"Priyanka? Priyanka? PRIYANKA!"
I was so startled I literally fell off my seat when I stood up.
"What are you doing?" she asked me. Hello? I was looking out the window? Can't you see?
That was what I was thinking. I obviously did not SAY that out loud! That would have just been plain mean! Something that I would expect someone like Anusha Jain (Snob No. 1 of my class) to do. So I did what I thought was the smart thing to do. I kept quiet; which ended up making Sujhata even madder. Why do I have world's most rotten luck? Why?
After she was done giving me this long -and when I say long, I mean long - lecture, she looked me in the eye and asked me the question I dreaded the most. "Why did you not come for yesterday's extra class?"
I gulped, and it felt like I had just swallowed a whale - a giant whale. "Er...ma'am...I was-wasn't well...I reached school late..."
The thing is, students like me; the really hopeless ones; are supposed to attend extra classes at school; and for that we have to come to school a whole hour early. Like we don't have anything better to do; for example sleep. Whoever wanted to attend extra math classes every Monday morning anyway?
Besides, I hadn't entirely lied. I had been ill - stomach ache. Of course, a small detail such as the fact that the stomach ache had been the earlier night did not matter...right?
She simply shook her head and said something about how people just don't care about responsibilities anymore and other equally annoying things. Finally she asked me to come home that day after school to get a few questions she had given to the other kids in the extra class. Yes, sadly the fact that she has to torment me at school is not enough of bad luck. That is why she lives right across the street; and as a consequence knows of my activities - which might include roaming about the common park and sometimes listen to music in the evenings on the i-pod while watching the sun set. I know that she knows because she looks into my homework carefully every time I go to the park. Gosh! Can't an innocent ninth standard student even BREATH???
But I couldn't say that to her either; and so I ended up simply nodding dumbly at her.
I hate my life.
That day, after school, as I was walking home from the bus stop, I decided that I might as well go and get those questions then and there. It would be a lot more painful if I had to meet with the devil herself after the comforts of my room. I'd rather just get it over with.
I went up to her door and rang the bell...which was when I realized that the teachers had been called for some kind of a meeting and that it would take her some time to beat the traffic - she drove back home everyday in a black, posh Honda City.
Shit! I always do this! Now I was going to have to apologize to whoever it was who would open the door.
I was expecting some grandma or probably a pot-bellied husband to open the door; but I was disappointed. Actually, not disappointed; just surprised. Because the person who happened to open the door was someone I had seen before, even if it was just once; and someone who looked to be only a little older than me; and most surprisingly, someone who was TALLER than me!
It was a boy, a very, very good-looking boy, whom I had seen at the park yesterday. He was lean, wheatish in colour, had really dark brown eyes, and messy dark black hair that softly fell over his forehead. I had been listening to this really nice romantic song when I had seen him. When I had first seen him he had smiled at me and I had smiled back, just to be nice. And of course, with a face like that, I had not stopped thinking about him. Not that I had developed a crush on him; I am too sensible for that. Because I know that:
a. It would just be a waste of time and patience;
b. He was WAY out of reach - hello? Good looking guy and super ugly flunky like me? Not even in dream world.
c. He was standing at my math teacher's door. Why?
Holy shit! I had heard that Sujhata's son was joining school. Apparently, he was in the eleventh standard. Why? Why? Why oh why does such a cute guy have to be my math teacher's son? Why? Can't there be SOME sanity in this insane world once in a while?
"May I help you?" the boy standing in front of me said, waking me from my little self talking session - and making me realize the embarrassing fact that I had been staring at him for so long.
And even though I knew for a fact that Sujhata was not home, I asked him if I could meet her.
"I'm sorry," he said, "she's not home yet. She'll be home in a couple of minutes though." I decided that he had a very nice voice.
"But doesn't she have a meeting? She's going to return at 5:00 most probably." Sadly, I realized the fact that what I just said proved that I knew that she wasn’t home, only after I said it. Another unfortunate problem with me is that I'm not a very convincing liar. Again; WHY?????!!!!!
He raised his eyebrows. "Er, the meeting's been cancelled and she will be here any minute now. Is there a message I can give her?"
"Er, nothing. She had just asked me to get a few questions from her. She's my math teacher. So I figured I would come and get them from her on my way home and rang the bell. But I remembered about the meeting only after I rang the bell, and when you opened the door I didn't know what to say, so I asked you if she was home even though I knew that she was not. And when you told me that she would be back so soon I was surprised because obviously it had to take her longer than that if she was going for the meeting? So I assumed that she was going to skip the meeting or had probably forgotten it."
Another problem with me is that I speak too much. Once I start, I can't stop - not even if God tried. And when I speak, I usually blabber. This could have possibly been why he was now smiling at me like he was highly amused with me.
I looked at him smile at me and felt my face heat up with embarrassment. God, do I need help with my mouth or what? "Er, I should go. I'll come back later."
"Why don't you come inside and wait? She will be here any minute." I considered the offer. If I stayed, I would feel awkward - I'm not a very people person. But if I would come later, I would have to walk all the way. So I shrugged and said "Okay, but if you don't mind. I mean, I could come back later."
"It's no problem. Come in."
I walked into what looked like a living room, if the expensive looking sofas and the posh coffee table were any indication. He asked me to sit on one of the giant leather sofas and excused himself. As I sat there waiting for Sujhata to arrive, I decided to do a little math, or pretend to anyway. I thought that it might impress her.
I opened the book to the exercise she had given for homework and read the first question. It seemed easy enough...until I started doing it. How are you supposed to prove that two right triangles are congruent only with one side and one angle? Aren't we supposed to use three parameters? Probably I have to calculate the other angles. But they just mentioned that both the triangles had a 45* angle. Oh God, it was so freaking confusing!
"Any problem?" I looked up from my notebook to see Sujhata's son standing in front of me. I politely shook my head and buried my head back into my books, furiously wishing he would go away because I did not want him to think I was dumb. But since when did God ever listen to me?
He still stood there attempting to read the question up side down.
"Here, let me help you with this." He said and sat next to me. I shifted a little away from him as he sat down, warning bells going off in my mind. I had never been so close to any guy before - with the exception of the fifth standard when I had loads of guy friends. That was before we had shifted here. Since we shifted, the only friends that I made are Manasi and Suman; who happen to be best friends; of each other.
He grabbed the pen from me and started to explain to me that here we had to use the AAS property, and the third angle was the right angle itself. And so we had the given side, the given angle and the right angle in both the triangles; which proved that they were congruent.
I kept staring at the notebook just so I would not have to look up and see his face. Because I knew that if I looked at him from such a close proximity, I would faint. Intact I was already shivering. Well, not literally because it was too warm for that - the dancing winds had stopped ages ago. But I was feeling, for want of a better word, ticklish. At one point of time I think I might have touched his hand by mistake; or was it my notebook?
But you know what the funny part is? I actually understood! I was actually able to understand something related to math! God, he was so much better than Sujhata!
Speaking of whom, she entered the house at exactly that time.
"Priyanka?!" She saw me sitting on one of her super expensive sofas with her son and apparently could not help but be surprised. I sprang to my feet at the sight of her, dropping the contents of my bag as a consequence. Why do I have to be so clumsy? Seriously, my life is completely filled with questions and there isn’t a single person who can answer them. Oh when shalt thou send me an angel?
"Ma'am I...er...you asked me to come over for the questions?"
She considered what I said for a moment and nodded, not unkindly, just a little oddly.
Why oh why am I so freaking nervous? WHY???!!!
She asked me to wait and she walked into one of the doors leaving me alone with her son in the living room. As soon as she left the room I bent down to pick up my stuff; and so did he. I felt my face go warm, and this time it was not solely because of embarrassment.
When I was done stuffing my bag with all the books and stationary that had fallen out of the pencil box, and he was done helping me; we stood up, only to hit our heads against each other's.
"Ow!" I rubbed my forehead in pain.
"You okay?" he asked me, sounding concerned. I nodded despite the pain. He bent forward and hit my head with his own again, gently this time. It was then that I remembered that you are supposed to do it again or it is said to bring bad luck. Of course, the fact that it was all a myth and that everyone on the planet does it all the time would not stop my breath from going really slow and deep; nor would it stop my eyes from looking into the eyes of the person who had hit my head with his own; someone who was looking back into mine.
Thankfully Sujhata came into the room exactly at that time so that I hardly had time to make him feel awkward; or so that I did not have enough time to understand whether he was looking into my eyes because I was looking into his and he wanted to be polite or because he was wondering why on earth some random student of his mom was staring at him. I looked away and turned to see Sujhata holding out a sheet of paper filled with questions I had no idea of how to solve.
