are you SURE ?

A Story by nikita

a simple question "are you SURE?" ... what was the gossip ??? read the next installment of this off the tangent story to find out the context and the answer

"Are you sure you're not going home tonight I mean, are you literally going to stay here the whole night ? ...
She's not gonna come to her senses for a week at least and besides there are docs and nurses for her... You can always come and check on her tomorrow . You don't really NEED to..."

Who was this 'she' and why wasn't she in her senses? Well, she was Nikita and she wasn't in her senses because of a suicide attempt...
Why had she attempted suicide ? Because the college denied her scholarship.
Why did the college do so and even if the college did so was this step fair? Yes it was...
How?... It's a pain to write like this. It's better to tell the entire story properly...

So, here it is...

Nikita was like any other small town girl in a big city except for two things-

1. She wasn't a Dumbo... She was just simple, open at heart, and.. nice.. not a diva but just nice..
The kind of girl you may not dream of falling in love with but you may not also deny marrying,,, That sort of a girl she was...

2. She had no parents but wasn't an orphan. She lived in an orphanage but wasn't one... And so wasn't any resident of KHUSHIYAN.
They all may be lacking biological and social parents but they all had a grandmother whose love was impartial and sufficient for all. AKKA... she was called lovingly by all her children.

So this was about her.. not all.. but enough for now.

In this college she'd become friends with Chauhan Raj , Cherry Wilson and Nakul Sharma...
These three were besties within themselves and she AND everyone else knew AND acknowledged the fact (at least SHE acknowledged it).
So she never tried to get too close to them but, they befriended her.

CHAUHAN RAJ better known as RAJ came from a typical Rajputana family where traditions were more important than everything else, And he, had broken it..
although unknowingly and obviously harmlessly.
He had fallen in love with Cherry Wilson. They were in touch twelfth standard at that time and family came to know about it in the second semester of his college and a horrible scene followed.
They were bound on to forcing him but he, was unshakable... So the end result was exclusion of Chauhan Raj from family AND property.. to this he readily agreed (I mean the latter..)
He was deeply attached to his mother and when she tried to make peace between Raj and his father,
his father slapped her hard in a fit of anger and domination eventually causing her to fall on a rock and ultimately die from internal hemorrhage...
To this Raj became highly aggressive and left them for once and all.
He lived here in a rented apartment and was the first one to befriend Nikita because of their similarity in housing.

CHERRY WILSON - Her parents died at a very young age and she lived with her uncle and aunt.
Yes, uncle and aunt and not aunt and uncle..
On knowing about her feelings for Raj, Uncle Jennifer retaliated and tried to impose his wish on Cherry using all forms of emotional blackmails and threatenings.
To all this Cherry had almost surrendered when Aunt Jennifer stood up against Uncle for the first time in her life...
"She will do as she wants And I'M with her.. ALWAYS..."
Result? Aunt Jennifer became Aunt Wilson once again and Aunt Independent for the first time in her life...

NAKUL SHARMA - Four of them had never been GREAT FRIENDS because these three had known each other beforehand as well and were inseparable..
However, they had become FRIENDS and to Nakul, Nikita was just a mere friend and not even a FRIEND.
But to Nikita, Nakul was more than a friend...
Yes, she had fallen in love with him...
Nakul Sharma was the brother of Kunal Sharma and brother-in-law of Anjali Sharma, but was always treated like their son... Though biologically, he was none...
But this had NEVER posed a hindrance and he was the apple of everyone's eyes...
Kunal, Anjali, Raj, Cherry AND Nikita as well. Though she (Nikita) never expressed it in public but Raj , as her and Nakul's oldest acquaintance knew it.
He had never encouraged OR discouraged her to say her feelings to him but had encouraged her to hang out with him if she liked it and.. so did she...

