1 Samaira

Samaira's P.O.V

I woke up at six in the morning. even when I slept at four. All because of temporary insomnia that used to occur whenever that dreadful night used to come back to me like a nightmare. I still couldn't forget what happened three years ago.

It's not like I never tried, but that gut-wrenching memory wouldn’t leave me alone.

After getting up from bed, I did my morning chores before getting ready in my jogging clothes. I was not a morning person before but I changed.

I went down to go to the nearby park for jogging only to find my cousin brother Ishaan already waiting for me. No one used to leave me alone ever since that incident, whether it is jogging or shopping, someone would always tag along and if not, then there would be bodyguards hired by Dad to follow me. They were only protecting me oblivious of the truth that I had started to feel caged.

Well, there was one more reason why Ishaan started to tag along.

Adya.

Yes, my best friend Adya. She was my classmate in college, while Ishaan was our senior. When I introduced them, he instantly fell in love with her. It was love at first sight for him but not for Adya. It took a lot of effort on my brother’s part to woo her. Being the good sister I was, helped him since I was the closest to Adya in college. They got engaged after their college was over and were all set to get married. Only a month was left in their marriage.

"Come on, we are getting late," Ishaan complained, obviously in a hurry to meet her.

"I am on time Ishu. I know you can't wait to see her. Just wait for thirty days, after that you can see her for as long as you want," I winked at my brother.

"Yeah exactly, I will see when you will fall for someone," he mocked.

" And, I am not falling for anyone," I was serious about my statement.

"You didn't sleep yesterday, right? You cried the whole night again?" Ishaan asked a concerned look marring his face, the playful look lost.

"No Ishu, I am fine. Let's go Adya must be waiting for us," I said as I tried to look radiant and happy but it came out as a grimace.

"Sammy, you know I am your brother, you can't hide your pain from me. Your eyes are red and puffy and I know that you hid your dark circle with makeup. I have told you that you, you will not suffer for whatever happened. I am always here with you but you have to trust me, trust our family. You can't just hide your pain and always run away from us. It hurts to see you like this."

"Ishu it's not like that. I don't want to hurt you guys." I said as a traitorous tear escaped my left eye.

In a blink, Ishaan engulfed me in a bear hug before whispering, "You’ll never hurt us, Sammy. We all want you to be happy. Promise me that whenever you have nightmares or difficulty in sleeping you will tell your brother. Promise me."

His words were comforting, warm and for a long time, I felt good. I felt blessed to have a brother like him.

"Okay. Now let's go before we see the wrath of your would-be wife." I grinned and pulled away from the hug.

We resumed our jogging, steadily moving to the park.

"I have been waiting for the last twenty minutes. Do you guys care to explain why you guys are late?" Adya gave us a death glare.

"Well, not my fault. It's your sister-in-law who was late." Ishaan said, leaving me to face her wrath.

"Please, don't you dare to blame my Sammy. I know it's your fault only. You should have at least informed me that you guys were going to be late. You always give these kinds of excuses. I know you don't love me anymore. I am not talking to you." She looked away, starting to walk away in another direction.

"Oh no, Sammy, what do I do now?" Ishaan asked, with wide, troubled eyes.

"My dear brother, your fiance is angry, not my friend. I believe you can handle her very well. Just do what you always do to make her happy and go catch her before she leaves," I advised him. He nodded his head once before running off in the direction she left.

I plugged in my earphones and started to jog in a different direction to give those love birds some space. It was very difficult to move on from what happened three years ago, I tried different things to keep my mind off those dreadful memories, and eventually, jogging helped me. So I started to rely on it. No one in my family talked to me about that night except Ishaan and my two best friends. The rest of my family thought that pretending that night never happened would help me forget the awful memories. I didn’t want to hurt them, so my nightmares remained confined to my brother, Adya and Aditi.

Aditi was my better friend. In a way my best friend. . . if you are allowed to have two best friends. We had been friends since childhood. She was so protective of me and she somehow felt guilty for what happened to me, thinking she could have prevented it.

Lost in my thoughts, I stumbled on something and felt the ground shift beneath me as I lost my foot holding and I closed my eyes waiting for the impact. But the impact never came, instead, I felt a lean pair of arms gripping me. I slowly opened my eyes to see my savior, it was her, my bestie Aditi. I loved to call her Ady. She helped to stand up.

