THE BEGINNING

" I never thought you would end up like this" says an unknown man turning his head so that I couldn't see his face.

I'm not able to understand what he's talking about.

Then he said " Just one minute has changed your entire life, don't you still realise how valuable the time is?... Mr. Lin".

I woke up suddenly and it took me one minute to realise that it was a dream.

I've taken a shower and got sticked to my phone as usual.

But my brain was meddled up in the thoughts of who that person might be and how he knows my name.

But, still it's just a dream, I don't care about it.

I was scrolling through reels staying on my bed.

Almost all those reels are about valentine's day.

It took me a minute to realise that today is indeed valentine's day.

I almost forgot it.

This day.....reminds me.... my past, my past..... love and everything I've had been through before.

I've never fallen in love again after that one damn incident.

I'm still stuck in my past though the time passes.

I'm still confused about why can't I forget everything and start a fresh new life.

But I can't, every time I was trying to forget, I am recollecting those memories even more than i could normally.

Some injuries can never be treated, they dug deeper and deeper into our heart as the time passes.

I woke up from the bed and opened my cupboard.

I found the thing I was searching for at last shelf of my cupboard.

It's just a normal trolley, but it means a lot to me.

I store all my precious things in that trolley.

The shiningness of glitter hasn't faded away yet.

As the words I have written on top of that trolley are still as much as shiny when I had written them in the past.

[ Memories of mine ( Lin ) ].....(: the words on the trolley).

But still, there's a lot of dust surrounding it.

It's been few years since I've opened it.

No wonder it's condition is worser.

I took out the watch from that trolley.

I don't know why I suddenly remembered this present.

Maybe it's because of dream which tries to tell me how valuable the time is (or) maybe I've suddenly remembered aira.

It was she who gifted me that present when I was 14 years old ( 10th class in India ).

Someone knocks on my door and it was none other than my brother 'Aryan'.

He walked in after knowing I haven't locked the door.

" You woke up already?" my brother asked.

" Yeah! just few minutes ago" I said.

Me and my family were living in same apartment but in different rooms.

My parents were living in one room, my brother and his upcoming wife were living in one room( they both are loving each other from long ago, no wonder they are living together before getting married, their marriage is very nearby too) and I was living in another separate room.

It's not that we don't want to live together, it's just because it will be congested for all of us to stay in a single room and also for some privacy issues.

If I stay along with my parents in their room, they would scold me all day as I'm jobless.

I mean I have rejected few job offers as my interest doesn't lies in doing these office works.

I have a dream of becoming a novel writer.

I have many story ideas, but I just don't know how to write the beginning.

Some kind of a starting problem.

My brother recognises the watch on my hand.

" It's been a while since I've seen that watch on you" my brother said.

My brother knows everything about me, I've never hidden anything from him including my love.

" I was just cleaning my cupboard and unexpectedly I saw this one" I said.

I mean I never hide anything from him, but sometimes I lie.

" But how come the entire cupboard is messy even if you were cleaning it?" my brother ( Aryan ) asked.

Dammit! he found me lying very easily, I should have found a better excuse.

" So you understood that I was lying, right? " I asked.

" No! i already know you will lie about this matter" Aryan said.

After him knowing that I lied, I looked at my watch for some time.

It reminds me of her so badly.

Few photos have fallen down from that trolley.

I was smiling out better when I was with my friends on those photos.

Whenever we( I mean me and my friends ) go to any trip or any place, we used to capture pictures on camera.

I don't know why, right after seeing that watch and few group photos of our friends, I suddenly wanted to go to India for a holiday trip.

I told my brother about this.

" Why so sudden?" my brother asked.

" I don't know, I just want to meet my buddies, it's been a long time since I've seen them and I don't even have their social media accounts to talk to them, so i just want to hang out with them" I said.

" Are you sure that they all are in India? " my brother asked.

" I hope so, they've told me once in our school life that they never want to leave India" I said.

Actually, my brother got job offer in U.S a long ago, i used that matter as my Trump Card so that me, him and our parents have shifted to U.S when he got job offer in there.

I've already been hurt by one incident, so at that time, I want to go to place where my friends and aira couldn't find me, but I never thought I will leave our country, still we( me and my family) did.

But now, I just so badly miss them all.

" Alright! so were you going to convey your feelings to aira atleast now?" my brother asked.

" It's already too late to do it, and I'm even trying to forget her" I said.

" Can you really?" my brother questioned.

I couldn't answer him for few seconds, those 3 words messed up my brain for that small part of time, but i answered him right after that minute part of time.

" I can, all these years, I've never even remembered her once" I said.

" Why were you still lying?" my brother asked.

" How could you say that I was lying?" I questioned him back.

" If you had really forgotten her, why have you celebrated her birthday on your room secretly and singly when she's not even around you, and why have you bought gifts to her when she's not in U.S to take?" my brother asked.

I was left shocked as how could my brother even know when I'm doing all these things myself alone and secretly( I was celebrating her birthday without even her which sometimes made me laugh to think how silly I was and sometimes made me cry to think she's not around here).

I asked my brother about how did he knew all this.

" I'm your elder brother, can't I even sense it" my brother said.

TO BE CONTINUED...