The Compromise I Don't Regret

chapter 10. NOT AGAIN!!

I opened the text.

2:00pm:"Only an hour more sweetheart"

"East or west you are the best"

"Can't wait to see you"

"How about we have a dinner together and call it a date"

"I'm very sure you'll look pretty as ever"

"Are you busy?"

"What are you doing?"

"I'm completing as much work as possible so that we can spent some time together"

"Sometimes I look at the stars and mistake it for you because that's how bright you are"

"I wonder why you don't fly because I'm sure you are an angle"

"Oh okay then...."
                                   "No thanks I've already got my ride"

12:15pm"Do you want me to pick you up?"

Ew Amaan's right this guy's got the worst pick up lines. I should better get ready it's already 2:05 and it takes almost 30 minutes to get there I want to get done with this as soon as possible. I should inform Amaan before getting ready so I went to Amaan's room which is on the second floor as well. I knocked on the door twice. "door's open" he called from inside. I opened the door but he was not there so I got in wondering where he vanished all of a sudden. I checked the bathroom but he was not there so I walked towards the bed, my eyes wandering here and there searching for him until my legs bumped on to something and I fell flat on the floor hitting my head in the process. "ouch" I cried. " gosh what was that?" I heard Amaan's voice as I watched a shirtless body crawling backwards out from under the bed. his expression changed to something I can't recognize when he saw my face. "what the hell Sameera? Don't you have eyes?" Amaan asked angrily as he stood up and helped me up as well. "yeah I'm fine, thank you so much for asking" I defied and he sighed. "come on sit here, did you hurt yourself?" he said as he shoved me to a sitting position on the bed and examined the back of my head and I could already feel a ladoo on my head. I felt a tiny bit uncomfortable having him shirtless infront of me and im guessing he noticed it cause his lips were pulled into a smirk "its not like you havent seen me shirtless before and i do agree i have quite a body eh?" He said and i rolled my eyes and it hurts my ego a little bit to say that he's right"what were you doing under the bed"I asked him changing the topic as he TRIED to rub the lump since I was continuously wincing in pain every time he rubbed it. "I was putting on this shirt and its button broke and rolled over to the bottom of the bed. I was finding it. But you could have at least watched" he told. "I was searching for you around the room, how can I know that your leg was on the way" I reasoned. " what is so urgent that you can't even watch your steps?" he asked derisively. " well its almost 2:15 and the meeting with Karan is at three so I just came to check if you are still driving me but you don't have to, I can always drive" I told him as I stood up to leave but he caught my wrist, " im taking you and I'm still gonna talk to him. Go get ready we are leaving in 10 and apply some ice to it, its quite big" he told me pointing at my head and I nodded before leaving. I like driving on my own but I didn't want to meet Karan, at least not alone since he is talking about a date and stuff. If I take someone with me, he definitely will not utter a word about taking me on a date. I quickly performed namaz and got ready. I saw Amaan waiting downstairs, typing something on his phone as I got down. "wait where are you two going?" dada ji asked. Great now they'll think that WE are going on a date. " dadu I've got a project with a friend of mine and we are meeting to finish it so Amaan is driving me there." I said. "but-" dadu began to say but dadi stopped him as she whispered something in his ears and he nodded to whatever she said. "okay be back before it gets late and finish it today itself, we don't want our dulhan to be learning on her wedding day, and you too dulha" he said pointing at Amaan, " don't be stuck with that thing of yours" he said and dada and dadi laughed. We both nodded and got to the car. I placed all the items on the back seat of the fortuner so that we could work on it inside the car. The ride till the MALL was silent sound of music filling the air as I watched the different aspects of life being displayed on the road by the different kinds of people found on the streets of Delhi. My heart raised due to anxiety as Amaan parked the car as we reached the spot. I have no idea how this meeting's gonna end. We walked towards Karan as soon as I spotted him,he was all dressed up, wearing a red shirt and I unknowingly  grabbed Amaan's hand. " why are you nervous, you are not seeing him for the first time, are you?" Amaan asked me amused by my situation. " I just hope that he don't propose me you know I might puke on him, I won't even be able to reject or react to be honest I'm kind of scared of him" I told him. He bursted out laughing "what you? Sameera is scared of.... him?" he asked pointing at karan and I quickly grabbed his finger before