I took the sheet of paper from her, thanked her and almost ran out of the house. But before I could make my escape she called my name out and I had to stop halfway out the front door. "I want the answers by Friday." I turned around nodded, thanked her again and got my butt out of there.
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The next day at school I had Physics. Sadly, the teacher was in a bad mood; and to make things worse I could not find my Physics notebook. I had not bothered to set my bag last night, so I thought that I might have left of at home. Why am I such an idiot? And so, as a result, I got yelled at. She even gave me detention. Sheesh! I had just forgotten a notebook, not murdered someone!
Suman was trying very hard to cheer me up in break time; but it was of no use. God, my day was getting worse. In the morning I had spilt my orange juice all over my mom's night gown and got yelled at by her too. And after that I had missed the bus. After all of this mess, I had to deal with detention, not to mention miss out on a whole hour of TV as a consequence.
"It's all right PK," Suman said, "you might be able to make a really nice drawing for me. Remember you had promised you'd make me one?" I nodded. She was terrible at this stuff; cheering a person up was obviously something she needed a little help with. But at least she was trying, unlike Manasi who was fed up with me whining all the time. "Come on, cheer up PK. You look nice when you smile, you should do that more often; like..." she suddenly stopped midway and I looked up at her; till then I had been staring at my desk. She was looking at something outside the door. I followed her line of vision to see...WHAT IS HE DOING HERE?
Sujhata's son was standing outside the door trying to find someone. When he saw me his face brightened with recognition. He was wearing the school uniform - a White half-sleeve shirt, grey pants and a navy-blue tie; and he looked pretty good in it - oh man, I started to get this really weird feeling in my stomach.
When I kept staring at him in shock, my jaw almost touching the floor, and my eyebrows touching the sky; he started waving a notebook at me. I belatedly realized that it was my Physics notebook and ran outside the door very much aware of the fact that all eyes were on me. I reached him and stopped to catch my breath. He smiled at me. "You had left this yesterday. It was lying under the sofa."
I took the notebook from him, wondering what exactly he had been doing under the sofa; and thanked him. I should have stopped there but I, being me, would not stop there. "Thanks; but you're too late. My Physics period is over and I've already got detention for not bringing my notebook."
"Wow, that's harsh. So you're stuck in the school on a Sunday?"
"No, I have to stay here for an hour after school. We don't have to stay back on a Sunday; the teachers here are too lazy to come to school on a Sunday just to give detention." I realized the fact that his mom was a teacher only AFTER I said that. How typical of me! "You had to stay back on a Sunday for detention in your previous school? I heard you're new here." I tried changing the topic.
He nodded and said "Yes, but we had the hostel wardens taking care of the detentions. I was stuck in school all year; I was a hosteller. And it isn’t any better here because I still have to live with a teacher 24*7"
I laughed at that and then the bell rang. As he was leaving he suddenly called out my name and said "By the way, you draw well. And I liked the poem about the dead roses." After that, he left. I kept staring at his back. He had seen the back of my notebook. My Physics notebook; the very notebook in which the number of pages I had used from the back were more than the number I had used from the front. I had written a dozen poems and made a hundred drawings in it; and he had seen them.
OH SHIT!
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I was finishing the nose of a girl I was drawing in Chemistry period when the last bell rang. It was time to go home; but only for my classmates. It was time for detention for me. I groaned.
I headed for the detention room; and on the way I met Ashita, my senior. She was in the eleventh and happened to be one of the few seniors I actually liked. She was pretty, smart and was an awesome singer. She also happened to be my neighbour; but we hardly met. And there was hardly any reason for us not meeting so frequently; it was just one of those things. Sometimes we were too busy, and sometimes we just didn't bother.
We talked about the latest chick-lit books we had read - our favourite common topic; and then updated each other about ourselves. There was nothing on my side of the updating of course; but apparently there was a lot going on in her life - she was going for a concert this weekend; watching a movie that evening with her girl friends, going for a singing competition and winning it the next week (You see, Ashita was not one of the modest kind; she knew what she was good at and what she wasn't) and she was going to start salsa classes this weekend; for which she was very nervous because she did not want a bad dancer as a partner.
After our little rendezvous; we each went our way - she went to her bus and I went to torture chamber.
The detention teacher was missing from the room because apparently the last day's meeting was rescheduled for that day.
I sat in the classroom, not knowing what to do. I decided that finishing the cursed math assignment would be a good idea; and so I dug out my math notebook and the sheet of paper Sujhata had given to me yesterday; and started with the problems. Miraculously I was able to do the first question right. And even though it took me 15 whole minutes for the 1-mark question while an average student ought to spend a maximum of 2 minutes on it; it was still an improvement.
It was as I was struggling with the second question that someone suddenly entered the classroom, walked up to my desk and said "Hi!" to me. I looked up from my notebook to see Sujhata's son standing in front of me. His name was Aman Sharma, I had learnt from the most popular source of information in our school - Tanya Shettey, the Gossip Queen. She had also informed me that he was this super genius who topped his previous school in his board.
"Hi!" I was a little more than just surprised to see him there. Then I reminded myself of the meeting; he must have been waiting for his mother to finish the meeting. But nevertheless, I had to be sure; so I asked him what he was doing there. It turned out that he WAS waiting for Sujhata to finish her meeting and was getting bored so he came here. “So what are you doing?" he asked me.
I rolled my eyes and said "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm struggling with a math assignment."
"Let me look at that." He turned my notebook around and read what I had written. He then read the question, smiled and then pulled a chair out for himself. He sat down, took my pen from me for the second time since we first met, and started scribbling in my notebook. I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say; and I was too busy staring at his nice, soft hair. What did he do to it anyway? Did he shampoo it ten times that day and condition it 20 times or something?
However, my day dreaming was rudely interrupted by the subject of my day dream himself. He had solved the question and had started to explain to me how to do that question. It sort of reminded me of this book I had read; Princess Diaries, in which Michael teaches Mia math and then they get together at the end. It had been my first ever chick-lit; and even the thought of Aman as Michael and me as Mia thrilled every bone in my body.
STOP IT. STOP IT NOW!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Had I gone mad? Since when did I, Priyanka Sethi, EVER think of any boy like that? Whatever happened to my anti-crush policy? Was the world coming to an end? Had the ice caps finally melted and drowned all of us? Had Doom's day already arrived?
I desperately needed a psychiatrist. And if I did not get one very soon, I was pretty sure I would hyperventilate to death.
But psychiatrist or no, there I was, sitting next to my math teacher's son, trying to understand what he was teaching me and trying very hard not to let my eyes wander away from the notebook to his face.
"...and so this triangle is congruent to triangle ABC; which means that they have the same area. And that's the answer."
"Wow," I said, "that seems pretty simple! How come I never thought of it?" He smiled at me (Okay, seriously; he has to stop doing that; or very soon I will go mad).
"That", he said, still smiling, "is because you keep telling yourself that you can't do it." I rolled my eyes and told him that he sounded like my mom. And guess how he replied to that; he said that my mom was right. I raised my eyebrows and stared at him. "What?"
I shook my head. "Nothing" I said, "you're just weird."
"And how is that?"
I shrugged, "How can any normal person ever top a school?"
"Define normal."
"I don't know...someone who watches TV?"
"How can you be so sure I don't watch TV all day long?"
"Okay, forget that. Er...oh, I got one. If you were normal, you would have had a girlfriend by now." I knew I was bluffing because I knew loads of people who did not have girlfriends in the 11th. But hey, it was completely abnormal if such a good looking guy had not had a girlfriend yet.
He looked thoughtful for a moment and then looked at me. He was smirking. "How do you know I don't have one right now?"
My eyes widened and my jaw dropped. "You have a girlfriend? Where?"
And as my luck would have it, just then my detention teacher entered the classroom holding the list of detained students. She saw Aman and asked him what he was doing there. Apparently, she knew him.
Instead of replying to her, he asked her about the meeting. She told him that it would get over in another fifteen minutes; so he asked her if he could wait there in the classroom. She let him stay and asked the rest of us to stop making such a ruckus; because the other people were having very loud conversations with their friends. I did not know any of them but recognized their faces from the last time I had been given detention (this was my second time you see) and they were regulars apparently.
