Song attached: Unbreakable by Jamie Scott. Oh my god, this is one of the most beautiful songs I've heard and it has one of the most beautiful music videos ever. Bet everyone could relate to this song because we've all been through that sad, lonely, stagnant, nothing-makes-sense-but-can-I-have-someone-who'll-just-be-by-my-side state sometime in our short life.

Read the note at the end. Important stuff.

                                          f o u r t e e n

                                          [ s u r p r i s e ]

I don't remember my dad arriving at the hospital. I don't remember him tapping my cheeks to wake me from my shocked stupor. I don't remember him dragging me away. I don't remember getting pushed into the car. I don't remember him talking to Kiranya. I don't remember getting home. I don't remember walking to my room. I don't remember falling on my bed. I don't remember anything that happened after Kiranya had pointed to that window.

But I do remember what I saw there.

I do remember it in crystal clear clarity.

I remember peering inside to watch a woman on the bed. I remember how her head was lifted from the bed as if there was an invisible pillow underneath. I remember the grey streaks of hair on her rich brown hair. I remember her eyelids draped over her chocolatey caramel eyes which made me all warm when I was six. I remember how she looked normal like there was nothing wrong. I remember the lack of any medical equipment or machinery in the room. And I remember staggering back, shocked at seeing the lady with the warmest smile of my childhood looking like a corpse.

Kiranya's face was wiped off of any emotions like always, her previous tears gone as she let me judge. Come up with my own theories. I remember asking her what happened. I remember her keeping quiet.

It wasn't an accident. From what I saw, it was evident that it wasn't an accident. Well, not a physical one at least.

The agony in her eyes seemed to burn something in me. Everything had dissolved into a blur then and suddenly, I couldn't feel the floor beneath me or Kiranya beside me. It felt like I was trapped into a bubble of my own, where every outside noise was just a buzz and every outside scenery was a blur canvas.

I remember wishing it to stop since I didn't feel anything.

"Varun," a worried whisper called, snapping me out of that suffocating bubble.

My mother was standing beside my bed, fear and worry etched on her face. My dad was behind her, looking more tired than ever.

"What happened?" she asked turning to my father and her voice broke. I've never seen my amma like this. Happy? Yes. Stern? Yes. Stressed? Yes. Broken? No.

My heart constricted as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I've been calling him for more than twenty times. Did you or did you not see?" she whispered at my father before it turned into a screech, "where did you pick him from this afternoon? What happened?"

She looked so scared and the bubble appeared, expanding and seeming to grow bigger as the sudden break in my hazy conscious sealed back. If seeing my mother looking scared at my well being and shedding a few tears ripped my heart out of my body then what did Kiranya feel when she saw her mother in that state?

Cold.

Alone.

Dead.

I couldn't even imagine.

The gravity of the situation started sinking in and I felt my body shake and vision blur. It felt like suddenly all I could hear was a static buzz.

"C — can you guys leave me alone for a few minutes?" I croaked out but my mom shook her head looking angry.

"No!"

"Ma, please," I whispered as I pressed the bridge of my nose.

A migraine was starting to form and all I wanted was to just lie down and get lost in oblivion.

"Varun— " she started but my dad squeezed her shoulders.

"He needs some time to cool off," she murmured.

"But I think he needs help. Someone to talk to. Did you see him? He was walking mindlessly with those glassy eyes and pale face, and— "

"Let us leave him alone for a moment," my dad said in his CEO voice and the words died in her throat.

She gave me one last lingering look before stalking out of my room, looking angry.

"Varun," my father said, his voice grace and for the first time, sounded like that of a parent's. "I've never behaved like a father to you and I've always been a friend to you. I know how important Kiranya is to you but son, sometimes as parents, we get worried. And seeing you today, we both got scared. Your mother and I want to give you everything you want, but nothing that'll make you lose yourself. If something like today keeps happening in the future, then I don't think we'd be supportive enough to let you stick around that girl."

I didn't reply.

