I Was, I Am.

-FINALLY-

EDITED CHAPTER#5

The first thing I did after entering my room was get out of the stupid saree.

Yes, I just called it stupid. Everything feels stupid. I feel stupid. Thanks Aakash.

I changed into a comfortable shirt and shorts and plonked myself on the bed, resting my head on my knees and hugging my thighs to my chest. It was a pose that I found most comforting in times like these.

Self-hugs were seriously underrated. But they were also the most intense triggers, at least for me. It had been all of five seconds since I had taken up that position, when I felt my tear ducts well up.

I didn't stop the tears.

And I bawled my eyes out throughout the night...or day...or whatever time it was.

I woke up when I realized the AC was freezing me to death and walked around the room in the darkness hitting my head here and there trying to find the switch that could control the AC. Why hotels had complicated air-conditioners was beyond me, and I struggled with adjusting the temperature.

When I realized my attempts were futile, I resorted to covering myself with the amazingly fuzzy quilt that the hotel had so kindly provided.

But right when my eyelids got heavy and I began to lose consciousness, my ringtone blared a little too loudly.

I yelled all the profanities my mind knew of and silenced my phone. But it kept vibrating.

"Urgh WHAT?" I screeched into the phone.

I was clearly not a morning person.

"Aditi? You sound horrible. Are you okay?"

I pulled the phone away from my ear to see who had called me at such an unearthly hour. It was my friend from school, it was Aaliya.

"Yes, I'm okay. What happened?" I replied groggily, trying my best not to sound as irritable as I felt within.

"Why aren't you here yet?"

"Where?"

"For breakfast yaa. They're almost wrapping it up!"

It took two seconds for my mind to understand the implication of that statement.

No breakfast. No food.

I never skipped meals, not for a sour mood, not for a rough day and definitely not for a broken heart.

I jumped out of the bed, my quilt toppling over my phone's charger which tugged at the phone that was in my palm, the phone freed itself from my not-so-iron-like-grip; thanks to the morning weakness, hitting the bottle of water on the side table with all the water tumbling down.

"GOD DAMMIT!" I yelled and jumped to my phone's rescue.

It was surprisingly unharmed, simply sprawled on the floor.

"I'm coming in five. Ask them to hold on for a bit..." I said urgently when I heard some suppressed chuckles and giggles which was soon shushed by Aaliya.

"Yeah okay." She said and hung up on me even before I could ask her anything.

I cleaned the mess I had created in the room; minus the disaster the toppled water had created courtesy the hotel room service; as fast as I could and looked into my phone again when I saw an email notification that I must have ignored earlier.

With one hand I tried to tone down my then frizzed up hair and with the other I scrolled through my inbox and practically dropped the phone with horror.