Aman started explaining the next question to me and refused to speak of anything but congruent triangles. After 5 minutes the bell rang and we had to leave; the teacher chased us out of the class. As I was walking out of the door, still wondering at what Aman had just said about his girlfriend; I got the feeling that someone was looking at me. You know that feeling; it's like a prickly feeling on your back. I turned around and saw Aman looking at me. When he saw me, he smiled. It was not the general smile, the polite kind that you give when you say hello or goodbye. It was the kind of smile that clearly signaled that the one who was smiling was hiding something from you and enjoying watching you getting tormented - something between a smirk and a goofy grin. In return, as a reply to this highly intimidating smile, all I did was furrow my eyebrows together and gawk at him in wonder. Had he or had he not had a girlfriend? That, to my utter annoyance, only made him laugh at me.
Unfortunately, just then I felt the teacher glare at me; and I was forced to leave.
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The rest of the week went by as usual (Read as miserable, horrifying and terribly boring). It was Friday evening and the weekend was finally starting. I decided to take a walk in the park to celebrate (Read as sit at my usual bench and listen to my i-pod without having walked for more than 2 minutes).
I was listening to this rock song with my eyes closed, when I felt someone tap my shoulder. I opened my eyes expecting some old uncle wanting me to make some space for him; but who I saw was hardly as unpleasant; because
A. He wasn’t an old uncle; and
B. I knew him, not to mention liked the fact that I knew him.
Yeah, you guessed it right. It was Aman.
"What are YOU doing here?" I asked him pulling off my earphones and switching the i-pod off with my other hand. He shrugged and said "I don't know; I'm obviously not here for dancing or juggling balls in the middle of a park? What do you think?"
I frowned at him and said "Sheesh! I was just asking."
He grinned at me and apologized. No, he didn't say that he was sorry. He actually said "I apologize my lady. I beg thee to forgive my imprudence. Damn be me lest such disregard ever taketh place on my part."
"Whoa! Slow down! I don't even know these words EXIST!" He bent a little, pointed at my bench and said, in the same tone "May I?"
I shifted a little to give him some space to sit. He sat down and asked me if I came here everyday.
"Nah," I said, "I come here once in a while; just to relax. I love the wind here. I like it when the wind blows and there's music in my ears. I just sit here and close my eyes. It's like I've been transported to another world." After a pause I added, "A world where I don't have math assignments and screaming moms being thrown at me all over the place."
He laughed at the screaming mom’s part; and my stomach felt weird again. Note to self: must NOT, I repeat, must NOT look at Aman Sharma laugh again. Ever. Or consequences could be drastic.
Just then I remembered the thing about his girlfriend. When I mentioned it to him, he smiled THAT smile again - the smirk-come-grin one; and my stomach just got worse. Why must he torment me thus? Why?
"So tell me; who is she? Is she at your previous school? Or is she here?" His stupid grin just got bigger and he said "Why are you so interested?"
I looked at him like he was crazy. "Of course I want to know! I'm a girl; I like gossip!" well, gossip when it came to him anyway.
"Are you sure?" he asked me; or more like stated it. I did not know what he meant by that.
"What do you mean?" I asked him, even though by then I was starting to understand a little; probably.
His grin grew even bigger (Jesus! Someone's got to STOP him from doing that...that...that dumb smile of his). "You never know;" he said, with this mischievous look on his eyes, "you just might have fallen for me and might be asking me about my girlfriend because you're JEALOUS." He was joking. But me being me; I only realized that after staring at him for a whole minute; which he sadly caught on to and said "What? Did you think that you could hide your little crush on me forever?"
"In your dreams!" I replied to him, catching up to my senses before he could notice.
He was now full on smirking. "It's all right; I have this sort of an effect on girls. It's just my charm, you see, that the girls can not resist."
I raised an eyebrow, "uh huh; right. Whatever." Okay, I have to give credit to my incredible acting skills because I sounded so freaking cool; which was a billion light years away from the true condition of my mind then. "Besides," I added, "I have a much better choice." Wait, did I just flirt with him? Oh shit! Did it sound like that? I was not trying to flirt with him at all! I don't even know how to flirt! I hoped beyond hope that he did not think that I was flirting with him.
"Really?" he said, "so what sort of a guy DO you like then?"
I had to reply to THAT; I couldn't just be all "Sorry Aman, but I think I just flirted with you and I feel weird and I can't flirt with you because I have this giant crush on you and I think I'm going to leave now."
So instead, I pretended to be thinking really hard. I could obviously not say that my kind of guy was sitting right next to him and it happened to be the very person I was talking about my kind of guy with. Thankfully just then I saw someone wave at me from a few feet away from my bench. It took me a second to realize that my saviour was Ashita.
I waved back at her and she headed towards me. Ashita was looking really good, I noticed. Then again, she always looked. As she came closer, her footsteps sort of slowed down. I noticed that her gaze was not exactly on me but on something; or SOMEONE beside me. I looked from her to Aman, who had this really weird expression on his face, and then back at Ashita. Somehow, I got the feeling that there was no need for introduction here.
"Aman?" This was the first thing that came out of Ashita's mouth when she finally reached the bench.
"Ashita?!"
And the next thing I knew the two of them were hugging and jumping around; and squealing in Ashita's case.
When I had realized that they knew each other, I had assumed that they were classmates because I had not asked Aman which section he was in. But when they started hugging and jumping with excitement; I knew that they were WAY more than just classmates.
"Is there something I'm missing here?" I asked. Somehow, I no longer thought that Ashita was my saviour. They obviously knew each other very well. Not a very good thing when I was finally having a proper conversation with my first crush EVER. Great; now I would have to forget my first crush; because Ashita was obviously the girlfriend he had been talking about.
"Aman," Ashita said, "is my best friend. He used to live here before you came. We used to play everyday. Oh my God; I can't believe this. I'm meeting him after so long! Where were you?" she asked Aman.
"I had been in hostel; but you never wrote to me! You had promised me you would!"
That feeling I had been getting in my stomach had gone and was now replaced with another weird feeling. Man; my life DOES suck. I watched on as the two long lost friends talked about how they had mixed mud in Aman's dad's tea and how Aman had once pulled on Ashita's hair in class and she had been in trouble because of him.
I told myself:
Face it Priyanka, they make a completely cute couple. A sweet best-friends-falling-in-love couple. Cute. Very cute.
Then I turned to God and cursed him. In between I mentioned that he ought to send notices with cute guys saying that they have best friends they're going to fall in love with and that I could completely forget about him if I wanted any sort of peace of mind.
Ashita asked Aman to join her Salsa classes. Apparently they were beginning the next day. Aman was reluctant at first but then he agreed. Trust me; no one could say no to Ashita; not even the toughest guy on earth. It had a lot to do with her eyes. She would give you this puppy-dog look that you could not help but say yes to.
But whatever it was; they were a cute couple and there was nothing I could do about it. They completely deserved each other - both being super geniuses and great looking. And I was an ugly bat around them. What the heck; the least I could do was he happy for the two of them.
I excused myself claiming that I had a lot of work; which I did have, only I was not exactly planning to do them right then; and walked back home sighing at every step.
Yeah, life did suck if you were me; and there was nothing you could do about it.
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"Priyanka?" my mom screamed my name from the living room as I was busy sulking away into my pillow. I screamed back at her asking her what exactly she wanted from me. I was not in the mood for getting her reading glasses from the bedroom or getting her a glass of water. As far as I was concerned she could get her own water if she wanted.
Instead though, she wanted me to "See me in the living room."
I threw the pillow I was using as a mask for so long, onto the ground in irritation. Honestly, doesn't a teenager deserve some peace after heartbreak? Okay, well, it wasn't exactly some heartbreak; but honestly, why could Ashita not have come at another time? Then again; I had no right to be upset. I did not even LIKE him. I just had a small infatuation for him. Nah, I was just overreacting.
I got off my bed, picked up the pillow, threw it back onto the bed and walked to the living room to see mom looking at the news paper and talking over the phone.
"...Yeah...uh huh...yeah...tomorrow evening...sure...yes, with her...perfect! Thank you" She looked at me and said "You're going for dance classes from tomorrow." like she was talking about the weather.
"What?"
"You're going for dance classes from tomorrow evening. The same one as Ashita is. I talked to her mother this morning. They're supposed to be professionals." I blinked at her.
"Huh? Why?"
"What do you mean why? It's not like you do anything sitting around at home. This will be an extra sport for you. Don't worry; you'll enjoy. Ashita is there with you."
