Blooming Flower ✔️

Chapter 18: New Heights

Song: Alvida

(Manish)

It was emotional, to say the least. I didn't realize that I would end up nearly sobbing my heart out to my mom, dad, sister, and best friends at the airport itself. It's not easy to say goodbye to your loved ones whom you've been around for so long.

I was going to miss my mother, with her Shimlan accent, amazing cooking, and comforting nature. I was going to miss my dad's Haryanvi-Rajasthani accent blend, his confidence, and his words of wisdom every time I was having a bad day. I'd miss how my sister and I would always have our fun moments, and we'd also poke fun at each other, mainly her about my relationship with Ashwini.

I was going to definitely miss Jen because of how sweet and almost motherly she was to me. She was like a younger mentor, weirdly, and I found a lot of advice that she gave me very helpful. But, most importantly, I was going to miss Jaya to death. I was going to miss her smile, her laugh, her spunky demeanor, and just how she was able to make me realize that I had finally had someone that was worth making happy.

I knew from the moment she started calling me Sunny that this was the girl that I wanted to make happy, and would make me happy in the near future. My intuition was far from being wrong.

I had about 30 minutes left before the flight was to start boarding. 30 minutes was a lot of time to do a lot of things. But really, all I had the energy and happiness to do was to grab a cup of watery, overpriced coffee, mask the garbage like taste with enough cream to have a cow hate me forever, and just the right amount of sugar to satisfy my sweet tooth. Once I got that, I sat back down in the airport seat, waiting for my flight to start boarding.

I pulled out my phone from my bag and decided to go on YouTube and watch random videos that just popped up in my recommendations. Whether it be cute bunny videos, a video of a husky whining in the bathtub, or a random compilation of near death experiences with the worst kinds of music put over them, YouTube really wasn't boring in that sense.

However, that plan was thrown in the trash when I saw a very specific notification pop up on my phone. It was from Jen, and in the text, it said, "Here are the pictures from the reception. Enjoy, and I'll miss you." I smiled, and then opened the pictures to see what exactly was inside so that I could remember some more good times before getting on the plane.

When I opened up the file, the first picture that I saw was like a slightly nostalgic slap in the face. It was the picture of Jaya and I dancing, after I had come up with the sneaky plan to ask her to dance with me. The smile on her face was something that I'd pay a million dollars for. The amount of happiness that I felt when I was holding her in my arms was something that can't be achieved very often. I was happy that I had achieved that with Ashwini, because I knew people like her were just so hard to find.

My eyes started to tear up a little bit, because I was going to miss all of that. I was going to miss dancing with her and accidentally stepping on her feet, as we giggled over the amount of times that I had messed up and caused one of us to get hurt. I was going to miss how she never took things to heart when we were around, and how she was always so patient with me when I was acting like a 10 year old. I glanced at the clock one more time, and I still had 27 minutes.

I decided to go through my camera roll just because I was bored, and I didn't want to drain all my money right now buying overpriced food at the airport because I got bored. Although my stomach may have fought me on that, my wallet had just the right amount of counterarguments.

I opened my camera roll, and after moving past the guitar covers of "Tera Ban Jaunga," "Pani Da Rang," and "Baarish," I stumbled upon numerous pictures that I honestly kind of forgot about until that moment. They were pictures of my family, mostly of my mom or sister, and after going past that, I found all the golden pictures.