Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Thirty Nine : In Between Staying In and Coming Out

New year, new me. I knew exactly what I was going to do this year. First was not bludgeoning myself to forget about the events of last year because the more that I focused on forgetting, I was remembering it with the same turbulence. Second was to come clean with Jazz and reclaim her as my friend before it was too late (or before she was so glued to her other friends that I couldn't rip her apart from them). Third was, despite losing my first love and best friend, getting beaten up six months later on a date and finding out that my sister had an illicit affair with my first love's father, I would try to remain sane. Try was the key word.

I had an epiphany on 31st December when my father had bought home a Blackforest cake to cut at 12 am and my mother had looked at Pavitra and validly asked about what was left to celebrate (plus our new year was actually Gudi Padwa which was on 2nd April). My dad who was dressed in a white undershirt with tiny holes in them, shrugged, raised the knife at the cake and said, "Just."

Just. It coincided with the philosophy of Lila of living through life like a breeze, going wherever we wanted, doing whatever we wanted, but most importantly, touching other people's lives and making them feel good too. I didn't have many people to entertain, but I could be a comfort to the ones that I had already. Except Pavitra, I could never bring myself to forgive her.

"Bye-bye, see you tomorrow in history!" shouted Shreya and I smiled at her, watching her disappear at the end of the corridor. She was one of the friends that I spontaneously made in class. There were at least ten other Shreya in our class and I had saved her from the embarrassment of saying present at the wrong Shreya in the roll call for which she jokingly expressed her gratitude every day. But our friendship terminated when our shared lectures did and I was okay with that. There was no one way of being friends.

It was the first day of this year in college, yet I couldn't find Jaspreet, the ever-popular Jazz who was probably surrounded by groups of people like bees swarming around their hive. She was like their hive where they would bring their misery and store it in her, their secrets sticky and messy just like honey. She listened to all their problems and affairs with eagerness and seldom did they listen to her. Yet she seemed to be happy doing that, preferring them over her GPA.

With that thought in mind, I was going to leave college and head home, but I saw her face at the back of the canteen. She was sitting alone at the unclean table and pretended to scroll through her phone, pretended because of the numerous times she looked up and inspected her surroundings awkwardly. The bees had left their hive in search for the attractive flowers. Jazz's face flushed in embarrassment, I could see the faint crimson colour rising in her sandalwood skin when she spotted me approaching her.

"Hey, what's up," I said lightly, pretending like we had been good friends these past months and nothing was wrong with us.

Jazz didn't seem to mind my pretense since she had been so engrossed in her own. "Nothing much. I'm waiting for some of my friends. They'll be here soon." Suddenly, she sighed, letting out all her inhibitions and her head collapsing on the table where remnants of bhel were still scattered. Her voice was muffled, but I could hear her speak, "Can I be frank with you?" Before I could respond, she continued, "Those people can get too much at times." She raised her head, her hands waving dismissively at what she had just confessed. "No, no, don't get me wrong. They're nice people. It's just that- they keep unloading their burdens on me and expect me to not tell others. How long can I keep all their secrets? "

Well, this was perfect, I could never come out to her. Ever.

"You can set boundaries if you don't want them to do that," I said, my voice was so small and pathetic that I laughed dryly on the inside.