*

*

*

One message from BookManiac12.

My heart rate picked up and with shaking hands, I opened the message.

BookManiac12: Are you free?

I looked at the time. It was eight ten in the evening. I had finished all my homeworks yesterday since I always liked to be free on sundays so I typed back a 'yes.'

But her reply took me by surprise.

BookManiac12: Meet me at the park yeah?

The same exact words like the last time we met at the park when she had called me prince charming.

I really don't have to explain what I did next. Yeah, you guessed it right. I sneaked out of my house, waiting for a minute or two to see if anyone had noticed me leaving. When nothing seemed suspicious, I ran to the back of our house, where numerous trees lined the backyard. The night was dark and silent. I wondered how to climb the walls without making the alarms go off.

"Climb that tree near the corner," a voice said behind me and I yelped startled, jumping up in the air.

I whipped around to meet my dad standing in the shadows, a cardigan in his hands.

"W — what are you doing here?" I stuttered trying to calm my nerves. "You gave me a heart attack!"

He gave his trademark smile with no traces of his father talk of the afternoon. "Helping my son to escape," he said rubbing the back of his neck.

I stared back at him blankly.

His face flushed and his ears tinged pink. He tried to speak something, opening and closing his mouth, his face getting redder by the minute. When he decided that he had done his share of squirming and rubbing his poor neck, he coughed and tapped my shoulders hard.

"See, Varun," he started, "I had a huge speech prepared as I followed you but now that it's time for me to actually say that, my tongue is pretending to be paralysed just at the mere thought of giving a 'super dad' speech. So just pretend that I gave some overwhelming emotional talk, totally brushing off the stern front I put in the afternoon yeah?"

I laughed before nodding but stopped when I remember my mother. "What about amma?"

He winked. "She's pretending to be oblivious to your escapade."

I knew my parents would cool off but I seriously didn't expect it to be this soon. Jeez, they're weirder than me.

"Then why not simply use the front gates?"

He patted my shoulders again gravely. "Because using the front door won't give you stories to tell your grandchildren. Now go, make a star crossed lovers story!"

I smiled. To tell the truth, I was a sappy dude. All emotional and sentimental but seeing my parents being this supportive just made my eyes sweat a little. Blame the warm night. "Grandpa was like this too?" I asked punching his stomach mildly.

He gave a small smile, a little sad and bittersweet. "You could say I wanted your grandpa to be like this," he said, a twinkle in his eyes. "Now, shoo."

He chucked the cardigan at me and I caught it effortlessly. I shot him a thumbs up before climbing the tree by the corner and jumped to the other side.

I would say that I landed like a cat, all graceful and skilled but I bet you all guessed that though I landed on my feet without much intensity that could give me a fracture, I rolled a little before bumping into some motorcycle parked on the other side of the road.

Ignoring the bearable pain that shot through my arm, I ran.

*

*

*

The first thing I noticed when I reached the small park was Kiranya.

She was sitting on one of the swings, swaying a little, her eyes trained on the darkness in front of her. The residential area surrounding the park was quiet with not a lingering soul outside and I thanked the heavens for giving the privacy we needed.

Seriously, dealing with the judgmental look of Indian adults is something I'm not ready to deal with.

When she saw me jogging towards her, she hopped off the swing and slowly walked towards me, watching my every move as I doubled over, gasping for air and panting like a dog.

"You're not going to die, are you?"

She even had the audacity to sound teasing and I tried to give her my topmost death glare. Key word: tried. Because when I looked at her, as cheesy as it sounds, seeing her worry-free face which clashed with her tear stricken face from the morning, I turned all gooey inside.

She lead me to the swings. When she didn't make an attempt to talk, I came with a lame conversation starter.

"Is uncle okay with you coming here at night?"

Kiranya didn't reply and when I looked at her, I found her looking at me, poker face on. I sighed internally. Back to stage one.

"I'm sorry. I should've figured you wouldn't reply to any of my ques—"

"He doesn't know."

"—tions by now. Wait—what?"

