Stars | completed

21. To Us

[ #wattys2019 ]

name:- To Us
word count:- 3500 words
published on:- 11th July, 2019

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M A N I K

And that's how I said it. I just said it when I didn't intend to. It just slipped off my heart as if it were just waiting on my tongue to be spoken.

I watched her expressions change gradually. The anger disappeared and a smile smile on her lips. Her eyes softened, and the fear I had that I had scared her gradually vanished.

"Did you just call me an idiot?" She giggled. I smiled in relief, laughing with her. Only she could say something like that.

I was just about to say something when Cabir walked in. "I'm just glad I didn't walk in on you both kissing or anything. You know it would have been weird," he said with a smug smile and I rolled my eyes at him.

He came ahead and gave me a hug and then a wink to Nandini as we both got up from the ground. "Toh, kya plan hai?" He asked, "Mangalore?"

I gave him a guilty face. "Mangalore's on," I smiled.

He sighed in relief, "Acha hai. I've already pinged everyone our location when you both were busy doing your coochie coo. They should be here any sec--" he was cut off when two cars parked in the distance.

"I am so sorry!" was the first thing I said with my hands up when they came out giving me a pointed look.

"Save it," Aryamman said, "We already have a punishment for you." I raised my eyes at him as they smirked, "You're driving."

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I and Nandini didn't get a chance to speak after that at all. We had to take two cars, I drove one and the others took turns to drive the other. Cabir sat with me in the passenger seat with Navya and Nandini behind and Aryamman, Abhi, Aliya and Mukti drove off in another.

I caught Nandini looking at me a few times through the rear view mirror and everytime my eyes would meet hers, she'd look away, flushed and red. She was cute, right?

It was late night when we were four hours away from Mangalore. The sun had set, the roads were isolated and there were hardly any street lights on the forest route which made it difficult to travel ahead. We would have reached by now, had it not been for the hours I wasted. But it was supposed to be just a one night trip, so we didn't take the stop. I continued driving.

It was almost 5 A.M. when we reached Nandini's house in Mangalore. It was larger than I expected, just like my place in Mumbai. It was long in its width, and totally exotic. A large carpet led us inside into the white and huge living room with a small water space in the middle, surrounded by rooms and exotic furniture.

The smile on Nandini's face was unexplainable on being home. There was a different spark in her eyes as it lodged on the large frame in one corner, probably of her parents. I could sense her take a long breath as her lips quivered and she took a good look at her house. I wish I would have ever felt this happy and comfortable to be home. But truth being said, I never had a home.

Anyone would have expected the house to be dark and quiet at dawn, but instead it was lighted and chirpy. Servants carried food and baskets of flowers here and there, as an old age woman came in. She was short like Nandini, with a white and red saari and looked like a hitler by face. I assumed she was Nandini's grandmother.