karan could see. "please don't do anything stupid" I pleaded to him as we reached karan. "hey Sameera, you look so beautiful as always" he breathed out giving me his 100volt smile and I could feel Amaan tense beside me on hearing that while I just smiled. " is this your cousin?" he asked and I didn't know what to answer, its confusing so I looked at Amaan he confidently took out his hand, "Amaan, yes im her cousin" he introduced, "karan" karan said and they shook hands. " are you gonna be with us or if you want I can drop her off" karan offered and it was my turn to tense. I looked at Amaan expectantly hoping he wouldn't leave me with overly romantic, king of worst pick up lines. "no its okay I am gonna wait, take your time" Amaan declined the offer politely and karan's face fell. "well...um okay then... why don't we have coffee first" karan offered and we both agreed. We walked into nearest coffee shop. We took a table for four where I sat first and as karan was going to sit beside me Amaan beat him to it. " you can take this seat" Amaan said pointing at the seat opposite to him as he sat beside me and karan was getting frustrated but he covered it up with a forced smile. I watched as he was getting irritated by Amaan's presence while Amaan had a big smile on his face. I could easily say that he was enjoying torturing karan and he is going to do something more. " so where do you live karan?" Amaan asked him. ", mumbai." He replied in a bore tone and Amaan hummed thoughtfully. "so you're here just for this project of yours?" he asked him again and karan straightened up a bit. " actually yes. Sameera said she is having an important get together so she cant make it so I thought I'll come here and I also have some friends along with me so we are enjoying the weekend here" he told and then turned to me "you know Sameera akhil, meher, samuel, joe, thara, mohan,anju are all here, they asked me to bring you along but you don't have to reject them I already told them that you are busy" he told and Amaan started to laugh and I elbowed him soon and he covered up his laughter with fake coughs. "you are sick maybe you should go home" karan told Amaan with forced politeness clear in his voice. "oh maybe I am, Sameera you should drive us back home okay?" he asked me with a look on his face that said 'act along'. "oh...um yeah sure" I stuttered. "So shall we move on to the project I need to get home early" I asked karan "yeah sure" he said as he looked around the café for space. "we can take it in the car if you don't mind, we don't have space here" I told him and he nodded we walked to the car and Amaan made sure to stand in the middle of the two of us, he was seriously getting on his nerves. Karan and I sat in the back seats while Amaan was busy with his phone in the driver's seat. We were updating each other with the works we completed individually when Amaan received a call and he got out of the car. Karan and I was making a list of what work was left to be completed when I noticed that the distance between the two of us were reducing with each passing minute so I slowly moved back but still he kept coming closer until there was no space for me to move back. My inner self started shouting because by now I was well aware of his intentions but the flashes of that horrible day kept coming to my mind weakening from inside. If it was a year back karan would have been kicked out of the car long back but now my mind is just as good as dead. Suddenly I felt something warm on my hand I looked to see that he had kept his hand over mine and I dodged it off. "what are you doing?" I panicked. " nothing Sameera, you know that I love you don't you and I know that you love me back" he said as he forcefully took my hand in his. "no I don't can you please stop this shit, I don't love you. You are better than this karan, you don't have to act like this. There are many girls out there waiting for you" I told him while trying to free my hand. " im not a bad guy Sameera but I've an obsession about you and if I win you I'll become the popular one and they'll lose" he said as if he was on drugs. He looked scary. I don't know if its my imagination or not but im seeing gourav's face on his face which renders me motionless and I just sat there frozen while he started grabbing my hand tighter and closer. Suddenly the door opened and Amaan pulled karan out of the car. "what the f*** do you think your doing ?" he yelled at karan as he punched him in the face. People started gathering and all I could do was watch. " she is engaged okay.....she is getting married to ME in two weeks and you better don't show your shit ass face to her ever again. Do you get that?" he shouted at him as he pushed him away. He then came over to the other side of the door, pulled me out and rammed me on to the passenger seat. He quickly got behind the wheels and sped away and I didn't even glance back at karan. I didn't even shift from my position as he was fuming. We drove past several streets and some unknown place and I didn't