Chapter-1 (Edited)

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Amaya

Location: Greensboro, North Carolina


"Hey, Amy! Good morning, someone's early for work?" Said Sarah with pure shock on her face.

My name is Amaya, but my friends over here call me Amy and my family calls me Ammu..Honestly, I would prefer them to call me Amy rather than butchering my name.

I can understand that puzzled look on her face, you see I'm not an early riser at all, I always come to the office at 9 or even 10 some days, and winters make my body glued to the bed.

And moving on to Sarah, She is my office bestie, We sit in opposite cubicles and we didn't like each other at first, because we are what people call polar opposites. But, we were put together in the same project twice and after spending a lot of time with each other, we are totally good friends now and we are more like sisters.

Maybe we don't like the people we would be with life for the first time

She looks like the cute girl next door, with hazel brown hair with red highlights popping in the middle, a few freckles on her nose, radiating blue eyes, and a beautiful smile.

Sad for all the men in the world, She is taken. Sarah got married last year to her high school sweetheart Riyadh, who lives in Texas now.

"Nothing new, I had to leave early. My Cousins wouldn't let me sleep." saying that I placed my lunch bag and phone on the table and settled down on my chair, cursing my cousins under my breath.

My cousins as in my mom's sister's kids, Arjun and Dhruv(Dru) are certified brats, and their only source of entertainment in the morning is annoying me and making my life a living hell.

"What did they do this time?" she asked me in an excited tone.

She loves Arjun and Dru, and how they come up with new ways to annoy me every single day.

"God, I hate you, Sarah! You don't have to live with them, and you are not the one who has to sacrifice her sleep. The answer to your question is they started my day with a Saxophone and Flute and let me tell you it was not melodious, it felt like someone was scratching a chalkboard, and my ears were about to bleed.." I huffed in annoyance.

When I asked them to stop, they told me that they have auditions today. I know that was an excuse so that they won't get yelled at by my aunt for waking me up.

"Wow! Tell Arjun and Dru that I loved their idea. I know you can't move out anytime soon, so enjoy all the time you have with them. After marriage it's gonna be you and your husband, it's gonna be boring.." she said laughing, and continued working after adjusting her glasses.

Some days, It feels like I am the Cinderella, and Arjun and Dru are my evil step-sisters.

You must be thinking, Hmm... Why can't she live alone for god's sake? 

What kind of 23-year-old lives with her aunt's family?

I do, because my grandfather thinks that I'm not capable of living alone and girls shouldn't live alone before marriage, they should either be with their parents or husband. Like us, women can't handle our own lives and we need a man to take care of us.

My grandfather's misogynistic ways make me shudder to the core, but being the really understanding granddaughter that I am, I feel that he loves me too much and is worried about my safety, so he pushed me to stay with Aunt and Uncle.

Things we do to ourselves to keep our family happy are millions but no parent ever gets the sacrifices we make.

Along with staying with my Aunt, he also wanted me to work for my Uncle, but this girl never backs out from what she wants, I fought hard, and It took me 3 months to convince him to let me work outside of their radar after so many tantrums and fake hunger strikes that I declared on him.

Sometimes you have to lose some battles to win some.

Enough about my ferocious grandfather let's talk about me, I was born and brought up in Andhra Pradesh, India. I moved to Illinois, Urbana Champagne for my master's degree, at the age of 20.

I have a sister Ananya, but everyone calls her Niya who lives in California. She got married a year back and the guy she married Sampath is a total sweetheart and treats me like his sister, to be honest, he pampers me more than his own sisters.

And my parents let's not think about them now.

Thinking of all these I logged into my computer where I work as a web developer for United Technologies.

United Technologies is a software development company, where you can get your applications developed by contracting them.

Soon, Everyone started entering the office. There are 2 more people on my team other than me and Sarah. Rick who's the team lead and Mary a Business Analyst.

We meet at 10 A.M to discuss how everyone's work progressing. And every Wednesday, we have a business requirement meeting.

Thank god, we don't have any meeting other than the 10 A.M. one otherwise I would have died a long time back. I hate meetings! I still don't understand what a developer could possibly do attending a business meeting.

"Hello, my lovely ladies! I got some donuts, you guys can grab some, they are on my desk." Said Rick's cheerful voice passing by our desks to his cabin.

Rick is a pretty cool guy and an awesome human being, He is a computer geek and very knowledgeable, he graduated from MIT.

He has 2 daughters Anabella and Arabella the sweetest kids I ever met and his wife May, she looks like one of those models from Victoria's secret. Sometimes, I wonder how this computer geek got someone like May in his life.

"Thanks, Rick, you made my day. What's special about today you look super happy?" Sarah asked him looking at his excited face and the jump in his step.

"I was dropping the kids at school, and we were passing through Krispy Kreme. So, I thought you guys would like some to get through the day," said Rick smiling, possibly thinking of his daughters.

I saw them like a month back at their birthday party, they sure are a delight unlike Dru and Arjun, my stupidly annoying cousins.

"Hey, Halloween is just 2 weeks from today, make sure you bring them to the office." Said Sarah looking at him, then she turned her head towards me and enquired,

"What about Arjun and Dru? Will they join us?"