Oh my GOD! My mother; my OWN mother was out to make my life miserable! I can not believe this. I blatantly realized that now I will have to WATCH Aman and Ashita dance together. It was even worse than imagining them do it. Even their names started with the same alphabet! They were just MEANT to be together. Why was I even bothering to think about any of this anyway? It was not even like I thought I had any chance with Aman. Not that I really wanted to. No sir, I did not. And you know what; yeah, the two of them made an awfully cute couple; and from now on, I was going to support their love. I decided that I was going to work towards bringing these two together (That is, if they were not already together). It would make me feel so much better. It would be just like a cute best-friends-falling-in-love movie.
Deep sigh!!
That was how I had cheered myself up. However that night; I couldn't sleep at all. And it wasn't even because of the salsa classes; or Aman. I had actually cheered myself up about THAT ages ago. This time, I was upset because; okay, please don't laugh; because the kid in one of the shows that I watched hurt his knee and now he couldn’t participate in the running race. Now his arch enemy would win. Yeah, I know, it's silly. But hey, I get attached to people very soon. Or characters, in this case.
Oh well; whatever. Who cared anyway? It was as I was thinking all of this that I heard a knock on my window. I had been just lying on my bed like an innocent teenager does at 12:00 in the night when it happened. I was so startled that I jerked myself out of bed making my life-size doll fall off the bed. I saw a shadow outside the window. The light off the street lamp was falling on the person's back.
You have no idea how freaked out I had been at that moment. I actually stared at the figure standing outside for about a whole minute until my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I realized who it was. My eyes widened and I rushed to open the window.
"Aman?!" I practically screamed at him.
"Shhhh..." he said, placing a finger on his lips; "Hi."
I was too shocked for greetings at that moment. "What on earth are you doing here?"
"I was just taking a walk and noticed that the lights were on in this room. When I looked in, I saw this giant picture of yours" he said pointing at a picture of me that had been taken a couple of years ago at my birthday in my grandmother's place. My mom had liked the picture so much that she enlarged the darn thing and forced it on my wall. God; why do I have to have such a weird mom? Why? "And then I saw a giant doll on the bed and figured it was your room. Why were the lights on?"
"You were taking a walk at 12:00 in the night? Why?....oh wait; does this have any thing to do with your girlfriend?" I was trying very hard to divert his attention from my lights because I did not want him to know about my fear of darkness. Okay; I'm not scared of the darkness or anything. It's just that I get scared when I'm a little upset because I feel all alone...yeah, I know, I'm a freak.
Aman shrugged in reply and then said "I was just getting bored. And what is up with your obsession over my girlfriend?"
"You were feeling bored when the rest of the world was dreaming of their sorry love-lives or probably alien invasions?"
He looked at me in this weird way and said "Boy, do you dream about weird stuff or what."
I suddenly realized that he was still standing outside. I wondered whether I should call him in or not. But before I could say anything; he said "You know, it is polite to call people in when they're standing outside your door, or in this care, your window."
I looked at him in an amused manner; because, I really WAS amused; and then said "Who said anyone wants to be polite to YOU?"
"You know," he said, in this fake hurt tone, "I thought that we could be friends. But YOU, you have turned away such a great honour."
I rolled my eyes. "Oh all right. You may come in. I give up."
He jumped onto the window-sill and onto my room's floor. As he walked around the front of the window he said "By the way," I looked up at him from the floor (I had spotted the pen I had lost that evening under my study table). "Nice pajamas."
I felt my face grow warm as I realized that was standing in front of an actual GUY wearing PINK pajamas in my ROOM.
I noticed that he was wearing jeans, the same ones he had been wearing at the park. Even his shirt was the same. "Don’t you change before sleeping?" I asked him.
He turned around to face me; he had been fiddling with the pen (he had followed my line of vision and picked it up). "What?"
"I mean, you haven't changed... Normally people change before sleeping."
"Er, that would be because I'm evidently NOT sleeping?"
"I can see that! But don't you ever change before sleeping?"
"Nah," he said, sitting on a chair, "I sleep in anything... What's this?" he pointed at a long and flat wooden thing with a small doll stuck on top.
"Oh that," I said, sitting on the bed, "I bought that in Thailand. It's supposed to be a bookmark."
And then we started talking about Thailand and how I had gone snorkeling there and how scared I had been. He told me about Singapore and how he thought it was the best city ever.
We talked on and on and on. I felt so relaxed. The fact that I had a boy over at my room in the middle of the night hardly made a difference. I finally had a friend of my own now, besides Suman and Manasi. Ashita did not count because, even though I liked her a lot, we actually became friends because our moms knew each other. And now I had my very own friend. I was definitely not going to ruin it and think of my crush on him. Crush Shmush. It could all just go out the window. Only, in between the conversation, he would start laughing. And all the crush shmush would crawl back into my stomach and give me THAT weird feeling again.
We would have gone on for the rest of the night if at around 2:00am, mom would not have knocked at my door and demand it to be unlocked.
Aman got to his feet, not as quickly as I had, but not lazily either; and whispered "I think I should go now."
"I know you should." I whispered back. He gave me a last smile (more stomach churning feelings and hormones flowing in) and jumped out the window.
I went and opened the door acting all sleepy. I didn't have to act much though. I suddenly realized that I felt sleepy as soon as Aman left.
"What mom?" I asked her. She had wanted the headache balm. God! And she had to KILL my conversation with a cute guy JUST because she had a headache? Jeez!
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I watched the clock again and again as I sat at my study table pretending to be doing my math assignment while actually drawing a manga girl. 2 minutes to go...1 minute to go...60 seconds...10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...and it was 4:30pm. Mom would come in any minute to remind me of the salsa classes. I was supposed to leave at 4:30 pm for the 5:00 pm class; but I was not going to budge unless someone would drag me out. But no one was coming! What was wrong with her? Already a minute had gone by. If she would not come quickly, I could be late! And that too on my very first class! Another minute went by, but there was go sign of mom. Why was I bothered anyway? It was not like I wanted to go. So technically, I should have been celebrating. Only, something was holding me back from exactly that...and I dreaded whatever it was. Oh wait, I had wanted to go to support Ashita and Aman's relationship. Right. No wonder I was not celebrating. It was obviously the fact that I wanted two meant-for-each-other people to get together. It never had anything to do with any crushes or anything of that sort. BUT WHY HAD MOM NOT SHOWED UP YET????!!!!!!
Finally at around 4:37 pm, she knocked my door and screamed for me to get the hell out of there.
"Just a minute mom!" I shouted back at her. I was trying to finish my drawing's hand.
"Hurry up! And why do you lock your door? It gets annoying...come out Priyanka! You know, another one of Ashita's friends is also going for the dance classes, you might know him."
"I know mom!" I yelled back as I drew the last line. Then, realizing what I had done, I said; "I mean, Ashita had told me that another one of her friends was coming. He's my math teacher's son."
"Swell," mom yelled back at me. "Now will you please get out of there Priyanka; or do you want me to break this door?"
"All right! All right!" and with that I hid my drawing in the closet and opened the door.
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The building in front of which the car stopped was sort of dirty, which did not do anything to help my nerves at that time. But when we walked into the building and entered the door that said 'Antonio Dance Studio'; we were awestruck by its utter whiteness. It felt like walking into heaven - and not even because it made you feel all pure and happy. It was the mere whiteness.
Ashita was already there. This, I figured out because as soon as we entered Ashita started waving at me. The sight of her delighted me, as usual. But all the delight went down the drain when I saw who was standing next to her. It was none other than Aman. To make things worse, he was looking good. Very good. And it wasn't like he was wearing weird formal outfits that all the chicklits I've read keep praising. No. He was wearing normal jeans and a plain white t-shirt. Which was almost exactly what I was wearing. Except my t-shirt was black.
WHY? WHY ME?
Actually, why NOT me???!!!!!
Then I reminded myself that he looked super good with Ashita and forced myself to look at the two of them together. Yeah, they DID make a super good couple. BUT WHY????!!!!
I hate you God.
Mom left with Ashita's mom after the teacher, or dance master, or whatever he was came in and asked for the parents to 'leave the kids alone'. Of course there were adults there too. But they were of the younger generation. You know, in college or just started working types. I, however, turned out to be the youngest. That became evident when we were all asked to introduce ourselves.
After the introductions were done, we were all asked to do a few warm up exercises. I noticed the ease with which Aman was able to bend and touch his toes. Ashita wasn't doing so badly either; which was expected if you were her. She was a great dancer as I had mentioned earlier. Unfortunately for me though, I stank at it. I could barely go beyond my knees; forget reaching my toes. That just proved to me that Ashita and Aman made such a cute couple. I reminded myself for the 100th time that I was going to bring these two souls together.
