Khanak hasn’t been able to focus on any of her classes today. Whole time, she has felt as if she is in someone else’s skin. This is not her. This is not what she does. She is no wallflower but she only behaves rudely with someone if the other person has started it first. But what she did this morning, how she behaved with Rishav was not at all tit for tat. Rishav has been nothing but a wonderful friend to her today. God knows how long he must have waited this morning for her!
It wasn’t right of her to hurt him just so she wouldn’t have to admit the truth to Ankan. And what was worse that Khanak has let him go without giving an explanation or apology for her behavior. Seeing her behave like an awkward teenage girl, who has just had a growth spurt and doesn’t feel comfortable in her body, Khanak’s friend has suggested her to bunk her last class and go to Rishav to apologize to him.
Khanak has jumped on the idea and has left the classroom in middle of the class after giving some meaningless excuse to her professor. She wasn’t getting what her professor teaching, anyway. She has been so sure of her idea then. But all her confidence vanishes when she gets off at the bus-stand near Rishav’s and Ankan’s college.
How will she find them? Are they in classes or have they already left after finishing their last class for today? Should she go to Rishav’s hostel and wait for him there? Do they even allow girls in boys’ hostel?
Realizing that she is on the verge of panicking, Khanak forces herself to calm down and think rationally. She tries to remember Ankan’s class schedule but comes on blank. And even if she somehow manages to recall their schedule, won’t it be better to talk to Rishav without Ankan’s presence?
Khanak shakes her head. She won’t take coward’s way out. She will first tell the truth to Ankan and then apologize to both of them. Having made the decision, she calls Ankan.
“Hey, where are you at this moment?” Khanak asks as soon as her friend pick up the call.
“In college” His voice seems off, Khanak thinks. But she shakes it off thinking, he must be tired and she can’t afford to get distracted.
“Oh, thank god!” she sighs in relief. “I am at the front gate of your college. If you aren’t in any hurry can we talk?”
“What are you doing here?” Ankan asks after pause of 2 minutes. Khanak frowns at the pause and his tone. His voice doesn’t hold the normal excitement it often has whenever they make plans to hang out. Infact, he almost seems irritated with the idea of seeing her now.
“I will tell you when we see each other” Khanak says cheerfully, ignoring her friend’s rare irritated tone.
“Okay, stay there. I am coming”. If Khanak didn’t have to talk to him urgently, she would have snapped back at him. He sounds as if she is some strange girl pestering him and he is only dealing with her because he doesn’t want to be rude. But she has to talk to Ankan urgently, since that’s the only way she won’t feel like a liar and a coward when she apologizes to Rishav, so she stifles an irritated sigh of her own and mutters an okay at Ankan’s command.
***
After fifteen minutes of waiting Khanak hears a familiar horn but without the friendly wave and smile that comes along with the horn. Ankan seems upset and angry. This isn’t going to work in her favor. OfCourse universe is punishing her for her actions this morning.
She has sort of needed her calm, understanding and forgiving friend right now. Someone, who will forgive her the minute she admits that though she hasn’t outright lied to him, she has intentionally led him to believe something other than truth. And though her intentions were good, she shouldn’t have done that.
Khanak gets in the car and give him her best cheerful smile, trying to diffuse the tension in the car with her smile. But her smile freezes on her face, when Ankan doesn’t even try to reply in kind and just starts the car without even looking her way. Assuming that he is driving them to some restaurant so they could talk, Khanak stays put.
After few minutes of awkward and tense silence, which is very unusual for their friendship, Khanak finally has had enough. “So, what’s wrong?”. Ankan raises his eyebrows in surprise at her question.
“Shouldn’t I be the one to ask you that?” Ankan asks, his tone sarcastic.
Khanak has had just about enough of his mood-swings “Well you didn’t. So, I thought that I be the one to ask the damn question” Khanak snaps. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, today. He has been his usual sweet self in the morning but right now he is behaving like moody Rishav.
And then it strikes her. That’s why he is upset. Rishav has told him the truth. Even after she has asked him not to. All the guilt and regret she was feeling toward Rishav vanishes in the blink of an eye and hot anger replaces it.
“You already know that I lied to you this morning” Khanak doesn’t even bother to phrase it as a question. It’s not.
If it was not for Ankan clenching his jaw even more than it was before, she would have thought that he hasn’t heard her. He doesn’t bother with reply and Khanak couldn’t even blame him. She closes her eyes with humiliation when the guilt hits her right in her gut.