Every Halloween, all the employee's kids can come to the office and trick and treat after lunch. Dru and Arjun hate going to Babai's(Uncle's) office, so Dru asked me if he could come to mine.

"Sarah you already know how high the girls get on sugar! I'm not gonna bring them here, with you and Amaya in the office, not gonna happen for sure." Rick said and continued

"And don't think that I forgot what you guys did to them at their birthday party. May had a hard time making them sleep after all the cake and candy you guys got." Said Rick disagreeing with what we did for the twins.

Remembering that night bought a smile on my face, The twins wanted a chocolate fountain, Sarah and I got a humongous one for their birthday, they literally were drenched in chocolate that night.

"I don't know about Arjun, he is going to be 15 this December. He says he is not interested in Halloween maybe Dru can come." I told Sarah reminiscing the birthday memories of the twins.

"Hey, Rick! I forgot to inform you. I'll be leaving early on Friday because Arjun has his last official football match for this season. I'll make sure to complete my work and check out before I leave, Don't worry." I informed Rick before he has a chance to tell me to get my work done.

And then we started discussing the project. Rick said that he had a meeting with the CIO about getting all the end-users to see the product we had been working on before production. And ask them to test and see if they can break the system to deliver an efficient product.

Rick is a very sincere and strict guy when it comes to working. He hates it when we get bugs after the application is in production. So, he tries to make sure that it doesn't happen, which leads to this meeting with end-users.

And soon the day ended, I started packing my things and said bye to Sarah and Rick, and drove back home.

I have to work out every single day unlike my sister, I don't have the skinny gene in me. To eat the food I love I have to work out. Dru has swimming every day so, we go together most of the time unless he has other activities.

As soon as I reached home I parked my car in the garage. and started walking into the house. Dru came from behind and jumped on me for a piggyback ride.

"Please give me a piggyback ride into the house," said Dru with a pout.

He looks so cute, and I couldn't resist agreeing to his request.

"Okay fine, are you ready for your swimming classes?" I asked holding his legs near my hip so that he won't fall.

"You should stop pampering him Ammu he is almost 10 years old. You shouldn't give him piggyback rides anymore." said my aunt with a serious face.

I know she thinks I pamper Dru and what can I say I can't deny his requests even though he annoys me and irks the hell out of me.

"I made samosas. They are on the table, have them and get ready you guys". Saying that she walked toward her room mumbling if everyone starts pampering Dru like this he is gonna go, rogue. And what can I say! Indian moms show their love by yelling.

"Stop eating like a pig, all the workout you are about to do is going to be wasted if you eat like this," Arjun commented coming towards the table in his football team jersey and shorts.

Don't Tell Arjun, but he is the best cousin or brother I could ever have. We always fight, but he is my rock pulling me from my hard times.

I say to myself and the world that I hate these two, but in reality and honesty, I love them more than anyone in this world.

"For your very kind information, I work out so that I can eat, and I know you are jealous that I'm thin. When I come to your school people think that I'm your younger sister." I scoffed at him and continued shoving the yummy samosas in my mouth before he could snatch them from me.

"People think that because you are a shortie who is no taller than 5"3 and I am 5"8 for a 14-year-old." Saying that he stuck his tongue out.

My aunt came to us before I could give a comeback, so I had to start my scheme of getting Arjun to shut up.

"He is making fun of my size, can you tell him not to do that. It's not like I want to be short, he also called me a pig and is body shaming me, I don't want to eat anymore." I said to my aunt with a sad and teary face.

After looking at my face, she pulled me into a hug and kissed me on the head glaring at Arjun with all the spite left in her.

"Maa..Don't believe her! That's not true." Arjun shrieked in fear.

"He did call me a pig and made fun of my height, you can ask Dru if you want," I said to them and Dru agreed with me.

"Yeah Maa! He did, he also hit me and shoved me on the floor, look at my scraped palm." Dru added and showed her the wound he got from school today.

"Arjun, one more lie out of your mouth and I will kill you. How can you tell that to her and hurt Dru? This is it, you are grounded and you are not allowed to go to the after-party. Aww..my poor babies..." She said to him sternly while he stomped his foot glaring at me and I stuck my tongue out to make fun of him.

Aunt pulled me and Dru into a hug and inspected Dru's wounds.

"You don't have to punish him! Just ask him to not repeat it again, give us a hug and tell us that he loves us." I said to my aunt saving Arjun from the pit I shoved him into.

"You hurt my daughter and she still wants you to have fun. Tell her what she wants to listen to if you want to go to the party." My aunt announced folding her hands to the chest.

"I love Amy and Dru and I am sorry.." he said to me like it the words left him a bitter taste.

"Aww...I love you to Ajju.." I jumped onto him and hugged the life out of him.

"I love you Amy, Arjun.." Dru joined us both and squeezed our legs.

And we all pulled our Aunt into the hug till she yelled at us to leave her alone.



That was the first-ever chapter of the book. Hope you are intrigued on how a girl like Amaya is going to mess up her life.

Thank you for reading, Please let me know if this has any writing errors.

That's Amaya, Do you like her?

Don't forget to vote and comment.

Love

Sneha


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