RETURNING BACK TO HOME

I slept in all the day on Sunday as well despite feeling much better. I had neither the company nor the will to go out and explore or enjoy my last day in Australia. I packed my bags and ate all the three meals in the hotel room watching movies on Netflix and crying. I am not someone who cries at the drop of a hat, but that Sunday was one of my few weak days. I felt alone and very lonely. I called my parents who were attending a family wedding, and the feeling of being ignored by them made matters worse. My sister was somewhere at a doctor's clinic in London and was too busy to take my call. She was not unwell as my mother later told me. She just had to visit a doctor that day for a regular checkup.

Finally, at around 9 p.m., the group returned from their second outing. It was still quite bright outside, as in Melbourne the sun sets around 10 p.m. in the summer. I heard their happy banter and laughter through the walls of the corridor and felt sick in the stomach again. I could hear Pihu's voice followed by Piyush's laughter. The noises brought more tears to my eyes. For some unknown reason, I felt that I shouldn't see Piyush ever again. He had said nothing to me, and had done nothing wrong either. In fact, he had been the nicest to me in the past few days, and things were exactly as I had wanted them to be. It was Pihu who had planted the seeds of jealousy and made me feel betrayed. The feeling was not going to let go of me so quickly and easily.

We had an early morning flight at 7 a.m

the next day. Cry all you want tonight as tomorrow will be a new day, I promised myself, and covered my face with my duvet.

I got up at 6:30 a.m, with a headache and wasn't feeling well, I somehow manage to ready myself, Rajbir even helped me to pack my stuffs. And we left the apartment to head over to the Airport. We went inside the airport to check in for our flight. Thankfully, I was given a seat next to a stranger on the long, exhausting sixteen-hour flight. I was glad to have some comparatively warmer Indian food, which the flight attendant on our flight severed smilingly. Despite being unwell as well as heartbroken, I was delighted and relieved to be going back, to my people, my country my home. I had hardly spoken to anyone in the flight. I slept through most of the flight as there was no point in hurting myself looking at Piyush and Pihu sitting close together in the seats opposite mine, watching movies and laughing. My only interaction with Piyush throughout that day was when we had first entered the airport. He asked me why I had not replied to any of his calls or texts the day before. 'I was and am unwell,' I told him without looking at him.

'Come, Piyush,' I heard Pihu call him, and he walked away from me. Form his expression, it was evident that he was hurt with the way I responded to him, but I was protecting myself and my heart. I saw him going and joining his friends, and I closed my eyes to hide my pain and strengthened my resolve. I had to get over him.It was unlike me, but my thoughts didn't take a break, even on the flight

I recalled how the last few days had brought us together in an inexplicable way. I saw it as the beginning of love, but it was most definitely not the way Piyush saw it, or that was what I believed then. I had decided that he looked at me purely as a friend. All he wanted was friendship, and all he was ready to give was friendship. When he spoke to me openly about his feelings, when he held my hand in the cab, when he placed his hand on my shoulder, I had started building my dream castle, slowly and steadily, while for him these were clearly only friendship gestures.

I had wanted more, but he had placed me in his friend bucket. I was lying in that bucket, struggling to get out and attract his attention. I was trying to get annoyingly close to him. I felt disgusted every time I recalled the fact that he did not tell me on his own that he wanted me to back off. Instead, he assigned the job to someone else. Maybe because he thought of it as a waste of time-----that I was a waste of his time! Negative thoughts with no solid foundation sprout in my brain at the slightest of provocation. While it takes me ages to find positive thoughts and convince them to make my head their home, negative thoughts seldom need an invite.

After sixteen long hours, the flight finally landed and took a cab for our home. I reached my home, My parents greetings me, and I took a rest for the day.

THREE DAYS LATER

I had finally completely recovered from the flu and was to join work the next Wednesday. That gave me a few more days to relax, but typically, I utilized the next few days in overthinking and ensuring that my mind did not go back to its normal rational state. Physically, I was much better than when I left Melbourne, but mentally I think I was at the lowest I had ever been in my life. My uneasiness did not go unnoticed, even though I wanted it to. My mother, who like all the other mothers in the world has hawk-eyed vision, figured out that something was extremely wrong but couldn't put her finger on exactly what was troubling her child. She had been worried about me ever since I'd come back home and had been trying to guess the reasons, primarily focusing on flu of all kinds known to women.

'You have come back with some foreign flu which is not going away. You much get yourself checked for bird flu. I have asked your dad to check with Doctor Mehra if it could be Ebola,' my melodramatic mother said with tears in her eyes. That was the moment I figured out where I'd got my overthinking, my over-worrying nature from----it was all in the genes.

'Relax, Mother. It is nothing. Moreover, I feel much better today compared to the first day in Melbourne. All I have now is a bit of cold. It will go on its own in a few days' time,' I tried my best to reassure her, but she was not the type to be easily convinced. Thankfully, she had not discovered Doctor Google then, or she would have declared that I had cancer of some kind for sure.