As Good As It Gets - 4 - Friends? Lab Partners? or Nothing?

Back then, all I had wanted was Aditya’s attention. Aditya on his part, seemed content with talking to me just on Mondays. His behavior bewildered me. I had never quite met anyone like him. In the lab, he would lavish me attention, outside of it, he would ignore my existence. I didn’t know what to make of his indifference. It puzzled and hurt me. But every Monday, he would come by and make me forget about the one week that he had ignored me.

With exams nearing, I pushed Aditya out of my head. I wasn’t studious but I liked to keep my grades high.

We all sat in the corridor of our college, studying diligently. Suchitra sat next to me. Vikram, Meghna and Ann were studying . A classmate of ours Darshan, approached Suchitra for some help.

For the moment, I was alone in a crowd. I glanced across the corridor to where Aditya sat with his bunch of boisterous group of friends. He looked up, straight at me and winked. I felt the blood rising to my cheeks and quickly glanced down at my books pretending to study. Slowly, I raised my eyes and looked around to see if anyone had noticed his cheekiness.

Everyone seemed to be engrossed in their books studying some theorems, which suddenly didn’t seem so important anymore. A smile touched my face. I glanced back at Aditya who was laughing at my discomfort. I made a face at him and tried to focus on my books.

“What are you doing?” Suchitra was staring at me.

“Studying.. What else?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“That was not nothing.. Were you smiling at Aditya by any chance?”  I thought for a moment. Why should I keep secrets from my best friend, I nodded.

She laughed a little. “You and Aditya.. Who would have thought?”

I smiled. “It’s not like that. We’re just friends. Actually, not even that. We’re lab partners.”

She snorted, “Yeah, we’ll see.” And then after a pause. “Look, there he comes.”

I looked up, there he was, walking towards me. I held my breath and felt my pulse quicken. I looked down, to avoid eye contact and saw him walk right past me without a pause.

“Just lab partners huh?” Suchitra smiled at me.

“Hey Anagha?” I turned around to face Aditya.

“Huh?” That was the most intelligent thing I could think of saying.

“Give me your number na. I mean so that I can tell you when I’m not attending lab or maybe you can let me know when you are planning to bunk..” I was very conscious of the stares of all the people in the corridor.

Hesitantly, I rattled off my number to him but not before I got it wrong twice.

“Thanks.” He took off before I could react.

Needless to say, I screwed up my exam that day. I waited next to my phone the entire day, refusing to leave it even for a moment, but no message came.

I wanted him to text, and I didn’t want him to text. I sighed.

I didn’t know what I wanted then either.

A dog's world - Chapter 7 - Night Stay

Brownie

I hadn’t seen Lilo this happy in a long time and she was in such an awful mood when she came back. I’m glad our little game cheered her up. She toweled me dry and slipped into a shower.

I went around my usual round around the house, checking all my stuff was in its place (my water dish, bed, food dish) I heard a car pulling in. I rushed to the window and peeped out. Boy oh boy! Lilo was going to be super excited! Her three best friends Jodi, Trisha and Anna were getting off the car. I ran to the door and started barking wildly. I hadn’t seen them for ages.

Lilo came out of the shower with water still dripping off her and opened the door. All the four girls started talking and screaming simultaneously. I wasn’t to be left behind. I joined in, barking at the top of my voice. I was really excited and kept jumping at the three of them. Finally, Lilo had to hold me to let them in.

Out of all three of them, Anna was my favorite. She loved to fuss over me and always got me a little something to nibble at. I was not disappointed. She bent down and tossed one doggie treat in the air. I jumped high and caught it neatly. I could see I had impressed the ladies with my skills. Told you I was popular with the fairer sex.

The girls were still talking pretty loudly and commenting on how much the other one had changed in the looooong time that they hadn’t seen each other. (They see each other once in two weeks at the maximum.) Anyway, I left the girls to themselves and went exploring. I could sense that one of the girls had got something to eat, but it was a very different smell from what I usually eat. I nosed around and found that the source of the weird smell was the dining table.

Hmmm, this could be a problem. The dining table is a little high for ne to jump on. Maybe if I pull out a chair and then jump on the chair first and then jump on the table. Yeah... that could work. I got under the table, selected a chair, put my paws on it and started to push it. I slipped a number of times and finally I managed. As quick as the wind, I jumped on the table and nosed through the first parcel. Chicken!!! My favorite. Within minutes, it was over. The next parcel contained something I had never seen. It looked like long worms. I bent down to smell it. I shoved my nose deep inside the box .It got stuck to my nose. I shook my head to remove it, the box fell down but the worms didn’t move. I got scared. What if, what if this is something dogs aren’t supposed to eat? What if these worms are dangerous to dogs...? With a yelp, I ran to find Lilo.

Lilo was with her friends. They were sitting on the floor drinking from the bottle Trisha had got. As soon as they saw me, they burst out laughing. I realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t dangerous in anyway. The only danger I could see was if the girls choked over their own laugh.

Lilo cleaned me up for the third time that day, admonished me for eating their food and then gave a big kiss on the nose.

After a while, the girls became quiet and spoke in softer voices. I could tell that they were discussing something serious. From what I could tell, it looked like the girls were going to stay over. I went around the house, checking whether everything was ok. I was the man of the house and it was my job to keep these girls safe. Once satisfied, I came back and settled down in the middle of the girls in such a way, that all four could pet me. Occasionally, I put my head on someone’s lap and stayed there till they stopped talking. It helps them in some way. They all give me a kiss before I leave their lap for someone else’s.

It’s a good thing to be loved by four beautiful women.