Reshma

11

“You busy?” he asked over the phone. Ishaan had called Reshma at 10 in the morning.
“Can never tell when I’ll get busy,” Reshma replied.
“Hmm...” Ishaan sighed. “Okay, I’ll send a few pictures in the afternoon. Tell me if you like them.”
“What pictures?”
“You’ll see.” Ishaan ended the call.
At around 4.20 p.m. Reshma went up to her room, and checked her phone. There were five pictures. It was of a house. Medium sized, with walls painted a light blue and white. There were two rooms, a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom. She rang Ishaan.
“Hey!” he said, cheerful.
“Hi. I saw those images.” Reshma said.
“”Yeah? Kaisa hai?”
“Achha hai. Nice and simple. But why that?”
“I’ll tell you everything tonight. Bye. I’m a bit busy with cameras here.”
Reshma had to wait the whole day in suspense to know what Ishaan meant exactly.
As soon as the clock struck 2.00 a.m. Reshma ran to the door and opened it. Ishaan was about to knock when the door opened.
“Arrey wah! Tujhe kaise pata chala ki main aa gaya?” Ishaan asked raising a brow.
“Woh... main bahar jaa rahi thi...woh sab chodo,” Reshma let him in. “Now, tell me why did you send me those pictures?”
Ishaan sat right under the fan. “I thought of buying the house.”
“Buy it? Why? I mean it’s amazing, but small compared to your bungalow, most probably. What will your father do with it?”
“I’m not buying that for my father,” Ishaan snapped. “I’m shifting.”
Reshma was silent for a minute. “Sh-shifting?”
Ishaan nodded. “Shifting. With my mom.”
Reshma was dumbstruck. What was happening? “Did something go wrong?” she asked.
Ishaan smiled. “No. It all went right.”
He got up and stood along with Reshma.
“Last night...today morning. Whatever. I thought about what you said. You know, doing something about my situation. I realized I wasn’t helpless. So, I went and spoke to my father. About shifting. He agreed reluctantly. I told him I’ll take mom along with me. Thoda maar peet hui,” Ishaan smirked, showing Reshma a cut on his temple, “but then I managed to convince him.”
Reshma was silent all along. She was smiling. “So your parents are separating?”
“Well, not officially. Court, divorce...sab jhanjhat mein ab nahin panda. But they’ll stay away from each other. Fake it with family and friends. That’s it. Then later, when I’m settled down a bit, I will ask them to file a divorce.”
Reshma sighed. His life was going great. No girlfriend depression, no drugs (he had stopped gradually after getting a job; he was too busy to think about it), no unemployment, no parent stress...she was happy for him. But something struck her.
“Wait! You don’t have that much money. Yet. What will you do?”
Ishaan laughed. “Well, the thing is, before arguing, I went and drew money from the bank. And I’ve saved quite a bit from those drugs money.”
“So much?” Reshma gasped. Ishaan winked and nodded.
~~~