Some Nights.

So there was this one night in this guy's life. Just this one night he learnt a lot from. To make it a lot simpler, let's just divide the happenings of the night into two parts..

Part 1:
"Shut the fuck up, Nasir. You're 17. And I'm not even drunk!", she exclaimed, and a wave of self-pity washed over my face. But I let that go.
"Oh, so you call what you did back there mature? People don't spill their friends' secrets when they're drunk, retard", I snapped back, furious now.
She just waved me off. I didn't want to care, but she was a friend after all, and as horrible as I may be, chivalry and ethics were one of the few things that hadn't died in me.
"Okay, look. I know that you don't want them around right now. Hell, I hate phony bastards too. But they're gone now, so you can calm down, unless you want me to jump out of the cab too", I said.
"You can go ahead and do what you want. I don't find myself caring. And I don't think you do, either. Since you keep texting on your fucking phone all the time!", she yelled at me.
I just said "Oh" and looked away. A few minutes of silence passed by while I stared outside the window, the skyline of the Queen's Necklace zooming past.
"Look, Nasir. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come off as obnoxious. But all I'm trying to say is that I've lost the ability to reciprocate. I have no emotional quotient, whatsoever. And I know for a fact that the people back there are selfish assholes, each having on a mask of their own. But screw it, you won't understand. You still have a long way to go", she concluded, leaving me a little unsettled.

Part 2:
The cold air singes across my skin as the cab zooms past the resplendent Queen's Necklace. The pale light of the starry night skies illuminates the skyline of Mumbai, with the Mumbai-Worli Sea Link adding to the picturesque view in my sore eyes. She said it was cool, but I knew she was mad at my ignorance towards her. The phone beeped, the message that I got a new message flashing on the screen. I opened it, and this is what it read: "Okay, so here it goes. I'm just a little irritated that you keep telling the world, including me, that you're my best friend and that you'll always be there for me. But when he died, you just disappeared. You didn't even try to initiate conversation, let alone comforting me. And here I am, initiating conversation with you two weeks after he passed away, and you don't even seem to care".
I was taken aback. I knew it was my fault, but the naivety and child-like attitude I had towards our relationship just struck me. I found myself saying: "Look, I know it was careless on my behalf, and I know I should've been there. But I don't know how to respond to these things. You know this. I tried to gather the courage to talk to you about how you feel, or to even make you feel better, but it just felt like you had other people comforting you all the time, and I thought you were strong enough to deal with it all by yourself. At least that's what you always told me".
My mind was racing through all the fights I've had with her, and I remembered how each one of them was my fault. And even though I could see this transiting into one of those times, I couldn't do anything to avert it. And that was when she replied saying "I know, Nasir. But I'd just like for you to be there sometime, no matter how strong I claim to be. That's what best friends do. Anyway, let's leave it all behind? It's in the past now."
And it was like a slap in the face. At least that's what it would've been, if I didn't have a drunk 6 year-elder-to-me girl yelling over my head. What is it that she was saying? "Blah blah blah, something something, since you keep texting on your fucking phone all the time!" I shoved my phone inside my pocket, and started staring outside the window again after calming my drunk friend down.

The silence following the happenings of that night was a little...unsettling. My friend was now asleep. My phone's battery had given up now. And the cab was whirring past the streets of South Bombay. Maybe both of them were right. Maybe, in a way, having emotions is pointless. But at the same time, you can't use it as an excuse to ease your way out of relationships whenever you want to. Emotions, as despicable as they may be, it's what separates us from the speechless animals. The tools of sympathy, and even empathy, handed over to us so conveniently, we misuse to extents we're unaware of. Would you not want to feel happiness? Would you not want to know what it's like to miss a person when they're gone? Would you not want to feel the urge to talk to someone? It frightens me, to think that I won't be able to connect. To think that I won't be able to understand. So maybe I'll give the hormone-induced emotions a fair chance. Maybe I won't let the ability to reciprocate go for a toss, but try to enhance it. After all, it's exactly what I'll need to sympathise. To understand.

After all, it's exactly what will make me more...human.