“Look at me, please” Ignoring her beseeching tone, Ankan just looks straight ahead. Khanak needs him to look at her and see how much she regret lying to him but no matter how much she begs him with her eyes or her words to look at her, he won’t.
“Ankan, stop the car” Her demand only makes him drive faster. “Ankan, please” Khanak begs.
Ankan takes a deep breath, urging himself to calm down. Then stops the car at the roadside and finally looks at her with the forced calmness in his eyes as if challenging her to call him out on his pretension. Freeing herself from seat belt, she turns toward him and takes his hands in hers, trying to convey the depth of her guilt through her touch in case her words won’t be enough. Khanak sighs with relief when he doesn’t jerk away from her touch.
“I am sorry” Khanak looks in his eyes so that he will know that she is genuinely sorry not just apologizing because he knows she has lied. “I came here to tell you the truth. You have to believe me on that” Khanak pleads. Ankan turns his head away and afraid that he isn’t going to believe her, she opens her mouth to start explaining. But before she could utter a word, Ankan turns back to face her. The icy calmness in his eyes is gone. Only to be replaced with something worse – hurt and disappointment. The vulnerability in his eyes would have rocked her a step back if she had been standing.
“I believe you. I even realized before you said that you were here to apologize to me” Ankan closes his eyes as if asking himself to not act so emotional or trying to cover his feelings with his usual calm attitude. “What I don’t understand that why did you lie to me in the first place?!” Ankan’s voice getting louder with every word he just said.
Khanak wishes that she could explain why she thought that it would be better to lie, even to herself. Was it because she was embarrassed that she has let Rishav break her walls after just two days of half-assed groveling, or maybe it’s because she knows that Ankan likes her as more than a friend and she didn’t want to hurt him or maybe it’s because she has somehow given some rights to Ankan in this past year, which are beyond friendship and now she doesn’t know how to take them back? Khanak isn’t ready to contemplate the last one, even in her head and she can’t discuss the second one until Ankan confesses his feelings to her. So, she takes the cowards way out.
“Frankly, I was embarrassed” Khanak starts with the explanation which isn’t completely false but also isn’t close to complete truth. “I have spent the past year sort of hating Rishav. You went through so much just because he and I were being childish. Instead of acting like mature adults and dealing with our mess by ourselves, we gave you the burden to clean everything up” Khanak looks at Ankan, asking with her eyes that he is getting whatever she is rambling on about. To which Ankan replies with an understanding nod.
“And there I was, spending time with him. When I have caused so many difficulties for you in past. So, when you called, I was kind of embarrassed that you’d think that I forgot one-year worth anger in just 2 days of groveling”.
“I would never judge you for forgiving him. Heck, I wouldn’t have judged you if you had forgiven him with just one genuine sorry” When Khanak raises her eyebrows at his statement, Ankan gives a sheepish smile. “I am not saying that I wouldn’t have found it … sudden” Ankan’s hardship at finding the right word makes her smile. “But it’s completely your decision when you choose to forgive him and I wouldn’t judge something that’s your right”.
“I know. I just forgot it for few moments. I should have trusted you to not judge me and my choices” Khanak gives him an apologetic look. And Ankan nods his head in understanding. That’s Ankan for you – no unnecessary drama or tantrums unlike someone who is on top of her person I hate list. Khanak frowns at the thought of Rishav.
“So where should I drop you?” Ankan asks before starting his car.
“Rishav’s hostel. I have to teach him a lesson” Ankan nods his head and starts his car.
“I don’t want you to fight with him on my account. You have been friendly toward each other after so long, I don’t anything to ruin that. Especially not me”.
“It’s not about you. It’s between Rishav and I. And don’t worry, this time we won’t trouble you because of our problems” Khanak explains thinking that’s why Ankan doesn’t want her to talk to Rishav.
“It’s just that, I want you guys to be friends, you know that, right?” Ankan asks just as he stops the car in front of Rishav’s hostel building. Ankan’s eyes holding something urgent as if it’s important that she believe him.
“I know, Ankan” Khanka assures him. Though she doesn’t know why he even needs the assurance.
Khanak opens the door but before getting down, she asks him, “talk to you later?”. Her voice doing a poor job of hiding the nervousness she is feeling.
Ankan just replies with a smile. An uncertain smile at its best. And Khanak only becomes more nervous. Angry at Rishav for shaking the core of her and Ankan’s friendship – something that has been one of few constants of her life, Khanak gets out of the car and look at the building with the anger she is feeling for the guy who is inside the building right now.