Best Friend :)

It's strange how we hold on to the pieces of our childhood while we await our futures, no greater sorrow than to recall a happy time when we are miserable. 
"Aashi!!! Chal! We'll be late for school!" Chetasvi used to scream from the open lift door waiting for me to come running. Relays after school and splashing in puddles, it all came in my mind with a thousand thronging memories of the bygone days.
Going to kitty with our grandmas and playing their oldies' games. Exchanging looks and giggles, with quiet eloquent eyes, as some aunty unknowingly made fun of themselves. Wrapped in the cocoon of our dreams, we knew nothing about what life held for us. No reality checks, and no worries. Forcing Cheta to play cricket and football with me, and pinki-promising her, that I'd play kitchen- kitchen later, basically summed up how totally different personalities we held, yet being the best of friends. Pouring fake tea in plastic teacups and saucers seemed to come suddenly upon happiness in her eyes, as if she'd surprised a butterfly in the winter woods. 
Skipping steps and finding ourselves fall asleep at afternoons in each others' homes, we'd give the future to the winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the present, weaving the brightness around us into dreams. Playing board games all day and solving simple math sums, we lost track of time. So much, we never knew as we grew up so quick, and the simple addition of numbers started to include the alphabet. Late night car rides with our dads, her blue eyes full of humor and cheeks quite pink with excitement. We never spent enough time together. Our hearts were always hungry, hungry for each other. 
In the sunshine of her presence, we'd mock the people we mutually hated. She is now only alive in my memories, yet she somehow finds ways to bring me to tears. 
One thing I learnt, we mature with damage not the with the years. her presence in my heart keeps me fighting. I now look back and realize, that every experience I've ever had, every seeming mistake or blind alley, was actually a straight line to who I was meant to be.