"I have been calling you for the last ten minutes and you were so engrossed in your thoughts. Where do you think you were going?" She asked me with concern.

"Ady. . . can't you see I was jogging, that's what people come here for," I said in a sarcastic tone.

"Look around and tell me, do you really think people come here to jog?" She asked.

I looked around my surroundings to find myself near a cemetery. A real cemetery? I was so engrossed in my thoughts and was so much trying to repress the resurfacing memories that I didn't even realize that I had come so far.

"Well I don't know about people who are alive, but I am sure that dead people do come here to jog," Ady mocked and folded her hands giving me a scary look.

"I didn't realize it. Actually, I was thinking about the meeting today with the foreign clients and I guess that's why I took the wrong turn." I shrugged.

"You know Sammy you are the worst liar I have ever met and about the meeting you are talking about, you also know that you excel in this job of yours. Anyone can rely on you blindly when it comes to handling foreign delegates. I know you are having nightmares again." She chastised with a concerned look.

"Sammy I told you to find an anchor, to hold onto. This jogging is temporary, it will help you at the beginning but you can't always hold onto it. You need to find something or maybe someone so that you get over your past easily." She added.

"Ady I will find something to hold onto but not someone. I am not ready for this. I know you and everyone wants me to settle down and see me happy, but trust me settling down won't make me happy. I can't trust anyone, it's just so complicated." I replied.

"Okay fine, we will talk about this later but before let's go to the park before those love birds send a search party for us. I met them in the park and they were so worried about you."

"Okay, but before that, do you care to explain when did you come back from London and how did the interview go with Mr. Richie Rich?" I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at the last part.

"Well, the interview went so well. I never thought he would be so down to earth. He is not the way those business magazines describe him to be. Honestly speaking, after reading those articles about him I was a little scared, but he made me feel comfortable. He is such a gentleman." She cooed.

Aditi was a journalist and was working in the business department. A part of her job required her to take interviews of young and successful CEOs. For a long time, she was keen on interviewing the CEO of N.K Industries.

Well, business magazines had a lot of say about him, he is a playboy, rude, and a heartless person. But whenever it came to working all I had heard was praises for the young man. Even his competitors had been impressed by him.

"Thanks, Sammy, it won't have been possible without you." She said.

"No, it's not me but my boss. He knows him and when I got to know that, I asked if he could arrange the interview and he agreed. But I wonder how did he know him so well that Mr. Richie Rich agreed to the interview." I wondered.

"Well you will know that very soon," she said with a wide smirk on her face. But before I could say anything I heard a familiar voice. "Oh thank god she found you. Where were you?" Ishaan asked with a concerned look.

"Well you nearly gave a heart attack to both of us," Adya said.

"I am so sorry guys. . . I didn't notice that I went far and I promise it won't happen again. Please forgive me this time," I said, making a pout.

"Okay," they said together.

“Excuse me,” Adya said as she took a few paces away from us, to receive a call. When she returned, a concerned look was marring her face.

"Sammy, we need to leave now," Adya said with a scared look.

"What happened?"

"The meeting which was to be held in the afternoon has been preponed and it's in three hours. If we don't get the deal then we will be at a very big loss. What should we do? Neeraj Sir called to inform me of this. He was trying to call you, but your phone was switched off."

I took out my phone and saw it was indeed switched off. When I tried to turn it on, I realized it was discharged.

"Don't worry Adya, we will get this deal. We can do it. Come let's go. Ishu, I am going with Adya. I will get ready at her home as some of my clothes are there and we need to talk about the presentation. And Ady, we will see you at the party tonight." I ranted before taking Adya and sprinting off in the direction of her house.

"All the best!" Ishaan and Aditi hollered from behind us.

We got to Adya's home in no time, stripped to our formal clothes before making some last-minute plans about the presentation, before speeding away to our office.

We reached the office and almost ran to the meeting room. There were still fifteen minutes left after the arrangements were done. My train of thoughts was lost when I saw Neeraj sir entering the room, his eyebrows furrowed.

The answer that he gave us, made us shout simultaneously, "What?"