You're Mine, Remember?

4. Friends without Benefits?

Dumping her bag on the ground, she landed straight on her a** and sighed in content once the soft foam of her allotted bed touched her aching hip muscles. God, only she knew how tired she was after having to literally tour the campus as if she was on a tour of some historic place or something just in need of finding the girl's dorm. She was tired and whatnot, so she landed straight on the bed and dozed off into a dreamless sleep.

Someone appeared from the door and settled on the other bed, starring at Nidhi as she eyed the position in which she was sleeping like a dead person. One leg hanging slightly from the bed and another one down on the floor, her boots looked all dirty with mud over them, her jeans were ripped over her knees and her pale bright skin was showing. Further up, she had sleeves rolled down and appeared to be crinkled. Her face was devoid of any makeup, just some eyeliner on the verge of coming off and her hair tied up in a high bun.

That person jumped in her place as Nidhi stirred and with a snort opened her eyes and sat straight as if someone just shouted her to do so. Then she observed her surroundings and shrugged while clutching her head as a nasty headache added to her irritation. She just clutched her head in between her hands and cursed the moment that she had to get up from her peaceful sleep.

Suddenly in the middle of all her irritations, she felt someone looking at her and looked to her left to see a girl with yellow-colored specs resting on her nose. She didn't care to check up on her and instead raised her eyebrow at the girl, questioningly.

"Who are you??" She asked the intruder. Had it been her usual self, she would have made sure this girl would have left the room the instance she laid her eyes on her. But now that her health was vulnerable, she was being considerate and polite.

The girl looked startled for a moment before gaining her composure and waved at her, "Hi!!! I'm Kavya and I'm your new roommate!!" Her overly excited voice boomed in the room. Nidhi tried to hide the irritation she felt when the high pitch of this girl's voice entered her eardrums, but instead, she smiled sarcastically at her. "Hi there Kavya!!! I'm Nidhi!!" And again turned her head away from her.

Kavya's face dropped a bit as she could see through Nidhi's formality and expected they could talk a bit more, but it was clear that Nidhi didn't care much. She just leaned down to pick her bag up and quickly fished out a tablet to look as this terrible headache was frustrating her. She quickly found the tablet and quickly popped it into her mouth and gulped some water down. 

After she was sure that a headache felt a bit better, she got up and dumped her bag in the little closet like thing provided to them and opened her shirt, not caring that Kavya was still there in the room. She pulled out another shirt and she put it quickly. Buttoning it up she took the end of the shirt and tied it up a little higher than the way line of her jeans.

She then sat on her bed again and pulled out the diary which she had already taken out from her bag and opened the bookmarked page. A smile adorned her lips as she remembered Shaurya's words and quickly wrote it down, adding 2-3 points that were related in some way.

"Yesss that's the spirit Nunu, now finally you have a plan ready for the big mission, 'Mission F.I.T.E' starts from tomorrow!!” She mumbled to herself as she closed the diary and smirked devilishly.

"Mission Im-possible?? What is that ??" A curious voice interrupted her dreamland and she found Kavya leaning over her, towering above her. Nidhi raised her eyebrows and her eyes widened in alarm. Something flashed in front of her and she quickly pushed Kavya away. Kavya jumped back in shock and confusingly readjusted her specs.

What just happened ??

Nidhi just wiped the sweat from her face and sighed. Grabbing the water bottle yet again, she emptied the bottle and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths. Kavya observed every single action of her roommate with a newfound interest.

Suddenly Nidhi opened her eyes and blankly stared at her, while her hand slipped into her pocket and found out a toy lizard and quickly threw that in her direction. "Kavya catch !!" Her voice sounded urgent and Kavya surely caught the toy lizard but shrieked away as soon as she realized that it was a lizard in her hands. She shouted and quickly dashed away from the room, screaming for help.

Nidhi dropped on the floor in fits of laughter, clapping her hands in joy, tears streaming down her cheeks." It's so good to be back in action !!"

---------

She sobbed hard as she could hear the lightning strike from time to time. She never really like rains and hated it when it thundered like that.