After we were done with the exercises, Sir; the easiest name for the teacher, or instructor, or master, or whatever he was, I could come up with; asked us to stand in pairs. I looked around in confusion at all the people walking around standing next to each other in pairs. I noticed that more than just one guy went and stood next to this really pretty girl who was doing 3rd year pure art called something like Kate or Katie or probably Kacy (Curse my poor memory!). Of course when they noticed it, they politely left and stood next to someone else. Sadly none of them actually came and stood next to me. Which of course did not come to me as a big surprise because; hello? Not only was I NOT the prettiest one around, but I was also THE youngest. But as I said, it hardly came to me as a surprise. However, what I had not thought of, or not noticed was that there were an odd number of us. And as luck would have it, the number of girls beat the number of boys by ONE; who eventually turned out to be, no points for guessing whatsoever; ME.
When everyone had selected their respective partners, I was still looking around at them...in hope for some random guy jumping out from behind the White drapes. But no one did.
I was still standing there, my face completely warm with embarrassment, trying very hard not to look in Aman's direction; when Sir came up to me and asked me in this weird accent I can not possibly describe(something between a French ,an American and an Italian?), that somehow, I had not noticed before "No partner?"
I sheepishly smiled back at him and shook my head in reply. "That is not a problem. I'll dance with you. Okay?" I just smiled back at him. What else was I supposed to do?
After that he taught us a step. We were supposed to bring the right foot forward, then move it back and then do the same with the left foot; all of this while holding our partners' hands AND shaking our hips - more like butt to me. But whatever.
We practiced that step for about half an hour. And since I was dancing with Benjamin, Sir - he asked me to call him Benjamin, not sir; I had to dance with him in front of everyone. As a consequence, of course, I saw Aman and Ashita's every move. They were pretty good. In fact, as far as I could tell, they were doing the best. Ashita had to be the best dancer there, but Aman wasn't bad; not bad at ALL. After that, he made the girls sort of fall onto the left side and the guy hold onto her and save her from actually falling. And boy did I NOT fall or what. I mean, Benjamin's pretty darn good. No wonder he was teaching.
And you know what; even though it was a little embarrassing that I had no partner, and that I wasn’t exactly very graceful; I had loads of fun. Whoa! How did THAT happen?
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That night Aman strolled into my window at around 12:00am. I wasn’t sleeping because I couldn’t. I had been listening to a random song on the i-pod when he jumped in. I had left it open that night because the breeze was good...okay fine, I had left it open in the hope that Aman would come. God, I was so pathetic! I had even stayed in my jeans for it!
That night we talked and talked and talked until I started yawning and he looked at the watch. It was 4:00 in the morning.
As he was jumping out the window, he said "Bye. See you tomorrow." I felt my face warm up for the hundredth time that day. And this time because it reminded me of how I had thought how good looking he had looked then; which in turn, made me notice him at that time. Yeah, he was too good to be true. Way too good.
After he left, even though I had been sleepy just a moment ago, I could not sleep; because I kept thinking of Aman. He was really way too good to be true. He was breath-taking good looking; he was cheesy, sarcastic, funny and smart. He was also great at school. And he, even though he was the topper, had taken up commerce with computer science; a subject that hardly any good student took up, like Ashita. She had taken PCM-E; which was one of the popular choices. To top all of this, Aman was a great dancer, and athlete, if what he told me was true. He had said that he used to play basketball. Gawd! He was perfect. How could anyone EVER be so darn perfect? How?
When I mentioned it to him, he told me that he could not write a poem if his life depended on it, and that I was lucky that I could write 'such descriptive and deep poems'. Honestly, how useful was that? I hardly got a 75% in English; forget becoming a poet. Then he told me that it did not matter how much I got in English when 'so many feelings were swimming in the sea of my thoughts'. That had been when I had raised an eyebrow and told him not to try and that I got the point.
I don't know when I actually did fall asleep; but the next thing I knew mom was trying to wake me up by banging on the door. Sheesh! I was getting up!
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He did not come the next night. But I figured that it was because it was a school night. I won’t lie, I was disappointed, but it ended up being a good thing, because I had been extremely exhausted after that day's salsa class and I still hadn't finished my homework.
The next week went by like a breeze with school and salsa classes everyday; beating all the energy out of me. I hadn't seen much of Aman except for this once at school when it had been break time and I saw Aman and a few other 11thy boys, one of them holding a basketball, walking back into the main school compound from the basketball ground; all sweaty. I know that it's gross, but he looked really good then.
STOP IT!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On Friday, I saw him this other time during PT; apparently, we had a common PT period; standing and talking to a few of his guy friends; a few of whom I recognized. I knew the long haired guy and a short guy with short, but great hair. They were in the school band. I think the short one was Anshul and the other one was Vivek. As he was been talking; I saw Ashita come up to him and talk to him.
Oh yeah; nice time for me to have seen him.
Suman caught me looking then; and I got this huge lecture from her about how it was disgusting of me to be staring at a popular guy. She had thought that I had been staring at Anshul. I didn't say anything to her because; what was I supposed to say? That I wasn’t staring at the guy she thought I was staring at but at this other guy? Yeah right! But it turned out that I did not need to because she suddenly stopped. When I followed her line of vision, I noticed that she was staring at Aman. A wide smile appeared on get face. She turned around to look at me. "Oooooooooooh! Someone's got a CRUSHHHHHHHH!"
I rolled my eyes at her and told her that he was just my friend and that he was already in love with Ashita. Which was a big mistake. Again; why can't I just SHUT my mouth sometimes? Because when I told her that he was a friend she knew that there was something she had missed.
"What do you mead FRIEND? You KNOW him?!"
"Who does PK know?" Manasi walked in on us.
"No one" I said, much too quickly. Oh shit!
Manasi raised an eyebrow and Suman smiled. That was when I knew that I was going to have to tell them the whole thing. I sighed and asked them to follow me to the tree under which we usually sat during PT. And then I told them everything from when I first met him at Sujhata's house and the park and then about Ashita and how she looked great with him and then the salsa classes. I just mentioned the night time meeting and tried to change the topic. Sadly, both of them caught on to it.
"You let a BOY into your ROOM at 2 in the Night?!!!!!!" Manasi almost screamed with disbelief. I just shrugged back at her.
Suman then shook me with the shoulders and said "and you have been quiet about all of this?! How could you? That guy totally likes you, you ass! You complete ass!"
I argued with her and pointed toward Ashita and Aman laughing and talking with each other. "Besides; I don't like him"
"Yeah; and I'm the Queen of England." Manasi said, being sarcastic.
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That night I was sulking on my bed; my face buried in a fluffy blue pillow Suman had gifted me. I had just watched an awful movie - Bridge To Terebithia. The girl in that movie died at the end. I hated movies that did not have happy endings. Why did she have to die anyway?
It was as I was sulking into my pillow that I heard Aman's voice from my window.
"What's up?" He was sitting on the window sill. I was in a very bad mood and I was not at all in the mood to talk to him. The fact that Manasi had said that Ashita had a greater chance at Aman than me had not exactly made me want to talk to him any more than how much I did NOT want to.
"Don’t annoy me!" I groaned into the pillow.
"Who're you talking to?" he asked me.
"Leave!" I said looking up to face him.
"Priyanka, you look awful!"
"I'm not," I said, sitting up and placing the pillow on my lap, "in the mood for this in the middle of the night." I knew that I was being rude. But honestly, it wasn’t like he was going to ever like me more than the little ninthie girl even if I were nicer to him. He was way too occupied with Ashita.
"Okay; so what are you in the mood for?"
"Being alone?"
"Sorry, not on the menu."
"Go."
"That movie sucked - I heard."
"You're bad at jokes. Don't even try."
"Look who's talking."
"I can too tell jokes!" I got to my feet.
"No you can not!" Aman jumped off the window sill and took one step forward.
"I can too!"
"Can not!"
"Can too!"
"Can not!"
"Can too!"
"Can not!"
"Can too!"
"Go ahead then." he said folding his arms across his chest.
"Fine," I said, folding MY arms across my chest; "why did the chicken cross the road?"
Aman rolled his eyes.
"To get to the side Aman! There. That's a joke. Ha!"
"No Priyanka," Aman said holding my shoulders and giving me a little shake, "it was probably because you were trying to crack your dumb jokes on the side the chicken was standing earlier."
I glared at Aman for a moment. "Just leave."
Aman let go of my shoulders, turned around, and raised his arms into the air. "Dear lord!" he said dramatically, "The poor girl has lost sight of the light! Please show her the path to happiness!"
