In The Stars || AdiYa FF

Chapter 4 - Of Travel Plans (Feb 11-13)

****{Tralee, Ireland}****

Zoya dug through her purse to find her iPhone was drained out of battery. She plugged it in an outlet in her small hotel room waiting for it to turn on. A few minutes later, the apple logo on her screen lit up. She tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the network bars to appear. But no such luck.

She took the phone off the charger and opened the small window of her room, in hopes of getting some signal. A strong gust of wind blew in and tiny droplets of rain splashed on her face.

There was a knock on the door and she opened it to find Aditya who had her cup of coffee and the sandwich in either of his hands. In her hurry to call home, she had forgotten about her rumbling stomach and the food that she had purchased.

He handed her the food without a word.

"There's no network here," he informed her eyeing the cellphone in her hand, "If you want to call someone, you can use the landline; if you're lucky it might work."

"Thanks," she called out to his retreating back.

Fortunately, she was able to talk to her parents using the hotel landline. There was a lot of static and the voice would drop sometimes but her family especially her father got the gist of what she was trying to say. She lied to them again that she was in Dublin. She couldn't tell them that her flight was diverted to Kerry, it would make them worry needlessly.

A small good that came out of her father disliking Yash was that he never asked to speak to him. And that was a relief for Zoya. It was a temporary situation. Tomorrow, when the weather cleared, she would be in Dublin with Yash. There was no need to burden her family with additional details given how they were so concerned about her traveling alone.

The next morning, Zoya showered and wore a fresh pair of blue top and black jeans with a jacket and repacked her stuff in the shopping bags. She should have bought a bag, she thought in hindsight.

She went down to the reception to ask about her flight from here to Dublin when she was informed that no flights were taking off due to the thunderstorm, which had still not subsided. The receptionist a young girl, told her to check again tomorrow. And so she spent another night in Tralee, counting minutes till morning.

The next day (13th February) Zoya, hopeful as ever, went back to the reception. The young receptionist again informed her that there were still no flights to Dublin. Like a repeat of the dialogues from the yesterday, the receptionist asked her to check in again tomorrow.

Tomorrow was 14th February- Valentine's Day. What if there were no flights tomorrow too? Then she would be stuck here and would not get to spend Valentine's day with Yash. She was never big on celebrating such occasions- more so because in 28 years of her life, she hadn't found someone to celebrate the day of love' with.

But this time, Yash had made arrangements. He had carefully booked a trip around this day so that they could spend their holiday together. It would be nice if she could reach Dublin before 14th. It would be the icing on the cake for Yash. Which meant that she had to leave today.

She would have to chuck the flight plan (a part of her was happy about it) and make other arrangements. She inquired about a bus or a train to which the receptionist, who also was the travel concierge, informed her that there was some repair work going on the railway tracks.

Perfect! Zoya grumbled bitterly to herself. Of all days in the year, the weather had to go south and the repair was required to be done on the day she needed to go to Dublin.

The receptionist did, however, give her directions to a bus stop. She wrote them on a piece of paper. Before Zoya could leave, the receptionist asked her if she was checking out and wouldn't come back. Zoya nodded and handed her the keys to the room. Once she was done with the checking out formalities, Zoya immediately rushed out of the hotel to locate the bus stop.