When she cried.

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Just like any other day, I logged into Facebook. Just like every time, I scanned through my news feed; a few likes here, a few comments there and I was almost done for the day. Nothing out the ordinary, right? Well, who knew something was waiting to happen; something big.

Before logging out I did one last refresh of my Facebook news feed. ‘Neha Sharma’, an update read. Neha had just used some Facebook app, and a pic as result of using the app came up as a part of her update. The pic read, “The friend who made you most happy is”. The pic had a picture of Neha and – quite obviously – Deb in it with some number of chats in thousands.

The envious part of me roused. I wished I hadn’t seen that pic. Why would I be happy seeing that pic anyway? It should have been my name on that pic. It was me who made sure she was happy every time, not that asshole!

A friend of hers commented on that very Facebook app update of hers.

“Your life must be heavenly”, the comment read, and quite obviously the girl who had commented on that picture knew about Deb.

As a reply to that comment of hers, Neha commented, “Wish that were true. My life is far from being heavenly. ”

Just earlier that day, in the evening, I had called Neha up. She had a debate competition that day. She was happy and all; after all she had come 3^rd among 200 other participants which included graduates, people who were studying in MBA institutes, people with jobs. It was a great achievement of hers, but as always she won’t be satisfied with what she got. She said she wished she scored that top position. I teased her for that. We laughed; we talked a bit longer, until my cell phone got drained out of balance.

But, that comment of Neha’s sent bad vibes. Something had happened and I didn’t know about it. Neha appeared online on Facebook, so I started chatting with her.  

“Smthng happnd? Did deb do smthg again?”

“He does da same evrytym.” She replied.

“Well abt wht? Da fb thng again?”

“No… problem wid my nature he says.”

“frm whch angle? :O”

“Dunno. I’m deeply hurt.”

“Don’t be re. I can vouch tht u r one of da bst persons I hav evr knwn J.”

“Thanx dearo. But, c his indifference. He hasn’t calld me evn nw to knw if I reachd home or nt. He didn’t evn ask fr da reslt of my competition. Hence da status updt of mine.”

‘If peace cant b a solution itz better to opt hatred...da stronger u can be..’, her status read.

“Chill re. Der must be sm reasn to it. Why overthink?”

“Dis is irritating me. I can’t chill ovr dis. You don’t knw anything. I can’t evn tell u in detail nw. I will smtym and will let u decide.”

She seemed really upset about the whole Deb thing. I needed to know what might have happened.

“Y nt now? Tel me right nw. I need to knw.”

“There’s too mch into it. I can’t type al dat.”

“Ok, fine den. I will call u 2moro. Since we evng, my fone’s running low on balance.”

“Arey, it’s okay. Happens.” She said.

“What happns. If it really is concerning u, den it sure does to me. M ur shadow u knw :P <tht was too much of a line, ri8?>.”

“Ya, kuch jyada hogaya. (Ya, that was little too over the top) :P.” At least, she was smiling for some reason. I sighed. But I was dying to talk to her about it. Damn! My phone had to run out of balance at a time like this?

Next day

I had fuelled my phone with a reasonable balance by evening. I dialled up Neha’s number. With every ring of the phone, my heart skipped hundred beats. I had talked with Neha countless times, each time thinking ‘now that I have talked with her comfortably, I could dial her next time without being nervous about it’. But somehow, that being-nervous attitude never went away.

I found my way to the roof. Roof was the only place where my phone was able to access a full network.

“Hello.” She picked up the phone.

“Hey. Hi. What are you doing?” I asked.

“Nothing much. Was with my friends, talking.”

“Maybe I called on a bad time. I will call later?”

“No, no. it’s totally cool. I’m done with my talks anyway.”

“Hmm. You were in a pretty bad shape last night. How are you holding up?”

“Worse.” Her voice seemed to choke as she said that.

“Worse. Why? Worse how?” I was worried about what might have happened.

“We broke up!” she started sobbing.

I didn’t know how to react to that. Should I be happy, fist pump in the air because my best friend is crying? I wasn’t happy about it though. I felt bad; I felt bad because she was crying. I had never seen that side of her. She had always been go happy type and smiling person. This was new to me.

Normally, I always had some right thing to say to her every time, like when things were going bad at her home, when she had her exams or some competition ahead and she was really nervous about it. But this time, this time I had lost my voice. I didn’t know what to say. She was crying on the other side of the phone and I could only ask her not to cry. Just how helpless could I get?

“You need to get over it. And what do you mean by break up? Fights happen. You shouldn’t make permanent decisions on your temporary emotion. Isn’t that’s what’s said for good?”

“I can’t get over this that easy.” She wouldn’t stop crying. It didn’t feel right to ask her the reason behind this.  

“Hey, you got your exams coming in 2 days’ time. You need to concentrate on your studies, rather than this.” I knew she couldn’t possibly do that, but that’s what I had to say then. I felt like a piece of shit, a worthless friend.

“I can’t re. It’s too difficult to concentrate on anything, I tried! This time I thought it was different. I really loved him.”

Hot blood flushed through my brain as I recollected Neha was crying because of Deb. That son of a bitch! How lowly could he possibly be? I never understood what Neha saw in that piece of shithead. How could he make my Neha cry? I cursed him a million times. I asked Neha to calm down and take some rest and that she would need to study for her exams, and she couldn’t wear her current emotion for long.

“Thank you. Thank you so much for hearing me out. All I did was cry and waste your time.” She had stopped crying by now.

“Don’t you ever say anything like that! You are never a waste of time for me. Now, just take care of yourselves. I should hang up. Bye and good night.”

“Thank you re. And yeah, bye and good night to you as well.” I hung up.

I looked up at the sky. The emptiness overpowered my emotions, and I felt like crying for my helplessness. I could only think of Neha’s crying face, and the rage it ignited within me.

I had met Deb once before when he was with Neha at some mall. He came to me as a decent person, and what earlier I had believed Deb was, started seeming wrong. I had conceived he might just be a better person than I was; he would keep her happy no matter what, I had thought. How foolish I was! I didn’t realize then that he conned me with his behaviour. How I wish I could punch him right in his face then!

Tears started proliferating at the corner of my eyes. As my eyelids kissed each other, tears started finding their way down. 

I couldn't fathom the fact that Neha was crying because of that bastard! i tried reaching many of her friends whom i knew were from her college and asked them to take care of her. Even her friends said that I needn't worry about them taking care of her, I couldn't stop myself from caring. 

I cried to sleep that night 

 P.S. Now that you guys have managed to reach the end of this post, somehow, please be generous enough to let me know how you liked it, or not of course! I always encourage criticism, but still I hope I won’t get much this time. I hope you guys liked it and enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.