"Get," I pulled on Aman's jacket and pushed him out the window, "out."
Aman fell onto the long, soft grass outside, got up on his feet, and looked at me. "You EVIL child! You have attempted to murder!"
"Not yet, Aman. Not yet." And with that clarified, I shut the window, turned around and headed for my bed. "I hate him."
"I heard that!" Aman shouted from outside.
"Shut up!" I shouted back; smiling.
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Have you heard of déjà vu? It's like you have a feeling that something that is happening has happened before. But can you call having a feeling that something is GOING to happen déjà vu? Well, whether you can call it that or not; that was exactly what I was feeling at that time. I mean when I was sitting in the car on the way to salsa class. Somehow, I felt that something important or extraordinary was going to happen that day. And boy, had I been right or what.
I walked in as usual; expecting to see Ashita and Aman deep in conversation. I had always been late. And when I went in; I did see them talking. They waved at me and I joined in...If standing and watching the two talk about Uncle Sam from Kentucky was called joining in, that is.
As I was standing there getting bored; I looked around at the usual crowd. Kate with her usual flock of admirers; Harish and Manya, the newly married couple; Fatima, Neerul and Payal, the three girls from 1st year engineering who I talked to once in a while...and a random, strange looking teenager leaning against the wall alone with his hands dug deep in the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a shirt, with its first button open and sleeves rolled up. He had hair, slightly brownish, on the longish side. He had completely black eyes and he was WEARING GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RIMLESS GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He looked like Shahid Kapur from Jab We Met.
I always had this weird thing for glasses. And as a consequence, I kept staring at him.
"Hello?" some one tapped on my shoulder and woke me up from my fantasy. I turned around to see Aman look at me in a quizzical manner. "What are you looking at?" he asked me. I was way too dazed to reply. When I didn't answer, he followed my line of vision and saw him. I saw Aman raise his eyebrows; WAY up. "Who's he?"
I shrugged at him and said, "Do I look like I know?"
"He," Ashita said, "is new; I guess. But whatever it is, he's a bloody looker!"
You see? That was why I always liked Ashita. She actually agreed with me on most of the guy matters.
Aman shook his head disapprovingly. "THIS is what you girls keep talking about?"
Ashita shrugged and said "If guys can do it; why can't girls? Don't deny the fact that you guys check girls out too." Another proof of the fact that Ashita was really one of the rare intelligent seniors that we had. But I wasn’t listening to her. I was too busy looking at this new dude to hear how Aman replied. But I did understand that he said that at least guys did not do it in front of a girl.
Just then Benjamin came in and asked us to join our partners. Of course; I just stood where I was standing because I did not have a partner.
After everyone took their positions; by now we had positions - well everyone else did. Benjamin had not given me a position yet because I didn't have a partner and I could hardly do the steps properly with HIM; forget teaching me a few solo steps - if solo steps even existed, that is. All I knew was that I had not been given a position yet.
The new guy was still leaning against the wall. But now that I had been singled out; he was looking at me. Benjamin then told us that his nephew, David, was going to join us and that he was going to be my partner. There is no need for me to tell you that the new guy was David; or that Ashita was looking at me enviously and so was Aman, but I doubt that he was looking at me enviously.
Apparently, David had agreed to join in to fill in the place for my partner. We were going to have a show two weeks later and Benjamin did not want me to be 'left out'.
And so it came to be that my new partner was David, the "Super Hottie", according to Ashita.
Benjamin played the song and we started. And then I came to know that my new partner was a bloody great dancer. It turned out that he was a professional; and he had won about millions of competitions in all sorts of dances. And he was just three years older than me, which would make him about 17!
He took my hands in his, and literally guided me through the steps. He pulled me down in the dropping step and then placed his arm on my hip at exactly the right moment. Two things happened one after the other when he did that. One, my legs became limp and I almost melted in his arms; and two, Ashita tripped and fell onto the floor, taking Aman with her.
Benjamin stopped the music and everyone was looking at the two of them trying to get to their feet. Ashita started laughing; actually she had been laughing since she had fallen. As a result, everyone was laughing. Everyone except Aman, and me. I was too busy trying to help Ashita up and Aman was too busy apologizing for dropping her.
As I was pulling Ashita up, I think I stepped on her sleeve (which was long and flowy) and slipped. More laughter broke out from the crowd.
"Are you all right?" David asked me; lending me a hand.
I said that I was and took his hand as Aman helped Ashita up. I don't need to tell you how touching his hand felt like someone was sending electric shocks into my fingers; which was why I had almost blacked out when he had held me. And if it were not for Ashita's dramatic fall; I probably would have fainted for real.
While we were walking out; Aman had remained quiet for most of the time, smiling to himself. Which was really weird. Honestly, why would a normally talkative boy suddenly stop talking and start smiling to himself?
I was just getting into the car after Ashita; we always went back together; when David passed by. I noticed him and said bye. He waved at me and said "By the way, you're very good with your fall. I think we could practice the feet and the spin tomorrow? Before Benjy comes?"
I could not help but be amused at him calling Benjamin Benjy. "Benjy?"
He laughed back good naturedly and said "It's what my mother calls him. Annoys him a lot. So I call him that. You should see his reaction when I call him Benjy."
"Anyways, sure." I said, "Besides, it's not every day that you get to practice with a famous dancer."
"Aw come on!" But you could completely see that he liked being called famous.
Before I could say anything else, Aman knocked on the window. "Sorry to interrupt you, but we have to leave."
I said bye and sat in the car. And as soon as the car started pulling away, Ashita started telling me that I was the luckiest girl ever. Boy did she act blind well or what. I mean, MY first crush, EVER, was in love with HER; and I was lucky?
"He HAS got class though;" Aman commented. That was when I completely lost hope. I mean, you would expect a LITTLE jealousy? And apparently, even his knocking on the window and asking me to stop wasn’t done out of jealousy. His driver had to rush (we were using his car that day; the last day it had been my car). I know that because I asked him.
I know, I know; how desperate can I get?
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The next day, I went early; for the practice David had been talking about. I walked in to see David already there; leaning against the wall. I swear; my knees went weak. Oh yeah; alone with a cute boy. Finally.
I couldn’t believe my luck. Sometimes God was nice to me. Wow!
"Hi." I greeted him; all cheerfully. He smiled at me and nodded. Okay; I completely would have tripped and landed on my nose if I had not grabbed the door's handle in time.
"Ready to practice?" he asked me.
"I could never be more ready." I replied. I knew that it was lame of me to say that; but I forgot all about it when he said "Now this is what I like in you. Your spirit is superb."
I grinned back and said "Well you'll see a load of my spirit then." Which was equally lame. But honestly; my brain was hardly working at that point of time.
"That will just make me like you even more then."
I just blushed. I swear to God; I had never blushed before in my entire life. And now I was blushing!!!!!
But I was not just going to stand and let him watch me blush. So I waved it off saying "Can we dance now?"
"Sure," he said in this; there was no other word for it, so sorry; sexy tone. I blushed even more as he moved toward me...and then held me.
Okay, I felt like molten wax; there is no other way I can describe what I was feeling at that time. Because he just HELD me, and then swayed a little; and there I was, swaying with him like someone was molding me.
He held my hand up and started twirling me around. Then he stopped and pulled me toward him; I almost fell into him; but before that he twirled me around and I landed on him on my back. After that; we held hands and did the butt-shaking step. Till then I had sort of been in control of myself, at least a little. But at that point, when he suddenly slipped his arm around my waist and leaned forward, making me bend backward; slowly, very slowly; until his other hand, which I was still holding; outstretched my arm and then bent it to my back; I lost complete control of my senses. My other arm was just hanging in the air because, frankly, I hadn't the faintest idea of what he was doing. But I sure knew that it wasn’t salsa. Had he forgotten that we were supposed to be doing salsa and not some other sort of dance? Because it looked like he had suddenly switched to another style - it was too slow to be salsa.
He was swaying me and then holding me and swaying me. I could hardly breathe at that point thanks to him constantly touching me. Now that I think of it, it sort of freaks me out; thinking about how closely we were stuck to each other. And really; in a dance, the closer you get with your partner, the better. But we weren't even doing the dance we were supposed to.
That, of course did not occur to me at that time. I was just too stunned; and awed to an extent. Well, hello? You would be completely floored too if the guy you were dancing with danced so freaking well!
It was while he had completely wrapped me up with my face tilted up, only half an inch away from David's (a point at which I was sweating with nervousness - what sort of a dance was this anyway?); that the door opened and someone came in.
