Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

When Chanderi had entered home after the disaster at Tea-light, her red face had warned the Chudasmas that something was wrong. But since they were at brunch with the Bajajs…yes, that friendship was still going strong…she had all but run to her room, wanting to avoid both sets of parents.

She was hungry but wasn’t ready to leave her room’s sanctuary so she rang Shanta di and told her to get her a plate of food. Shanta di, devil that she was, laughed at her antics, before plating a thaali full of her favourite foods and got it to the room.

Sitting on her bed cross-legged, Chanderi allowed herself to feel the full force of her humiliation. Chiranjeev hadn’t been wrong. She had been excited about her epiphany and wanted to share it with him immediately. She had expected them to have a laugh over it, share a meal and part as…well not friends but at least…not exes.

It was naive of her. Had he done this to her, she probably would have drained her cup of coffee on his head. He at least had been extremely polite even while expressing his anger.

She kept her plate to one side and did something she had never thought she would do. She opened her Instagram account so she could stalk him. He put up the most amazing stories of what he was going to teach his students and their hilarious shenanigans. Her favourite was his series on “why one must never become a primary school teacher.” His reasons ranged from exhaustion to how cruel parents’ expectations could be to finding unidentifiable material stuck under tables.

He was a mini-influencer in their circles and she had laughed when her mother had used his following as part of his biodata when she had introduced him to Chanderi.

There were no new reels, stories or posts from him. In fact, in the last month, he hadn’t posted anything new, which was unlike him.

She sighed. She was obsessing and she had only just stopped obsessing. She couldn’t understand it but if Dr Google was to be believed, her obsession was directly related to the fact he was now a forbidden fruit.

Once she had finished lunch, she picked up her phone again. The restlessness was like a live wire inside her. Though she knew it was a bad idea to poke the bear when it was upset, she needed to put the record straight with Chiranjeev.

She opened their message thread, hoping for inspiration. She swiped up, up, up, right to the first messages they had shared. They had always appreciated the honesty with which they had interacted with each other so she took a breath and really thought about what she wanted to say to him.

So, that didn’t go as I had thought it would. I am sorry. I did want to feel better about myself but more than that I wanted to tell you that there was a reason I did what I did.

She waited with her phone in her hand, not knowing when he would message back. If he would message back. But he didn’t make her wait for long.

I already know that Chand, you don’t have to justify yourself to me. It’s done. I guess hearing you say that brought back a lot of memories. I may be great at teaching my kiddos how to manage their big feels but I’m no good at it.

She smiled. She loved it when he talked about his students.

How does one manage the big feels?

When he did not respond immediately, she started to panic. Had she crossed a line, again? His next message proved maybe she had.

What are we doing?

Nothing. I was only making conversation. We can stop if you’d like. But I thought it would be nice if we could be friends.

I don’t want to be your friend Chanderi.

She threw the phone on the bed and whined. Why couldn’t they be friends though? Their parents got on like a house on fire. Surely, as adults, they could get over their big feels and put whatever had happened two months ago aside?

She read his last message again. She didn’t think that would happen any time soon.

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Chapter 11 of 26 of the ongoing series Chanderi. You can read all posts here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z.