Give Me All Your Pain

4.The encounter

"If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of.
There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person."

-Fred Rogers




Aanya

Unexpected things happen every day in our lives. Some are so small that we don't even notice, while others are significant enough to alter the course of our entire existence.

After coming back from the seminar, which had been added to my weekend schedule last minute, I was mentally exhausted.

I reached home in the evening after my unexpected visit to the park. When I got back, Nidhi was in her room, putting nail polish on her long fingers. 

I just lay down on her bed. She asked me where I had been, and we chatted about our day. Then I interrogated her about her date. We weren't in the mood to cook, so we ordered pizza. With my stomach full, I had the best weekend sleep.

The weekdays passed by quickly with classes, assignments, and some fieldwork as Thursday approached. I was in my class when my phone started vibrating.

Usually, people didn't call me during my college time. Truthfully speaking, there was a very small circle of people who usually called me, so I always had a fair idea of who was calling.

This time, however, I did not recognize the caller ID, so I cut the call to pay attention in class. When the class ended, I took out my phone and saw that there were five missed calls from that number.

I decided to call back, something I never usually did. After five rings, the owner picked up the call.

"Hello?" It was a man's voice, somewhat familiar. "Am I speaking to Ms. Aanya Sharma?" he asked. Who is this? I thought.

"Yes," I replied with a monosyllable, my mind racing with possibilities of who this man could be.

"Oh! Thank God this is your number. I thought I called some random stranger," the man said. So, he knew me.

"And who are you?" I asked, uncertain but not wanting to sound rude.

"Oh! I'm Dr. Arun Rathore. Do you remember?" he asked. Of course, I remembered. "We met at the bookstore and seminar," he tried to remind me.

"I remember Sir," I told him. But the question remained: why was he calling me?

"I don't want to sound rude, Sir, but why did you call me?" I asked him bluntly.

"Remember, you were asking about my thesis on human emotions," he said. "I would really like to share it with you if you're interested, and also I need a favor," he said. What favor was he talking about? I wondered.

Dr. Arun seemed like a good person. I could tell that even though I had only met him twice. He invited me to his office the next day, but only if I wanted to. He said we could discuss it further. 

So, I just said yes. I told him that I would be there around four in the evening, after my college. He sent me his address.

Oh! How had he obtained my phone number? That question, unfortunately, slipped my mind during our conversation.

.

.

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Yesterday, without even thinking, I told the professor that I would be there. But now, I didn't want to go there.

I took a bus because the address was a bit far from the campus. As I got nearer to my destination, I started feeling more and more uncomfortable.

It was as if my sixth sense was telling me it wasn't a good idea. Everyone must have felt uneasiness before an exam; it was something like that.