As soon as the door had opened I had turned my neck to see, of all people, Aman. When David noticed that I had turned my head around, he looked at who it was that I was staring at. When he saw Aman, he released me and said hi; all casually. I could not have opened my mouth for the love of me.
Aman nodded to David, turned to face me and then said "Hi Priyanka". But he did not say it as cheerfully as he normally did. I gulped, yes, I actually gulped; and then said "Hi."
There was an uneasy silence when I decided to break it. "So...Where's Ashita?"
"She must be on her way" That was all he said. So I tried to make some more conversation.
"We were practicing..." Okay, I know that it wasn’t exactly the best way of making conversation; but what was I supposed to do, huh? Too much pressure on a 14 year old; okay? Not to mention the utter embarrassment of it all.
He simply nodded back. "I saw you that day on the basketball ground. I didn't know you played - that too so well."
I was bluffing. I had just seen him leaving the basketball court. So I had no idea he even played.
He just nodded again and said "Yeah...I play a little…"
Thankfully Sushant, a fellow salsa mate, enters right then.
When class started that day, I was hardly paying attention. That was because I kept looking toward Ashita and Aman. Of course, as a result I ended up almost stepping on David's foot. Almost, because he was too good a dancer to have actually let me step on his foot.
Aman and Ashita danced really well that day, as usual; and seemed to be having fun, as usual again.
Period.
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That night, Aman didn't come. But I did get a phone call. And no, it wasn’t from Aman. It was from Manasi.
I took the cordless to my room and locked it. This was how the conversation went:
P-Priyanka; M-Manasi
P: Hi
M: What're you doing?
P: Nothing. Just lying down on the bed and staring at the fan. Oh, and talking to a nutcase.
M: Very funny. What happened to Sujhata's son? Didn't come tonight.
P: He normally comes at 12:00 in the night. It's just 11 right now. Even though I doubt he's going to come today.
M: Why?
P: I don't know...
I told her all about the dance with David and how half way through he switched to some other sort of a dance. I told her about how close we were standing and how I had completely lost control of my senses; which had been when Aman had come.
M: PK, you are the stupidest moron he met in my entire life.
P: Why? What did I do now?"
M: It is so obvious that he likes you. He got completely jealous when I'd saw you with another guy, that too such a good-looking one, according to you, anyway; why are you such a moron?
P: Manasi; get this straight. He likes Ashita. You should have seen him when he was with Ashita. He had this glow on his face every time he is with her. And besides; she is so much prettier than me. Why would anyone like an ugly toad like me?
M:
P: What do you mean?
M: Who, on earth told you that you were ugly?
P: Er, excuse me? But as surprising as it may seem to you, I happen to have a mirror. And besides, how many people have complemented you on how nice you look on Children’s' Day when you come in your fantastic clothes? Loads of them. But how many people complement me? None. Except, of course, for mom. But moms don’t count! Are you trying very hard to flatter me and failing miserably at it?
On Children’s' Day, we normally had a carnival at school and we were allowed to wear anything we liked.
M: PK, do you think that I have any sort of a reason to be flattering you? No one complements you because you have the dressing sense of a crow. You wear nothing except black. Which is good, but there are so many nice ways to wear black. And who said that looks even matter?
P: Of course looks don’t matter. Not when you're in dream land. But in real world, they so do.
M: Either way, PK; you are pretty and no matter what you say, it's going to remain that way.
P: Are you trying to force me into believing I am something that I am clearly not?
M: Take it that way if you like.
P: Whatever.
M: Actually, you know what? I'm coming over to your place tomorrow. You free?
P: Sure; but what happened?
M: Nothing. I just realized that you are a bloody dolt and you need my desperate help.
P: What?!
M: Bye PK...
And before I could say anything; she hung up on me.
I threw the phone onto my study table and switched off the lights, leaving the bed-side lamp on. I decided that I might as well read the chick-lit I had borrowed from Ashita.
At around 1:00am the phone rang. I ran to pick it up before anyone woke up in the house. The caller ID said that it was Suman. I pressed the 'Talk' button.
P: Suman?
S: Hi! Sorry to call you so late. But I just spoke to Manasi. She told me that you thought Aman would not come today because he got jealous over David. Is it true? Did he come or not? Oh my God, is he there right now?
P: He is not here. (I was literally hissing into the phone). And no he did NOT get jealous over David. God, where does Manasi get her ideas? In fact, he was pretty much enjoying himself with Ashita.
S: Well, I'm coming tomorrow too. I really need to have a good look at this boyfriend of yours.
I could not utter a word after that. Boyfriend? BOYFRIEND? This was going too far.
S: PK?
P: Suman, he is not my Boyfriend.
S: Well, he is going to be anyway.
I rolled my eyes. After stating that lie she hung up on me and then I flopped onto my bed. There had been too much of excitement that day for me to handle.
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The next day, Suman and Manasi arrived at around 10:30 am and as soon as they came; they dragged me into my room and messed up my entire closet. Manasi picked the most girlie top there was and Suman picked the smallest skirt she could find. Thankfully Manasi threw the skirt back into the cupboard when she heard that I had not touched that skirt since I was in the 5th standard and that I only used it at night even then.
They emptied the bag they had brought along with them and there was an avalanche of make up products right there in my room.
After that I just sat like a dumb doll while the two of the lunatics were giving me 'pedicures' and 'manicures' and 'facials' and new 'hairdos'. I swear, I had never heard of such funny words in my life.
I had let them do whatever they wanted...till they dug out the girliest and most 'in' outfit for me. And they found that in MY closet; and I had no idea these clothes even existed. It was fun watching the two idiots fuss over me with all the weird liquids they were carrying with them. But I was NOT going to wear hideous bitch clothes.
Ultimately, they forced me into it. Darn, I really needed to work my will power. What was worse, they intended to make me wear that to the salsa class that day. Yeah right. I was not going to wear those skin-tight blue jeans I remembered mom had bought me once, and that pink and grey stripped long dress-like top with a HUGE neck cut; I'm front of so many people. I mean, I could handle the bitch pants, but what was up with the extra bitchy top that the chicks the dudes dig, wear? Sadly, my own mother back-stabbed me and told them that they had done a good job. Oh boy...
What was even worse, they had even opened my shoulder-length hair and put on some kohl. I drew the line at lip gloss.
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Manasi and Suman accompanied me to class after which mom was going to drop them home. I was literally sweating when I entered the room. Aman was already there. Ashita had not arrived yet. I spotted David talking to Kate, and I thought better than to disturb them.
I walked to Aman, who was staring at me. Okay, it wasn’t like he was STARING at me like guys normally do in movies. He was just looking at me in a weird way.
"Hi," I said, not looking into his eyes. I was too embarrassed because of all of that eyeliner and those dumb girlie clothes.
"Hi," he said in this funny tone, "...What...what happened to you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I don’t know..." he said vaguely; "you look different. Did you get a nose job done or something?"
I laughed at that. "Oh God!" I said, "You think I got a NOSE JOB done? Where do you get your ideas?" suddenly I forgot the makeup and the clothes.
"Well, you DO look different…"
"Yeah..." I was reminded of it again. WHY???!!!! "My friends forced me into these clothes. How do I look though? Is it too awful? I never wanted to wear this stuff. It's way too girlie for me..."
I know, I was half asking him how I looked and half justifying myself.
"It is true," he said bringing his dramatic act on again, "that the fair lady looketh beautiful beyond words..."
"Really?!" I was a little more than taken aback by his words. Then he added, "...and it is also true that I am an established liar of sorts."
I punched him on his arm. "Ow!"
"How rude!" I said.
Ashita arrived a little while after that and then Benjamin came in. When David and I got to our positions, and after I said "Hi," all cheerfully; he said that I was looking good. I was surprised, pleasantly, I guessed; and thanked him. I then added that he always looked great so there was no point in me telling him that he looked good. He simply smiled, trying very hard not to look flattered; but it was easy to see right through it. Yeah, he loved it when people complemented him all right.
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I was lying awake in my bed, my lamp switched on; thinking of what colour I should pick for a monocolour painting that I was thinking of doing. It was around 11:15pm then. There was a sudden knock on the window. I almost fell off the bed.
"Aman?!" To say that I was shocked would be the understatement of the year. He NEVER came on a school night! What was wrong with him?
I opened the window and Aman jumped into the room. "Hi," he said. I looked at him like he was crazy because, well he WAS crazy.
"What are you doing here?"
He looked at ME like I was crazy. "Standing, evidently?"
