“You know about it. Don’t you.” I asked Diya.

There was silence. Then she said “yes.”

“Who told you?”

“Your mom.”

“When?”

“Remem­ber your mom took me to her room all alone at our first meet­ing, then.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Not much.”

“Good. Lets go.”

“Raj. I am sorry.”

“Lets go we have to leave early tomor­row morning.”

That was the end of the trip for us. Next morn­ing we left for Cal­cutta. In a few days Riya also left for Delhi. I got busy with col­lege stud­ies. I did not go out much. Then almost after a month Diya and Nisha came over to my place.

“Aunty can I meet Raj.”

“Diya he does not want to meet you.”

“Aunty ask him to meet me just once.”

“Alright I will try.”

“Raj , Diya has come to meet you.” Mom called.

“But I don’t want to.” I said “ tell her to go away.”

“Raj just meet me once.” Diya said cry­ing. “Then I will go away.”

“No I don’t want to meet you.” I replied.

She went back. Then Nisha came over to my room.

“Raj what is all this. Why are you behav­ing in such a way.” Nisha came in.

“Lis­ten it’s my life and I don’t want any­body inter­fer­ing in it.” I shouted back.

“Any­body, now we have become any­body. We were friends weren’t we.” Nisha.

“Not in my per­son­nel life.”

“Per­son­nel what’s per­son­nel among friends Raj.”

“You can leave now.”

“You don’t deserve the love of a girl Raj. You really don’t. Nor do you deserve to have friends.”

“Good.”

“Why are you doing this Raj? Why?”

“Well it’s none of your business.”

“Good­bye then.” Nisha slammed the door as she went away.

“Go away I don’t need any­body.” I shouted.

I stayed in my room the whole after­noon. Then Rohit came in the evening. He knocked.

“Raj can I come in.” Rohit said softly.

“Come in Rohit.”

“How are you?”

“Absolutely fine. Why what happened?”

“Come we will go to the ter­race and play cricket.”

“No I don’t feel like. I have to fin­ish this lab report.”

“Come on you can do that later.”

I was silent for some time. Then Rohit came and sat next to me.

“Well okay lets not play cricket lets just go to the ter­race and just sit.”

“Okay.”

We went to the ter­race and sat over there. I did not say any­thing. Rohit also sat next to me. We sat there for maybe about 2 hours then Rohit said.

“Raj don’t you think you are doing some­thing wrong.”

“What?”

“You don’t realise what you are doing.”

“What am I doing?”

“Look at every­body around you they are sad. Look at your par­ents. Diya, Nisha, all of us.”

“Why what’s wrong?”

“Don’t you see they are con­cerned about you. They love you so much. Why are you doing this to them.”

“I have not done any­thing that will hurt them.”

“Your behav­iour hurts them a lot Raj.”

“Well I am like this.”

“No Raj we want you back the way you were before we went to Puri. Diya loves you Raj. You will never find a girl who will love you as much as much as she does. I think you should go say sorry to her.”

“Why should I .”

“Raj don’t you realise what you are doing. We all love you. We really do. If you feel good to see the peo­ple who love you so much so depressed then you don’t deserve our love. You don’t. God knows why do we love you so much.” He shouted at me. ”Raj don’t do this to us become what you were.” For the first time I saw tears in his eyes. That sight was unbearable.

I also had tears in my eyes. “I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you all.”

“Its okay Raj we only want you to be happy.”

“I will never do a thing like this.” We hugged each other. Then we wiped each other’s tears.

“Raj go and meet Diya she is very upset.”

“Okay I will meet her tomorrow.”