Once they (all four) were hanging out in a cafe . After some time, Raj and Cherry went away, so she, had a chance.. She asked hi out for a movie and he agreed !
"All of us can go. I'm sure Raj's gonna love the movie.. And We can ask Trisha too... (TRISHA, was Nakul's mingle...)
"OK fine..." he said just a second later.. "not Trisha this time.." She felt both relieved AND stressed. "I don't know her.. a.." "Oh! It's fine." She faked a smile.
The entire movie, he was engrossed in the MOVIE or in is phone "obviously with TRISHA"..

Back in college, a dance night was going to be organized , "This time I'm going to ask him out.. Yes 1 And Trisha's not anywhere near... Yes ! I will.. I will.." She thought to herself.
"Nakul,.. Hi.." "Hi Nikita" "I'd to ask you something..." "Yes ?" "Ah !Could you .. I mean ... would you.. no.. could you... come to The Dance Night.. I mean with me... Could you ...
I mean can you.. can I... be your dance partner... I..."

His otherwise genuine smile faded for once and she could feel everyone was suddenly looking at her..
Had she been a bit loud? Had she hurt him by asking this? She felt as if she could bury herself in the earth.. And then came a wicked replacement..
"I can well understand what you want to say.. But I don't want to.. I won't go to The Dance Night with you, nor I'm a damn s**t interested in you..
And you better acknowledge this fact as soon as ans as strictly as possible.."

"These small town girls.." Came Trisha from nowhere.. "what do you think you can do.. if a guy talks two words to you... you start to dream crazy dreams.." She was bound to insult her..
"Trisha please... I'm sorry.. I didn't mean anything like that...It was just an honest confession.."
"Honest confession my foot..smelly small town people.. you can never get better.." She whispered softly as she came a step closer...

Nakul went away angrily and Trisha followed him. Nikita was all in tears...She too went away but after some time...

She cried thinking out everything for the thousandth time.. trying to figure out her mistake.

Next day she couldn't go to the college... but when she went.. Raj and Cherry invited her to coffee.. she reluctantly agreed.

But as soon as she entered the coffee shop, to her horror, she found Nakul wasn't smiling as always instead was most disgusted at seeing her.
He went away saying"I'm done for now.." They called him back in vain...

"God knows what happened to him.." Cherry said. "I think it's because of me..." Nikita suddenly said.
And they came to know of the entire story... But they were neither pleased with her attempt nor sympathetic towards her fate..
"I never encouraged you to confess your feelings and thats the reason.. He does not like you. I thought you would be mature enough to understand that.." Raj was frustrated. "I'm sorry..
" Nikita was again in tears.. "I never meant it in that way.. I'm really really sorry.. i tried to apologize to him but he's not ready to talk to me.. He's blocked me everywhere..."
"'Cauz he too is disgusted..." said Cherry. "Could you please convey my regrets to him.. I promise I'll never ever do anything of this sort in future.. please.."
They finally agreed after a little more SORRIES...

So it was decided that he "may never hang out with you again " and though terribly upset, she agreed.

So the next to next day, they called her for lunch in canteen... Nakul had been decidedly ignoring even the look of her since two days...

"I think I shouldn't come.." said Nikita.. "I know Nakul won't be happy to see me and neither you guys will be too pleased. So.. I'd better cease to come.." They didn't force her. They WEREN'T good friends and they DID NOT appreciate her behavior a bit.

"So they didn't meet her now.. Cherry, who was also her classmate also talked less and less to her now..

She was sad. But when one day again Trisha taunted her, she replied back.. There was Nakul too but he wasn't half impressed with this SMALL TOWN GIRL as others were...
Trisha was mean and they all knew it. "But this doesn't mean that I have any feelings for that Nikita.." explained Nakul after a slight debate on Trisha's behavior towards the latter.

This small town girl was just fabulous. She was fine and intelligent as well.. She did not lay heartbroken after the GREAT RIDGE appeared between her and the GREAT FRIENDS...

And then one day, they heard a gossip.. actually, Cherry heard it...