even dare to ask if he knows the way back. He finally hit the brakes and I looked ahead to see it was completely empty just a few trees glimmering under the setting sun, it s perhaps an unoccupied open area or ground where street kids normally play. He got out of the car and opened the door for me and I got down. He was still fuming so I waited till he calmed down. "what the hell was that?" he yelled and I flinched. I stared at the ground. "Sameera im freaking talking to you..." he asked again clearly loosing his cool. "I tried but-" I started to talk but he cut me off. "you tried? That's how you try? You were sitting dumbfounded doing nothing while he was about throw himself at you and you say you tried? Come on I've seen you deal with worst ones just...just...uh forget it" he stopped, he might be thinking that I was enjoying it. Tears started to well up in my eyes, but I wiped them away. I'm tired of crying in front of him. "you think I wanted it myself don't you? You think I enjoyed it. But I wasn't I tried....I tried but all I could see was that day, his face instead of karan's, and it kept weakening me I couldn't even utter a word, you'll never understand. You'll never understand what im going through I can't be myself I can't do anything on my own I can't even react to such jerks cause im scared.... Im freaking scared of people Amaan, ....of myself...if I dealt with people the right way I wouldn't have been in the car today when some asshole was professing his god damn love to me. I would have jacked up his face like I used to just as you told but I can't I just can't....." I shouted as I slide along the side of the car and plunged onto the ground and whimpered. After a few minutes Amaan sat beside me " look.....im sorry sam-" he told "no you're not" I yelled at him " I thought that you would understand me after all that I've told you. I thought you'll be there for me when I can't fight for myself. You know you're the only one I trusted with my fears, even though I have no idea why. Today when my mind was fighting and my body was numb I still knew you were out there and would understand me but I was wrong..." I said as I was trying to control the betraying tears that always made me seem weak in front of him. "Sameera would you please hear me out until the end?" he asked and I just looked away. He started anyways " you were right, I'm always there for you and I do understand but just think from my shoes I was already insecure leaving you alone with that moron but it was a really important call from London. But even though I was away from the car I kept checking but there didn't seem to be a problem but later when I turned around all I could see was a group of people around the car watching whatever shit was going on inside. And I can't even explain the amount of tension I had during that few moments took to reach the car. And what I see is..... I know you're mentally disturbed and all but when I saw you, the girl who stood up for everyone else just sitting there like a statue....it killed me, you won't understand. I wish that incident didn't take such a big toll on you. All these thoughts, anger, tension, those looks of that people everything just infuriated me and I couldn't control myself from asking you the question to which I already had an answer." He said as he took my face in his hands. "I don't know what if he takes revenge on me just like gourav? What if ........ you know when I reacted to him at first he looked like he was psychic and he said if he wins me over he'll be the popular one and that they will lose. Why would he popular by dating me? I just don't get it? Will I be facing more of this torture?" I said as I held my head on my hands that I supported on my knees. "they probably might be having a bet or something similar and it is definitely related to winning you over or..." he trailed off. "so it's a game for them, my life, my emotions, is just a freaking game?" I asked more to myself. "not if you're coming with me to london, I don't think it's safe for you to attend that college and I'm not suggesting you run away from your problems but you need a break, all this is changing you but for the worst, you are not even eating, you're not yourself, and I can't let you go through this any longer" he told me seriously that I couldn't even ask him why he was so concerned of me after all these years of hatred. "but what about college, it's my last year. I can't just stop my studies because of those morons" I asked him. "we'll talk to the principal about this and see if there is any option, and then we'll find a way to convince everyone home" he told me as he stood up and I did as well. I wiped my eyes with my scarf and tidied myself up and looked up to Amaan to see that he is already staring at me. "what?" I asked and he took my hands in his. "you do know that I'll always be there for you don't you?" he asked and there was something in his eyes that just made me nod, something so convincing and safe..... and a strange little smile formed on my face.