Chinese Whisper

Wishful Thinking

Stars are always a great company, or so I thought. At times like this, they sure can make me feel way lonelier than I originally am. When there are so many up there, together, how can I help and not feel like the loneliest creature on this planet? But tonight, I feel empty in a way like I never have before. Empty. How can emptiness be so heavy?

Sighing, I look up at the stars with tired eyes that reflect my tired heart and with a brave step, I am standing at the dangerous edge of my terrace. My throat sure is dry as I glance down at the tiny figures on the busy streets, cars driving like blood in veins. With a pounding heart, I blink a couple more times and every time I do, the blood in my body turns ice. The wind at this height teases my frizzy hair to which I pay no mind because right at this moment, I am craving for a home even though I stand atop it.

"What the bloody hell?" The breath is caught in the middle of my throat as someone with a powerful force pulls me down and it takes me a whole minute to register that I am still very much alive, fallen on the concrete like a broken branch of a tree.

Gawking around, I catch the sight of a panting girl who unfortunately happens to be my cousin; the same one who is passing me the most disappointed look ever.

"Are you a bloody freak?" Mukti glares while I still am on the ground with hand on my heart, quite not over what just happened. "Suicide is not a fucking option! I know you are mad at your parents about your wedding and all that shit but what were you even thinking, moron?"

"One minute-I-sui-suicide?" Frowning, I blink still maintaining my posture which is on the ground. "You thought I was committing suicide?"

Seeing me give her the most surprised look of my life, the savage exterior of the girl falters in exchange for a confused one. "Wait, isn't that what you were doing? ...Dying?"

Pushing my butt behind so that my back can rest against the wall, I stare at her with my hands hugging the knees, brought to my breasts. "Mukti, I am habituated with you not paying attention to anything that doesn't concern you and for the record, I don't concern you. Never did! I would prefer having the equation between us the same and for the first and last time, no, I was not about to jump and die."

"Oh!" She gives a rude shrug. "Then why on earth were you standing at the edge which in every way is suicidal, by the way." She stresses to prove her point, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her ripped boyfriend denim. "And to set to the record straight, please don't confuse my running to save you as in any manner being a concern for you. Please! I came here to smoke and had I let you jump off before my eyes, that would drive my parents and the law nuts."

"I never said I mistook you for the one to care about me." I shake my head with conviction. "And, since you asked, I usually-well sometimes, stand there to look at everything with a new point of view."

Lighting her cigarette, she blows out a thick layer of smoke, staring at me with the same displeased look like that of my parents. "Well then, there is no room for doubt that you are a full fledged psychopath."

Sighing at her remark, I turn my head up to look at the stars again. Having no company is any day better than being with the wrong company which she is since my childhood. I don't hate Mukti Vardhan, but our very ideas of one another have not been right since day one. She is this badass girl to whom I am still this little lamb; too delicate for her liking. And, to me, she is this cold hearted bitch who has done nothing but mock me in my entire struggle of existence. But, irrespective of our intense disliking towards one another, there is one thing common which the two of us can never deny. We both are sick and tired of our parents. Bitter, but that is the truth.