At times like these, she always wished she had her mother. She always wanted her mother to come and comfort her at times like these, tell her how she was there for her and there was no need to fear when she was there by her side. But she never came. Not even when she cried to sleep, demanding for her mother to come back to her.

Another lightning struck, and the tree beside there house caught fire. She frighteningly got up and stared in horror at the tree which her mother had planted for her, burning to ashes, right in front of her eyes. She dashed towards the window to stop the little branches that were still protected, thanks to the window being closed and in a way obstructing the fire from spreading to the leftover branches. She quickly got hold of the branches and plucked a handful of the leaves and glanced at them carefully. She hissed in pain as her hands were scrapped because of the branches. She clutched the leaves close to her chest and cried hard.

'I miss you Mumma, please come back!! You know that I hate these thunders, and see now they burnt your favorite tree which you had planned for me. Please come back to me Mumma, please come back.'

She gasped and jumped back when she felt heat coming towards her and saw that the branch which was stuck by the window had also caught for and the tree was swinging vary wildly as another lightning struck directly over the tree and it seemed like the tree was going to fall over there house. So she quickly ran over to the nightstand and grabbed the photo frame of her mother and escaped her room, wishing she will get away before the burning tree falls over the house.

She hurriedly rushed down the stairs but tripped and fell down. At the same time, she could feel the house floating and before she knew it, she was falling into deep clutches of Oblivion.....

Nidhi woke up with a start all sweaty at the nightmare that always troubled her. She sat up quickly and moved on the edge of the bed, with her feet on the floor. As much as she wanted to forget about that scary night, she couldn't help but remember it yet, as it was the last memory of her beloved mother and how all of her memories where painfully snatched away because of the thunders. She quickly shook her head and urgently looked at the surroundings. She was in her hostel dorm and not in her room back in her home, all away from the place which holds all the painful memories.

She wiped her face with the sleeve of her long shirt and took deep breaths to calm herself down. Calm breathing helped her in lowering the increased heart rate. It also helped to reduce all the panic or stress that the nightmare had caused. She closed her eyes and sat straight, closing her one nostril with her index finger and thumb and breathing in through her nose, and held her breath for five seconds. Exhaling slowly she repeated the whole process for about 10 minutes, while mentally chanting "relax" or "calm" as she exhaled. Practicing this breathing throughout the day was a compulsory routine for her and how come she forgot about this important routine, she wondered. Every night before going to bed, she always did meditation so that she can sleep peacefully and did them after any nightmare.

 "While you can reassure your mind that you are awake and safe, it is also important to reassure your senses and body as well." Her fellow mate at the Juvenile home had once told her. Being in a Juvenile home had it's own pros and cons. She also had advised Nidhi to choose a comforting sound or listen to gentle music to avoid all the nightmares and relax.

Lazily she got up and walked towards her cupboard and tried to open it with her half-open eyes. But somehow it was locked and she couldn't remember where were the keys, so with a little force, she ripped open the door with a cranking noise so loud that it startled Kavya as she shrieked on the top of her voice and fell hard on the ground with a loud thud and groaned in pain and disturbance of her peaceful sleep, but slept there nonetheless. Nidhi didn't care much about her roommate and fished out the earphones from her bag and her iPod and quickly came back to the awaiting bed. Plugging into some old and soft melodious ghazals, she fell into a deep slumber.

Kavya climbed back to her bed and slipped into a deep slumber, all the while wondering how she could make Nidhi her best-friend. There were people who had looked down on her, and she didn't have the courage to talk back to them. But now that she came to know of Nidhi's strength, all she had to do was get Nidhi on her side and be friends with her. This way, there will be no bullies swarming their way towards her, seeing her as there new target.

But the problem was how she was going to do this? As she saw how Nidhi behaved with her, it wouldn't take time for Nidhi to become one of the Bullies if she pressed the wrong buttons for her. So she had to be very cautious of her steps. She had to make sure that she had a perfect plan scripted and then she'll work accordingly.

She removed her phone from under her pillow and googled some tips to make friends with a difficult person. As she went through the pages, she got some clarity and she quickly took screenshots for the same.

From tomorrow, she'll do anything and everything to befriend Nidhi. She had to do it by hook or by crook.