An adenoidal, brittle voice called out my name and I turned around, blinking twice to recognise the person standing in front of me....."
The pale crescent moon shone like a silvery claw in the night sky as I stood by the window wondering how beautiful the moon is. My mother shouted for my name but I was deeply invested in jogging my memory of that day.
The day I met her.
I had met Anaushey on a dinner arranged by my uncle. I still have vague recollections of that day. She was the only daughter of my uncle's friend who was a business person.
The first thing I noticed about her was her wide-set of brown eyes fringed with long lashes that smiled along with her cupid's bow as she greeted me. Her glossy pink cheeks complimented her ivory skin tone. She was wearing a magenta colored velvet suit and I kept on drooling over her appearance that day 'cause till then that's all I knew about her.
After a few days, we met again on a birthday party. Her aura attracted me, the eloquence in her voice as she told me confidently about her hobbies and the liveliness in her nature as she discussed about her friends in university. I acknowledged her progressive thoughts as we conferred about different topics of life.
I was,no doubt, in an awe of her in just two meet-ups.
We exchanged numbers and after that our friendship begun in full bloom. Whenever her family visited my uncle's house, she used to call me up there and we used to spend hours giggling and laughing over the randomest things possible. I couldn't help but notice a brand new cell phone in her hands and designer clothes along with complimenting gold accessories every single time. She was born with a golden spoon in her mouth, and she had a nice style to process it. I recall her saying once that her friends in university used to make fun of her because she never repeated a dress. Her house was more of like a mansion and its brilliantly torch-lit garden was bigger than the park I used to go for jogging. She had plenty of adventures to brag about and her aspirations of the future inspired me.
That day after I had gone to bed, I thought to myself that she had a perfect life. She can have everything she wants unlike many of us. I wasn't jealous of her. I just admired her life.
It had been almost 3 months since she last visited us, I had texted her many times but her replies had something missing. And it was clear that she wasn't ready to talk about it. One-day, I asked my uncle if his friend had told something about the current situation to which my uncle replied 'he is a disgusting man, don't remind me of him.' After constant pushing, uncle finally told me that he had married for the third time leaving Anaushey and her mother once again all alone. 'again? What do you mean by again' I asked, astounded by what I had just heard. 'Yes again, anaushey's mother was her family's choice and he had abandoned them for 14 years for his second wife. He had taken them in his custody recently because of ridiculing remarks in one of his official meetings that apparently provoked his pudency.'
Tears welled up in my eyes. I just stood there in disbelief and angst that why she never told me about that part of her life.
After that, I started to contact her more often, trying to make her sure of the fact that she has a comfortable environment to open up to. She had shifted to her former town along with her mother who was patient with all those diseases that accompany old age triggered by stress. Diabetes, hypertension, gout, glaucoma, you name it. I often asked to meet her, but she tried to make a different excuse every single time. One-day, my uncle told me that she was doing so because she was ashamed of her current whereabouts.
I had made up my mind that I will,for once, meet her and re-assure her that I am at her back no matter what. And that she can ask me any kind of help, monetarily or whatsoever. I drove my way to the address uncle told me about.
As I entered the street, the house felt like it outlasted the others because it's made of concrete.
Floor, roof, ceiling. The remains of the door, wavy and yellowed by time as I knocked on it. The open door creaked on its rusty hinges as a little girl opened it, I asked her about anaushey , she welcomed me inside.
A deary carpet on a sagging floor reminded me of the velvet carpeted halls that led all the way to series of willow trees in her previous vivacious house.
An adenoidal, brittle voice called out my name and I turned around blinking twice to recognise the person standing in front of me. I jumped to hug her. We sat down to converse about, only to realise that this person wasn't my Anu. It seemed as if someone had washed away all the life from her. The dark circles around her eyes told me that she hadn't slept well for days. She had started tutoring little kids in her home but three-fourth of her salary went to her mother's medication who was entering the end of age pyramid that too worn out by the struggles of life. I wanted to confront Anu that why didn't she ever tell me about the ugly side of her life, why didn't she feel me capable of standing beside her in her time of weakening.
But my lips were sealed, no matter how hard I persuaded she wasn't opening up and I couldn't start the conversation by myself especially on such a sensitive topic if she wasn't willing. Obviously, we laughed, but her smile was shallow now. I could see the wrinkles around her eyes settling no matter how hard she was trying to keep up the appearances. I just knew she was self-dependant to the point that she would have blocked the thoughts of relying upon someone ever again.
As I walked through the hallway whose walls were eaten up by moulds, I reminisced about Anu's signature raspberry fragrance that used to be whiffed by me from another corridor.
As I left for my home, following words echoed my mind:
"If you have a family that loves you, a few good friends, food on your table and a roof over your head. You are richer than you think."
@Read.Cash