She's here

                                 Mr. Philophobic

                                                    - Arjunan kumar

                                    Chapter - 4

She’s here :

I was reading ‘The Notebook’ by Nicholas sparks in my portico and saw Akshay surfing in the waves. He had a olive skin tone, charming brown eyes and quite taller than me. In short, he is an Handsome hunk, my handsome hunk. My heart slowly started beating for him. We were working together for the last 3 months renovating the pub. He neither talked about his personal life nor showed interest in mine. We decided to renovate the pub in Irish style and decided to host parties and music concert in the roof-top to attract the party goers. We hired 3 more bar tenders and added new variety of cocktails and we also added Billiards games. Everything was set and the pub was about to open tonight.

“Stop staring at Mr. Charming and read the book”, Sheela entered my room.

“Hey sheela, where’s the dress?”. Sheela is my classmate and she is a designer. I asked her to design a dress for me for tonight’s party.

“Here you go Selene”, she gave me the dress. It was fabulous and perfect for tonight’s occasion. I noticed Sheela waving at Akshay. But he didn’t respond and tried to avoid her. She felt very bad.

“What’s the matter Sheela? You know Akshay?”

“I was his only Friend when he joined our college and we were close. Though he never showed interest in me, I eventually fell for him. One day I made a big mistake by proposing to him. But he genuinely rejected it and from then, he started avoiding me. And at last, I lost my best friend. I made many attempts to get back with him. But succeeded in none. Sometimes his reactions were fierce, it’s kinda scary”

“Why he is behaving like that? Is he seeing someone?”

“No, he isn’t seeing anyone. But he hides something. He is in pain. I saw him crying many times, and he drinks to overcome it. There’s something seriously haunting him from his past. But he never shared it to anyone. I knew that you are his friend now, just take care of him. Okay, Selene, I have some work to do. catch you later”, Sheela took off. Her words shattered my dreams.

The evening arrived. We invited all of our College mates and some outsiders. Everyone were fascinated by the new face of the pub. Our pub was an hit all over Goa. Soon many people across the city started marching in.

It was a Saturday night, the party night. Akshay was playing his guitar and I was enjoying my Cocktail with Hannah. He suddenly stopped playing and started behaving differently. He apologized to all and stormed into the office room. I ran behind him to see what’s really happening. He sat in a chair and started drinking. His hands were shivering and he was sweating. He unbuttoned his shirt to get some air.

“She’s here. She’s here”, he repeatedly said those words.

“what happened Akshay. Are you fine?”

“Just leave me alone”, he shouted. Suddenly a girl entered the room.

“Akshay”, she called him.

“Get the hell out of here, Neha. Enough of everything. Just get out”, he shouted. His eyes turned red in anger. The girl walked out of the pub immediately. I don’t know what happened exactly. But I stayed with him. I sat near him without uttering a word. He drank too much that night and he can barely stand up. So, I helped him to walk home and the rain made that process worse. He was so heavy for me to carry. I somehow managed to bring him to his house. We were drenched completely. He was blabbering the whole time. He said sceptical dialogues like, ‘She made my life hell….. I shouldn’t have done that…. she is better than mom’. I called out Chottu to help me. We carried Akshay to his bedroom and Chottu asked me to wait in the living room. I saw a photo album hanging in his bedroom. It seems to be his family album. I recognized his mom. She was the Miss india of 1995. I was dumbstruck on realizing it. Chottu made Akshay to sleep and brought me towel. He made turmeric milk to make me fell comfortable.

“Thanks sister, for helping Mr. Akshay”, Chottu sat in the floor and started drinking his tea.

“Chottu, you know me very well and how much I care for Akshay. Can you please tell me what happened in his past ? what made him to hate everyone?”, I requested him to tell me everything.

He finished his tea before he could at last broach what I asked.

“He was not the man he used to be now. He was a gem of person. But , those two woman just destroyed his life”.

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- Arjunan Kumar.