"He doesn't know," she repeated but continued, "he was sleeping so I left a note."

And though hearing that an adult man was sleeping before nine was ridiculous, something in her eyes showed that she wasn't lying.

"Okay."

The wordless swinging continued for a few more minutes before Kiranya broke it.

"Catatonic depression," she said.

I glanced at her confused. "What?"

"Amma... she suffers from catatonic depression."

"That wasn't coma?" I asked, images of her lying almost like a dead woman on the bed.

Kiranya shook her head. "It's catatonic depression. She was sleeping when we visited."

"Oh."

I should've at least shook my head like I understood the condition but truth be told, I didn't and so an 'oh' was the only thing I could muster up.

Kiranya chuckled mildly. No dryness or bitterness in it.

What the heck? Shouldn't she be breaking down now?

"Starting stages," she said, kicking the ground a little harder, making her swing go up higher. "So it's curable."

"Oh," I replied lamely again.

Kiranya continued without me asking. "It is caused due to the lack of neurotransmitters. We didn't know she was depressed before the symptoms for catatonic depression started showing up."

"Depressed..?"

All I could see was a young beautiful woman, with chocolatey caramel eyes and a huge, warm, infective smile telling 'hi' to me.

Depressed.

"She's in rehab right now. Been there for about six months now. The improvement isn't drastic but she has improved significantly."

"Oh."

She jumped off her swing as it moved up and landed neatly on her feet. "C'mon, helium. I gotta show you something."

I got off my swing too. "Still going to pretend that I don't have a name?"

She stuck her tongue out and though there were too many questions swarming around my mind, I gave her a smile. This was the closest she got to normal ever since I came back leaving out few instances were she smiled.

She led me to the back of the slides and turned to me, taking a step back to let me see what was there clearly.

"Surprise," she whispered.

It was a sand castle.

A really well built one actually. It had a totally worn out banner stuck to it.

I walked closer, trying to read the words written in a broken handwriting from crayons aging more than a decade.

'To Sandy :)'

It was my broken handwriting. From the time I decided to give Kiranya a surprise and built a half ruined sand castle and stuck a banner made of chart paper, with glitters and superheroes stickers all over it. I was so proud at my handiwork then.

"Oh my goodness," I groaned taking the banner in my hands. Heat crept onto my cheeks as I studied the embarrassment in my hand. I turned away from her so that she wouldn't see the blush. "You saved this? It looks so bad."

"I know."

It wasn't like I was expecting Kiranya to say stuff like 'No Varun! For a six year old, this is fantastic!' But I didn't expect her to agree so blatantly.

Way to hurt a man's ego.

Too much?

Okay okay. Way to hurt a boy's ego.

I felt her step closer to me. The heat from her body was faint but the part of me which saw her as a girl and not as a friend made me be hyper-aware of it. She took a slow, quiet breath. The kind of breath that should be unnoticed. I turned around coming face to face with her.

She was close. Close enough to see the screaming difference in our heights. I was tall and Kiranya had a normal height but standing so close to me, she looked tiny. Close enough to see the very minute swaying of her hair strands in the cool night wind. Close enough to feel her breath on my chest. Close enough to just lean down and—

"This is just my way of thanking you," Kiranya said breaking my train of thoughts.

I coughed taking a step back, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"Truth was, I didn't want you to learn any of this. You were a part of my life when it was perfect. And bringing you into my present would make it more real, showing how imperfect it has become," she said, sliding her hands on the sides of the slide, her eyes focussed on the dark sky above us.

It was a beautiful night.

"And then there was the fear of you judging it."

I couldn't even defend myself. I had judged her. I had promised to wait and take things slow. I had failed.

I kept my mouth shut.

"Partly it was my fault too," she accepted. Her black eyes flitted from the sky to my heterochromic eyes. Millions of emotions swirled in them, too many to decipher with my brain which clearly lacked a few bolts that picks up emotions.

