My days went by with Miss Sanvi visiting us more frequently and we were talking more often on the phone, and as she said, she was teaching me, from basics, all the things I needed to learn to reach Grandpa

Before I knew it my 15th birthday got close, and it's tomorrow

and the day before I was spending my time laying on the couch reading some random book

"Ashwin"

I heard Grandma calling me, getting up, I went to the kitchen

Entering it I saw that the kitchen was in a mess

"Ashwin can you help me clean the kitchen" she said

Nodding at her request I started cleaning it, some of the things caught my eye, they were the ingredients for the cake

"Grandma, are you making cake? for my birthday?"

"Of course I am it's your birthday after all," She said making a proud face

Seeing her this energetic I was reminded again how much had changed, In the past life grandma was bedridden because she pushed herself for me always apologizing to me for taking care of her, but this time she is standing in front of me laughing, making cake and having fun, I am glad I was at least able to save her

"Ashwin way are you spacing out" she said as she was wiping the table

"Nothing, just thinking that I have the best grandma in the world" Saying this I continued cleaning the kitchen

"Chuckle and I have the best grandson in the world" she said laughing with a kind smile

Ding dong

"I will go," I told Grandma and went to check the gate

opening it there was a somewhat familiar-looking girl standing looking down at the bag she was holding, hesitant

"Do.....I know you?" I asked feeling like I had seen her before

she looked up at me straight in the eyes, anxiously, I was a bit taken aback by her sudden moment, the girls looked beautiful, the same as she looked in my past life

This explains the sense of familiarity I had for her, even though its been so long since we last met I was able to recognize her

"Aditi?" The anxious eyes of her relieved when I called her name

"Yes" She replied with a faint smile

---

Me and Aditi are sitting in the living room with her sitting on the sofa and me on another sofa adjacent to her, she is drinking the juice, awkwardly as she glances at me

Grandma is not with us right now, she went back to her room after serving juice and snacks

"Grandmother seems to doing fine" She said as she put down the empty juice glass

"Yea, even I didn't expected her to be this excited seeing you"

When she met Aditi after all these years, Grandma kind of jumped on her, telling her how beautiful she had become and how happy she was meeting her after all this time, asking her all sorts of questions, and Aditi getting overwhelmed by Grandma's energy could only reply with 'It's not like that' or 'thank you grandmother' and all that,

Grandma also gestured me to say something to Aditi and even winked at me

Seeing Grandma like that I could only facepalm

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

After that chaotic welcome Grandma served us some snacks and went to her room, winking at me as she left

I could see Aditi waiting for me to say something now, "How about you Aditi, how have you been doing" This is all I could think of to say right now

"I am doing fine, what about you" She started eating the cookies nervously, waiting for me to say something

Her nervousness makes sense if I look back at how we stopped being friends, how I stopped being friends and distanced myself from others, sigh now that I look back at that, that was really immature of me to think that Aditi was in the wrong

"I am doing great" Running out of things to talk about, I stopped mid-sentence, Aditi was looking at me patiently waiting for me to continue

"How's your studies then, you are not slacking on them right" I asked her in the way I used to when we were young, trying to lessen the tension between us

"I-I am doing my studies properly" I guess my attitude caught her off guard, she probably never expected me to talk to her this way

She is really reserved with her words, probably because of the wall between us the wall I built myself

"So what you have been up to for all this time" I think asking her about herself might ease her up a little

"Uh- I" She went into thinking "Ah" as if she remembered something she turned herself and picked up the bag she brought with her and pulled out a box wrapped in green colour gift-wrap and she handed it to me "Tomorrow is your birthday, so I bought this gift for you" she looked

embarrassed as she says this

"Thank...you, Aditi" Looking at the gift in my hand I got curious about something "But why now" My birthday is tomorrow so why is she giving me the gift today

"Uh- the thing is my dad got a job transfer so we had to go with him because of that I couldn't gift you on your previous birthday"

shit! I should have worded my question properly now she looked guilty for that

"I-I am sorry I didn't mean that, I was wondering why you are giving the gift today when my birthday is tomorrow" She looks even more sad now

"My dad got transferred back to Delhi and we just got back today so there are a lot of things we need to settle, so I will be with my dad tomorrow"

with a flat answer like that, is she mad at me?

I need to change the topic

Looking at the gift I realized something, with what she said she could not gift me on my past birthday, does that mean she wanted to gift me, celebrate with me, and she even gave me a gift today, she still remembered me after what I did, but I on the other hand completely forget about her, and didn't even care

"Aditi" Looking down at the gift "I am sorry" I apologized to her as I looked up to her

"Why are you apologizing" She asked, surprised

"I am sorry for what I did in the past, how I painted you as a bad person in my mind, how I didn't even try to contact you, to ask you what are you doing, for all those years, I know I am too late to say this and my apology might not mean much to you now, but seeing you bringing me a gift, even when you didn't have to, for someone like me, I realized how small I am" deeply bowing to her"I am sorry" I apologized again

I don't expect her to do anything, after my apology but saying this I feel like a burden has been lifted from my shoulder

Looking back up at her she seemed... flustered

"Yo-you are getting too serious for something that happened in the past, we were kids back then who didn't know any better, and got angry at each other because we both thought we were right, even I" She looked down "I- after thinking things over I made a lot of mistakes too, that I should apologize for" she is hiding her face now "I was thinking if we can forget about the past and start over" she sounds embarrassed saying that

But I see, start over huh "Aditi" on my call she timidly looked up at me, "I think that's a great idea" At my words her face lightened up

and after that we talked till evening catching up on things we did, where we went, talking about some books and things like that, our interests, unaware of the passing time

"I think I should leave now," she said checking the time on her phone

"You can leave after eating something you must be tired," Grandma asked her

"Thank you Grandma but I think Mom already prepared some food at home" she said

"I think it is what it is, well then take care on your way back, Ashwin go walk her home"

It's not like her home is far enough for me to go walk her back, is what I wanted to say but Grandma is eyeing me before I said anything "Fine, Grandma" There's no point going against Grandma now

We silently walked back to her home "Goodbye, see you tomorrow" After saying this, I turned around to leave

"Ashwin" she called my name, turning back a little, I waited for her to continue but after thinking things over and making up her mind about something, she looked straight at me

"Yes, see you tomorrow," she said

"O..kay" what was that?

Shrugging it off I rushed back home and had dinner with Grandma who was singing praises of Aditi

Going back to my room I went to sleep soon, because tomorrow is my birthday