It was a hot afternoon, really really hot. Honestly, just like any other summer afternoon in the ncr region of India. Man it's hot here! Seems like sun is setting record's and then trying even harder to breake them. Even the nights are so hot. It feels like the moment you step out you are gonna melt, be fried and boiled at the same time. I hate summers!
I was sitting on my desk trying to study but honestly I was just scribbling and doodling. I am not even good at art! I dunno why but today I just couldn't do anything in particular. I swear this heat is getting on my nerves. I can't even go on the terrace or balcony or anywhere out of the house.
Just then my elder brother came absolutely screaming at the top of his voice.
"Hey Chandni I have got the absolute challenge for you! You are definately gonna lose!"
"What now!"
"Besan Ladoo! Bet you can't make them, now can you, huh!"
"What if I do."
"Then I will eat the ladoos."
"And how does that help me, exactly?"
"You get respect in exchange."
"Seriously!"
"Okay, okay! I will buy you ice cream."
"When?"
"Don't be so confident."
"WHEN?"
"Tonight."
"Deal?"
"Deal."
"Okay I'll make them in the evening."
"Why?"
"Are you crazy! It's so hot! And you want me to cook! That too ladoos! Do you have any idea how much you have to heat the besan! Or have you just lost your mind!"
"Fine. Girls!"
"Boys!"
Both of us rolled our eyes. And then he started making faces and then I started copying him with a little exaggerated expressions along with sound effect. Just like always he did not like that and stromed off. Simply to enter my room again.
"Wait what do I get if I win?"
"Then I buy you the ice cream."
"Fine. Tonight."
"Yeah tonight. Idiot."
I was still sitting and he went off again. Leaving the door wide open like always.
"Close the door!"
He obviously didn't. I sighed and got up. He was standing just near the stairs, staring directly at me. Wait is that a smirk he just gave me! Such a petty guy! I feel like I should return his pettiness and mix laxatives in his ladoos. Oh my that's gonna be prefect but unfortunately I can't do that.
I sat down once again watching recipes after recipes. No way, was I gonna screw this up. I have my ego and obviously the tittle natural chef to protect.
Earlier, cooking wasn't my thing. I lived alone in an empty house with no one but walls and silence to surround me. Cooking felt like any other job I had to do. So did other chores.
Sometimes I cooked for my friends. They always complemented my cooking. But it never seemed nice to me. It felt dull and empty somehow. Empty just like me.
But things changed when I became the daughter of the Vashisht household. Cooking, cleaning, doing dishes felt better somehow. Not like just chores bit actual stuff that mattered.
Small things I know. But it feels nice knowing I have changed and am not the same teenager who I used to stare at the mirror and see someone who she didn't recognize in the mirror. Someone who had failed so many that she couldn't even look at herself in the eye. Someone who had lost so much. Someone who hid from the world fearing, that it will get to know the coldness that hide behind the smiling face. Someone who had so many regrets that only sorrow, emptiness and regrets filled her scared soul. Someone who believed that dying was the only way to commit. To commit to the sins that had been heaving on her shoulders.
Even now I stare at the mirror. And in the silence, surrounded by the darkness of a quite night. I see her, staring back at me. With those same eyes. The girl who lost everything. The identity I try to escape. The past I try to forget. The memories I try to erase. The truth I try to change.
It's sad yet funny how empty people can be. How a smile can turn into a mask. How silence can become a wall. How regrets can become a death sentence. How sorrow can become poison. How reality can become chains.
I try best to change, to become myself or rather someome else. How can I escape the bloody past I physically left behind. Mentally I relive it in every nightmare I see. At times in silence I swear I hear them call my name. The dead remembering the blood stained assasin Megha who killed them. They call me. They follow me. Everywhere I go. I am haunted by the ones I once haunted.
Sometimes I just wanna disappear. Disappear into thin air. Disappear so no one could find me. Erased from everyone's memories. No matter where I am, how I am, what I am, there is this one constant unwavering feeling 'Sometimes I just want to disappear.'
"Chandni! It's five when are you gonna cook?"
"Oh right."
I got up. And took a look at the kitchen.
"I am sorry the ingredients are not here. Maybe next time."
"No, today means today!"
"Fine go to the shop you lazy crazy monkey."
"I am not lazy or crazy or monkey. And besides just order it from blinkit or zepto."
"I can't parental control you know."
"I'll do it."
As I waited for the order I started preparing the kitchen. The kitchen is gonna smell nice today. I could practically taste the yummy chocolate cone slowly melting in my mouth. Praise already echoing in my ears as everybody would eat the yummy laddoos. I have seen the process my grandmother does a multiple times. And not to mention I have helped her most of the time. Besides now I am really good at cooking.
"Chandni, the delivery boy is at the door."
"Then get down and bring the stuff."
"Nah.....!"
I went down and opened the door.
"Your or-"
I stepped back rubbed my eyes yet the sight before me remained the same. The guy in front of me was more than just the delivery boy. The same face, the same brown hair, the same brown eyes. Both of us just stared at each other in both horror and disbelief.