"I should've explained things clearly to you before dragging you to her. But I was angry. I was so angry hearing you spill words that carelessly. I acted on impulse but when you staggered back with that look on your face, it felt like something slapped me. I've never seen you like that. You looked empty. You looked like... me. And when I took you back by your hand, it was cold and sweaty, and for a moment, I was scared. I didn't want to lose you too. Then there was the look your father gave me when he picked you up. It wasn't accusatory but somehow, it made me guilty. I shouldn't have simply dumped everything on you like that."

"So..." she gave me a small, watery smile, "this is my way of saying 'I'm sorry' or 'Thank you' or . . . I don't really know. Just felt like building you a sand castle."

"I like it."

Kiranya's eyebrows rose. "I just told you stuff and all I get is a comment on the sand castle?"

"Yeah..?"

She scoffed, shaking her head in disbelief.

Hey, in my defence I'm like vermin when it comes to complicated talks like... life in general. I'm at the bottom of the chain! And I think knowing that Kiranya's mother is alive but has problems with something that has to do with neurotransmitters and things called depression are some pretty huge stuff for my vermin brain. It's already deep fried, man!

Kiranya chuckled.

"What?" I barked out.

She simply shook her head, trying to hold back the chuckles.

"What?" This time I sounded defensive.

She even pretended to wipe fake tears from her 'LOLing' session or in her case 'COLing' aka chuckling out loud session.

"I just wondered how deep fried brain would taste."

Deep fried brain..?

Holy crap. I did not, did I?

"You did," she said.

I groaned, face palming myself but ignoring my humiliated self, she continued blabbering about how 'talking out loud' was weird yet funny. It was the longest I've ever ever seen her talk without going back to her stoic face and creepy whispers.

Her eyes looked tired but in a way, happy.

I know that I was no where near healing her. Heck, I didn't know if she was even wounded to heal. But if I want her to be like this, I can at least try and be a distraction.

Her distraction.

~✩~✩✩~✩~

I've been having some really sucky days so I think it kinda reflected on the update. I tried though.

CATATONIC DEPRESSION:

People, you've to understand that Catatonic Depression isn't a distinct disorder. Okay? It is a neurogenic motor immobility. And I think you guys kinda know what that means. Neuro - related to brain, motor - something that produces motion and mostly muscles are the ones involved with motor action, immobility - inability to move.

What are neurotransmitters? They're stuff that help to transmit the impulses from our brain to a particular part of our body. Our body moves via coordination of multiple factors. Limbs, more specifically, muscles of limbs help in transport but we move those limbs ONLY when brain transmits an impulse to the said muscle. So with lack of neurotransmitters, our normal motor reflex is disrupted. Okay?

Now the main part of catatonic depression is cleared. Something that should be noted. Like I mentioned before, it isn't a distinct disorder (this isn't a disease either). It is caused due to other distinct disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and depression.

Okay?

And something you guys have to know. We aren't taught about Catatonic Depression or for the fact, other stuff at college right now. I found about this disorder after intense searching in the internet when I was in 12th. I know no one who suffers from it nor know someone who teaches about it. Everything I know and have explained is from reading numerous medical articles. I can't assure you that this is 100% true. And I've manipulated the disorder to suit the story. If you want to act smart and point out mistakes, then know this. I am a doctor but I'm a dentist and though we study things that match with that of medical students, in the end, I'm as clueless as you when it comes to things that doesn't have anything to do with head and body physiology (excluding brain, eyes, nose and ear. We've been only taught Anatomy of them and not any diseases or disorders related to them in detail). So if the facts are wrong (as far as I know, they're correct but again, it was just research. If the source had made a mistake, then my facts could be wrong too though I multiple checked them) know that THIS IS FICTION AND IF JOHN GREEN CAN INVENT A NEW MEDICINE FOR LUNG CANCER THEN I CAN BEND A FEW RULES HERE AND THERE.

If you liked the chapter, vote and drop a comment. Spread word.

VOTE. COMMENT. SHARE. LOVE.

With love,
Kavya.