Chapter 23: The detour taken en route.

Walking on the directionless roads and cutting myself from the outer world, I was hardly a good company. Unable to talk for a good few minutes without choking, it seemed to better to sit in a quiet corner.

I was hurt like I never had been earlier. I had fallen like never before, and there seemed to be no way out of it.

But why did I end up here? Loving someone could do this? Yes I was at fault and I had hurt Lia. But wasn’t the equation settled now? We were I would say equal now!

But then, even solitude leaves your side one day or the other.

“Hey, Suraj right?” said a friendly voice that seemed strange in a new class.

“Yeah” I replied, managing a smile.

“I’m Srikanth. This is my friend Dipin.” He said.

“Hi, why don’t you join us for lunch?” Said Dipin.

And I had just befriended a round figure and a stick figure.

A few hours of college were now spent sitting next to these two ‘friends’.

Evenings were just as painful. Every passing moment seemed hard to get through now.

••

The tries still existed but distributed in a longer span of time.

It had been over a week now that I called or texted her. She anyway was not going to do that. Every day that passed was slowly cementing the thought that was out in the open since a long time now.

She did not love me.

But that’s not what I wanted. That’s not what I expected. I had left my passion for dancing just because she could not cope up with the idea of any other girl moving in my arms. And she left me?

I knew now it had happened. But how? Can that really happen?

My mind was confused for a second, and blank the very next.

Finally giving in, unable to act any stronger than seven days straight, I called her.

Sitting in Tej’s house, with him sitting in the next room, the conversation that followed brought two people who had drifted apart now, lot much closer.

“Really? Am I really that bad that you wouldn’t talk to me once?” I said, with Lia on the other side of the call.

“You are not bad Suraj. But there’s no point now, of both of us talking.”

“Lia, you are killing me. When I told you I’d die for you if need be, I did not mean this.” I said.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” she said, blunt as her usual self now.

“Don’t talk to me in that tone!” I snapped back.

“Lia, you really don’t love me at all now. Do you?”

“Suraj… No. The answer won’t change.”

“And no matter what happens to me, it’ll not affect you. Right? So if I was to die today, you won’t happen to miss me. Would you?”

“No not really. Maybe as a friend.”

All days that I walked with no heart left in me, and with no music that could feed my soul, situations had made me ice cold.

It had been building up till now, but this was a little more than what I was used to. Today, when once again tears came out, it wasn’t just another cry, it was a cry for help.

What started with sobbing, was now something new to me. Scared, Tej ran in. Within a fraction of a second he knew what had happened here. Yet he stood at the door, not sure if he should intervene.

For a minute there I was, sitting on the bed, and in the next I was standing facing a wall. I could never think of hurting Lia. But walls are harder, right?

With a punch going hard into the wall, Tej knew he had to come now.

Taking my phone out of my hand, hugging me, he chose to speak first to Lia, and then to me.

“He will talk to you later you b… Lia.” He said, his hatred of my ex-girlfriend becoming more evident now.

Cutting her call, he told something that I was not ready to believe.

“All will be fine Suraj.” He said, still hugging me tight.

“She ruined me bro.” I said, crying harder than I ever could think of.

“You did. I told you not to love anyone so madly that everything they do makes you happy or sad to the extremes.

“My hand’s paining.” I said.

“Yes. You punched the nail you fucking ass hole.” He said showing me the blood that was dripping on his room’s floor.

••

Dhruv, getting to know about my last call from Tej and tired of seeing my face with no expressions of happiness or sorrow, of love or of hatred knew something had to be done.

With a hope of making me forget the ache, he planned of something that would backfire sooner or later.

For the moment, maybe that was a way out.

“Suraj, have this.” Dhruv said, handling me a mug of ice cold beer, as Zeesha looked at him in doubt if this scheme would work.

And with no further arguments, I took it.

A sip, then a can and then guzzling it down with no trace of reaction to the bad and bitter reaction, it was hard to tell that I wasn’t a habitual drinker.

Three liters down the throat and the room I sat in seemed to go to and fro.

A little dizzy in my head, the beer sent frozen, piercing shivers up in the head and soon enough, all felt calm.

“I will move on one day.” I said, with my middle finger pointed to random strangers sitting in the same pub.

“Okay, have another!” said Dhruv, handling me winter beauty. So golden, alcohol seemed to be my answer to the questions that situations had put in front of me.

“I love you guys. You didn’t leave my side like my baby did.” I said, with words coming out of my mouth starting to get slurred now.

“Fucking ass-hole. That’s the wrong ‘b’ word coming out of your mouth” Dhruv said.

It had been long that I had spoken so much. The drunk Suraj was very much the happy, all the time blabbering Suraj, except that he wasn’t happy.

Zeesha sat in front of me. It had started with her telling “We love you too” to every single (read fifteen) times that I told I love you to the two of them. Now I closed my eyes, with last memory being that of seeing Zeesha look at me, with moist eyes, her hand slowly caressing my head. My pain was now evident to all.

••

Although effective, alcohol was a temporary solution to keep the thoughts, and in turn the pain, at bay.

Soon enough, beer was ineffective, and then so was whisky, vodka and finally vodka too gave way.

Guess that’s what happens when a bottle of that is preferred over food.

I was giving in to all the wrong things, but it was for all the right reasons.

The inebriated me wanted to drink away the pain, and someday let go of the reason.

The sober me wanted to get Lia back at any cost and was hell bent on making that happen.

It was hard to tell which one was not able to see the reality clearly.

But soon when all variants of booze stopped being as effective as they were, it was time to move on to something new.

When you can’t get drunk…… Get stoned.

“Take out these leaflets from the seed like this… crush them with your palm… and voila!” Arun said, giving me a stick of weed.

A few puffs, and it seemed like a new world to me.

Why was it so effective? Give a cyclist a superbike and you’d know.

I had never till date held a cigarette in my hand, and here I was, with my first stick of ganja.

That was the first, but far from being the last.