can still feel the heat of Neel's green abyss following me everywhere.
****
I close my eyes when he kisses me. It's so fast and evident that my stomach gets knotted up in curls and I don't know if it's butterflies or not, I feel like I'm floating.
Is it going to feel like this every time he starts kissing me? I close my eyes and murmur into his lips. And for a split second there, the time stops and lets our feelings sink for a moment because in that moment, I didn't want to think. I want to just float in the euphoria. And that was all it was, a bliss of heightened euphoria.
His hands are getting caught up in my hair and he's deepening the kiss. I'm agreeing with him by making noises that I didn't know I could make in the first place. A note of little sigh escapes my lips as he's parting my lips and playing with my lower lip.
Suddenly, his hold on my waist begins to loosen and he's fleeing as fast as he came closer to me.
"Let go of me, Aashi," his pink lips murmur in my ear and I realise how fucked up I am. His phone had started to ring, and he was suddenly annoyed and cautious enough to get far enough of my hearing range.
I hear him clearing his throat as he murmurs, "I'll be right there."
He comes back distant, the lust in his eyes quite disappeared and he looks indifferent to leaving me at his place alone.
"I have to go, Aashi." His lips say without a hint of apology in his tone.
I watch them moving, getting ingrained deeper into my memory. The tremors have started resurfacing, the annihilation has started. Only he can stop it. Please stop it, Rohit. Don't let me sway in dark areas. Don't let it destroy me. Please. Please. Please. Make it stop, please.
"Where?" I can hear my heart break with each syllable.
Please, I don't want to learn the truth. I don't want to believe what I saw in your phone. Please. Save me.
"Saheema called."
There goes us. Please, stop the wreckage.
He pushes himself up from the bed, from beside me. He snatches his wallet, phone and the keys sitting on it. He shoves them in the back pocket of his jeans and starts for the door.
Suddenly, he turns around.
"You can call Ria, right?" His brows furrow, silently praying that I won't say 'no'.
"Yeah," I mumble, watching him pushing me to the edge of my ruination.
A sudden wave of relief washes over his face. He would've even smiled in a second, because he turned around, breezily sauntering outside his room.
He left me. I saw him walk away.
And it was the end.
The end of our two year long relationship.
****
"I don't know what I want." I mumble, as Ria takes a bite out of her sandwich in the library. Thankfully, the librarian knows me well, so he's letting Ria keep on her munching, which is really, really loud.
"Can you hold this for me?" I ask the little guy next to me in the library, to put the Romeo Juliet paperback on the brimming stack of books that he is holding for me, as I try to arrange them in order.
He's an innocent junior to whom we bumped into on our way here, and he's a kid so, he agreed to helping us. He's probably in the fifth or sixth grade, as he has this thing about his eyes, might still have the glint of following his seniors as he thinks we know everything. Little does he know, we haven't got our lives figured out much more than he has.
He nods his head and keeps the pile of book protectively on the library table. I sigh, and let him go, nodding at him dismissively. He breaks into a swift jog as soon as I smile at him.
"You know what you want, Ashu."
"And, what is that?"
She clears her throat for the words which are going to follow, "Just ask your heart. Your heart will lead you to places you didn't even dream to wonder."
"When did you started reading the books I gifted you?"
"You mean Murakami and Shakespeare and all that profound kind of shit."
I gleam at her, at least she knows the names of my favourite authors, "Yeah?"
She chuckles. "Lol. I read this on Instagram."
"Wait, that's not fair." I chuckle.
"Nothing is far in love and war, hon. You just have to choose the ones worth fighting for."
"Now, you're scaring me, Rii," I arch my brows, as I dust the old Shakespeare book on my school's skirt and pett it like it is my favourite thing in the world. As a matter of fact, it is.
"I'm stating the obvious, babe. You can either consider it or forget it. But, remember, choose the one you think is, worth it." She purses her lips in a long- winded thought, "Like I did, with Arjun." With that thought said aloud, she gets up and wipes her fingers in the tissue as she's finishes with her sandwich, she says as she's touching the doorway, "I've to go find Arjun," she smiles at me, "text me in the last period."
I nod at her and watch her retreating figure fade among the mass of sweaty, chattering students at the end of the hallway.
Sometimes, I can swear Ria gets weird and profound like that. Her solemn words tug at the strings of my heart and they can really, really make me think. I think my best friend is weird that way.
****
"Are you up for it?" Neel asks, as he's giving me his maths notebook. Ha, he's better than me in algebra. Screw me.
I'm leaning against Rii's car now, but when I came in through the corridors, I saw him and Ria talking about something serious. But when I got closer to them, they broke out in an animalistic laughter, which seemed thoroughly genuine. I didn't catch them off guard. Now, that I'm not in on their secret joke, I'm feeling a bit pissed to be honest.
"For what?" I don't level down the kind of bitchiness in my tone at the moment, as I see Ria get suddenly aloof from the entire scene and completely engrossed in her cellphone.
"You know I know."
"What do you know?"
"That you suck in algebra. Let me help you."
"No, thanks. I'll pass."
"Yeah, you'd rather get embarrassed in Raghuram's class, take shit from him, but god forbid you'll let me help you."
"Fine," I bite my inner cheek, "my place at five. Don't be late. I hate people who show up late. Be punctual."
"Says the girl who made me wait for more than thirty minutes."
"It was exactly twenty-eight minutes. And atleast, I showed up. Unlike you."
"When haven't I showed up?" He looks at me, confused and fussy.
"That's for another place and time." I leave the sentence half- vague as it reminds me of a sad, and inopportune time. I get into Rii's car as I half- yell and half- whisper, "you better show up without your phone. See you at five." Ria nods at him as she slowly drives the car out of the driveway. He gives her a curt nod of his own.
And, as the car is out on the main road, and when my eyes flutter to the rear- view mirror, I can easily find Neel's brow furrowed, and him running a hand through his dishevelled hair, which eventually breaks out a smile on my face. I can see his eyes following me till I completely dissapear.