Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Fifty-Four : In Between Lila Lila Lila Part Two

After I told Jazz about Lila's return, messages from her flooded my screen and as I sifted through the rubbish, I chanced upon more rubbish like-

"Lila vs Dev

Lila- pretty (you think so), funny (you think so), rich (in future as a French teacher? Let's see!)

Dev- handsome, intelligent, good family, brighter future, every girl's dream, a hottie who I'll take if you don't want" - Jazz.

Before I could text her that there wasn't a competition between them, to begin with since Dev was my boyfriend now, she texted-

"Dev wins!"

And before I could ask her to stop comparing, another text popped up-

"And I'm not being homophobic!"

She announced that a lot these days after she had "accidentally" called Dev's relationship with mine more "real" than what Lila and I had. One day of ignoring her made her admit her mistake and add a rainbow flag on her social media profiles. I was on the verge of uninstalling Whatsapp due to all her messages that played relay among themselves when a message from Dev popped up-

"You're busy these days. Are you reading something?"

"Rubbish texts of Jazz," I typed, finishing with an eye-roll emoji. "Don't ask what they are."

"Hmm. So it's her who has been taking away your time from me?"

"She's what CA exams are to you. Annoying, time-consuming, but necessary---," I was about to send it when my phone was hijacked by a call from Lila, ringing and buzzing as if the phone itself was in agony. If her call had come a few days ago, I would have stared at it, mentally casting spells for it to go away on its own. But now curiosity weighing with concern inched over me, slowly, but presently and itched my fingers to pick up.

"Hello! Good evening ma'am! Now hear please, this is a very important call. There is an emergency in the hospital---" I could hear her muffled giggles here, then her voice adopted a graver tone "---a patient is very, very, veryyyyyyyy sick from not seeing you and needs an urgent CPR. You need to come right now!"

"And which hospital is this?"

"Lila hospital near Star Plaza. You need to hurry or else she'll die! 10, 9, 8---"

"So you're waiting near Star Plaza? Why?" Before she could respond, I continued, "Wait right there. I'll come. But no CPR." To which she cooed "awwwwwww" and began with her kissy noises that felt so close to my ears that I had to cut the call. As much as I hated surrendering to her words and jokes, I had to be there for her. For old friendship's sake. It was hard to see beyond her smiles, her cheery voice and her twinkling eyes that could spark similar responses in others who came in touch with her. Her infectious happiness could blind someone from seeing what was there, right in front of their eyes, a girl who struggled to salvage the little happiness left in her. And when one by some miracle saw that, it was harder to ignore and pretend like she did every day.

I quickly changed into jeans and the first decent t-shirt that I came across, afraid that she would follow me home and blurt something dangerous to my mother again. I spotted her from a distance, her wild hair and her wilder outfit, a mismatched orange tank top with bright pink track pants. That made me halt in the middle of the road, assess her and confirm, she was not okay. 

"Hey, so where are we going---" Words stopped short as Lila threw her arms around me, her relief resembling that of someone's who found something they had lost.