The Wrong Number

11

00:37 am, Ruhan: HELLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
00:40 am, Ruhan: hi daa
00:46 am, Ruhan: ur nto answurin ??,.?

00:47 am, Ally: Ruhan?? What the heck?

00:48 am, Ruhan: hi how r ui

00:48 am, Ally: Where are you??

00:48 am, Ruhan: Big Pitcherr

00:48 am, Ally: WHAT ARE YOU DOING AT A BAR
00:49 am, Ally: never mind that was a stupid question
00:50 am, Ally:are you alone?

00:51 am, Ruhan: ya

00:52 am, Ally: okay I think you've had enough drinks for one night. Why don't you go home?

00:54 am, Ruhan: loooll mt moms gonna kill me.

00:55 am, Ally: yeah you probably deserve it. Go home loser

00:55 am, Ruhan: kk

Rolling her eyes, Alankrita threw her phone on a pillow and lay back on the thick duvet that covered her bed. It had been a long day. First she had had school, and it didn't get any more stressful than being an over achieving eleventh grader. Then, she had to sit through four hours of coaching at Erudite Training centres, because, according to the pamphlets the centre handed out, if she wanted to get into medical school that was what she had to do. And then, on that fateful day, her driver, Benny, had taken a day off because of some fishy rash on his neck, leaving her to walk three kilometres home in the rain. She'd expected to get some peace and quiet when she came home, but that hadn't been the case as she came home to find that a pigeon had flown into the house through an open window and wrecked the living room and the kitchen trying to escape from being massacred by her three very carnivorous cats. After cleaning the house of feathers, sweeping up the pieces of broken plates, sewing up a tear in a cushion and making sure the poor traumatized pigeon was safely out of the house, she had exited into her room.

She found herself thinking of her conversations with Ruhan, and she smiled. Quickly, her smile dissipated and she shook her head clear. No, it was wrong to indulge in these conversations, especially with someone she hardly knew. However, she couldn't remember the last time she had had any conversations like that before. With Ruhan, she felt like she could say anything she wanted to, and he'd just rebound straight in, maybe with a witty comeback of his own. He was surprisingly easy to talk to.

Maybe that was because of her anonymity. She would never in a million years approach Ruhan in public. They were too different, belonging to two completely separate classes of secondary schoolers. No, it would be a social aberration if she were to walk up to him one day and say, "Hey, remember that time you drunk texted me?" and watch his face pale. Also, she'd look like an idiot. Their interactions were to stay exclusively virtual. Her phone began to buzz. On picking it up, she read the caller ID.

Ruhan

Her first instinct, given the thoughts that were running through her head, was to leave the call unanswered. If she had no interest in furthering this relationship, the logical thing to do would be to remain content with just exchanging messages.

Unfortunately, for Alankrita, along with being a very rational and clear-headed person, she was also a teenager. And teenagers as a species tend to have an unquenchable thirst for excitement and drama. It was due to this little detail that she found her thumb moving towards the 'Answer call' option.

"Heeeeyyyyyy.Dude I am sooo wasted right now," the sentence drowned into a high pitched giggle.

Her eyes widened, but she stayed silent.

"Look, I don't care what you're doing right now, I want you to dare a shrink with me,"He said, slurring heavily. There was a brief pause, and he corrected himself, "I mean share a drink. Yeah, that.Come quickly, I'll save you a seat here. I'm carving your name into this table right now. 'Crazy Stalker' riiiight here? Yeah, I can do that. K...R...it's a little hard to do this with a straw but never mind....I think this table is made of marble."

He continued to blabber slurred syllables, making Alankrita giggle. She turned to lie on her side, debating whether she should say something or not. She figured the chances of him remembering what she said were pretty slim, so she whispered, "Are you really trying to carve my name there?"

She winced and thrust the phone away from her ear as Ruhan hooted on the other end. "Oh my god!" he said, "Did you actually speak to me?" Alankrita was pretty sure her smile looked very Glasglow-esque. "Yeah," she replied, "Why are you not at home? It's really late."

"I hate home. It's stupid," he said, "I'm never going back."
"Ruhan, you can't stay away from your house forever, your family will be worried. If you want I'll call you an Ola cab."

There was a pause as Ruhan had a fit of giggles. "Your voice is pretty," he said before giggling again. "Will you come pick me up?"

Alankrita considered it for a moment, and said, "No, but if you go home I'll be waiting there," hoping he would believe her.

"Duuuuuuuude, yes! We can have a sleepover!" he said, sounding as if he'd come with a cure for cancer, "It's going to be so awesome." Alankrita nodded, and then remembered he couldn't see her nodding and said, "Yeah, totally. But you need to leave right now." Ruhan muttered something that resembled a 'yes' and she decided to end the phone call. "Bye, Ruhan, get home safe."
"Haaaaan, I'll do that. Are you at my ghar?
"Uh, yes."

"Okay," he said, and it sounded like he was getting up, and then, which made Alankrita's stomach drop, he said, "Don't let my father hit you too."

She was left staring into space as he hung up. Not surprisingly, she didn't sleep very well that night.

*****