I exhaled out loud to bring down my excitement. "I meant, it's a school night. You never come on a school night."
He looked at me suspiciously, "I don’t?"
I just blinked at him. "All right, if you really want me to leave..." he reached for the windowsill when I grabbed his arm."
"Oh God; seriously now!" I exclaimed.
He stopped and then said "Can I ask you something?"
"What?"
He looked into my eyes very seriously, took a step toward me, bent a little down so that his face was at level with mine, making my heart beat like it was a rocket; and said "Do you happen to have an extra pen?"
I looked back at him, my heart beating at its normal pace again. "You came here FOR A PEN?!?"
"Er yeah?" he said like it had been so bloody obvious all this time. But his stupid, goofy grin said otherwise. "Right." I said, heading toward my bag.
"I can't find my pen and all the shops are closed now; so I thought I'll get one from you." he explained to my back as I struggled to find my pencil box, cursing him. I finally found the dang thing, found an extra pen and threw it at him. Sadly, he caught it and said "Thanks! Whatever would I do without you?"
"Do you know that you're a pain?" I told him.
"Yeah..." he sighed, "a pain you are not going to get rid of very soon."
Yeah, I wished. Of course, I didn't say that out loud. All I said was "Now can I please get back to my bed?"
"You want me to tuck you in?" he mocked me. Okay, THIS was war. I picked up the nearest pillow and threw it at him. He blocked it and ran onto my bed. He had left his shoes on the floor. He then picked up another pillow and threw it on me. I caught that pillow and threw of back onto him. And then began The Pillow Fight.
At one point in the pillow fight, I sort of slipped on the carpet and almost fell onto the bed. Aman had been ready to attack me when I fell on top of him, bringing him down with me.
I landed on top of him and he was struggling under me. I placed both my palms on the floor and attempted to push myself up. Unfortunately, my hands slipped again and I fell bang on his chest, injuring my poor nose.
"Ow!" I screamed with pain. Aman was laughing. Moron! "What are you laughing at?" I grabbed the nearest pillow and hit him with it as he continued to roll with laughter.
I lifted the pillow high above his laughing face. But I couldn’t bring it down on him. That was because I had seen him laugh his head off right there; lying there under me. My heart got faster and faster and faster, louder and even louder than ever until it felt like an elephant sized fist was banging against my chest, as I stared at him, dazed. His smile was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and his laughter the most beautiful sound.
He suddenly stopped laughing when he noticed that I was staring at him. I came out of my daze, threw the pillow at him and jumped off him.
"Ow!" he was taken by surprise. I was standing now; I turned around, facing my back to him, and said "I think that I have pretty much established the fact that I can tuck myself into bed. Thank you. And so your assistance is no longer required." I sounded really calm, but I could hardly breathe.
I heard him get to his feet and climb out the window. "Thanks!" he shouted as he jogged away.
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The whole of next week, I tried my best to ignore him without making it obvious. Manasi was very pleased to know that Aman said that I looked nice. And Suman was pleased that he had not stopped taking to me 'out of jealousy'. Boy, were the two mistaken or what.
Of course, the two and their reactions only made things worse for me. Here I was, trying very hard to make myself stop liking him; and continuously STARING at him; and there two were going on about how he was so jealous of David.
God, when would they ever learn?
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Tuesday and Wednesday classes went on normally, and David was proving to be an excellent partner and Ashita was proving to be completely awed by him, but still not leaving Aman's side.
With only about three classes left for the show, we had to practice very hard. The show was going to be on Sunday; and all the relatives and friends of the participants were invited; and everyone wanted to do their best.
However, in all of this excitement, on Friday, Ashita did not come...and neither did David. Apparently, David was "busy with other responsibilities". Of course, I knew the REAL reason - I had heard him talking over the phone the other day. He kept saying "...On Friday honey...sure sweets...yeah baby...yes, I'll be there..."
You get what I mean.
Ashita's teacher was giving her a test on Organic Chemistry. And so she was busy studying at her place.
And so, due to the absence of our partners, Aman and I were forced to dance together.
He walked towards me, smiling. I smiled back at him. Thankfully, the excitement about his smile had worn out by then...or so I thought; and I was pretty much ALMOST unperturbed by the fact that I was going to dance with him.
We held each other’s hands. Sadly all of the wearing out his smile had undergone had been compensated by his touch. I had thought that David's hands were like shock treatments. If it was that, then Aman's hands were like ice. Heavily frozen ice straight from the Antarctic. It was not that they were cold. Oh no... FAR from that. They felt like ice because they sent shivers through my spine. And this time, I wasn’t imagining the shivers like the electric shocks. Oh no, I was ACTUALLY shivering. Thankfully; the music started playing before Aman could notice and we had to start dancing to the very fast music.
Aman was not as good a dancer as David, but somehow, it felt a lot...nicer...dancing with him. Because in between he would suddenly crack dumb jokes or make faces at Benjamin when he would tell us that we needed to do our steps a little more carefully. But when he made the faces, he did it in a nice way; not in an insulting way.
Then the beat went slower and we had to do the spinning and falling step...for which we had to stand REALLY REALLY close. My heart started banging against my chest again as he drew me closer and closer and closer. I was too dazed to be aware of what I was doing. Aman was doing all of it, I guess. I don’t know. I was just looking into his eyes, and he must have been looking into mine, because I could see his pupils and I was sort of lost in those pupils. But I was not so rudely interrupted when he lifted my hand into the air and spun me...and then I dropped into his other arm. I know that of sounds horribly cliché, but there you go; his arm felt like it was made to fit me into it.
Whoa! I had been Reading too much romance! It was either that or I was living a fantasy...a very very sweet one.
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That night Aman jumped into the room when I was Reading my most favourite chick lit. It was the part when the guy and the girl finally realize that they loved each other all along. He came in at exactly the part when the boy gifted the girl garlic flowers just because Dracula had been her favourite book of all time and she had never actually seen garlic flowers. He had sent a card along with the flowers saying 'I finally read that book of yours and I wish that you turn into a vampire.' The girl had been annoyed by this. But there had been another note attached to it that said 'If you turned into a vampire, I'd allow you to bite me just so we could be together forever. By the way, yeah; please look out the window.' And when she had looked out the window, she saw a giant sign that said 'I love you'.
Aman was not exactly very pleased by it when I told him though. "What was so great about garlic flowers?"
"Don’t you see?" I tried reasoning with him, "She had always wanted to see what they looked like..." when my attempts went completely futile, I said "God, you are so unromantic!"
"And how can you be so sure?"
I sighed. "What do you mean?"
He thought for a while and then said "You want to take a walk outside? We could pay a visit to the park?"
I decided that he had officially lost it. "Are you mad? What if my mom walks in?"
"It would be safer than her finding me here." he said, "Moms get a little weird when they find boys in their room."
"And you speak by experience?" I mocked him.
"No, just common sense."
I frowned. "Very funny Aman."
"Thank you, now can we go?"
"How can I trust you?" He just stared at me with a raised eyebrow.
"All right, all right; I'm coming. Just let me find my shoes."
Once I was done struggling with my shoes, the laces of which I had not bothered to open; we jumped out my window. I had made sure that the door was locked.
As we were walking on the quiet street, we hardly spoke. We just walked, enjoying the nice breeze.
As we approached the park, a small conversation started. We were just randomly taking about salsa classes and school when the conversation suddenly turned to David. By then we were in the park, sitting on my bench.
"You guys seem to have come really close..." Aman said. I got a weird feeling that he was not quiet liking what he was saying and it quiet excited me.
"Not too much I guess..." I replied vaguely.
"Not too much?" he looked incredulous, "You two seemed to be pretty close to me that day."
Was I fantasizing or did he actually sound jealous? "We were practicing..." I said, biting my lower lip, "even though, I really would not mind it if we actually got that close...he IS pretty good-looking..."
He looked thoughtful for a moment and then said "I think that he's a little too old for you."
"Really?" I was enjoying this, a lot, "and how old do you think is right for me?"
He looked really thoughtful; very very thoughtful, then looked straight onto my eyes and said "How old do YOU think he should be?"
I frowned a little in thought and then finally said "Ah, whatever. He's already got a girlfriend."
"Really?" he said looking (could it be?) a little relieved. I then told him about the phone call.
"What if he had not had a girlfriend?" Aman asked me, looking at my eyes again…
I smiled and looked back into his eyes. "Why are you so concerned?"
He didn't reply. He just kept looking into my eyes, and I kept staring into his. It was like time had suddenly stopped and there was nothing else on this earth except for his eyes, staring into the depths of mine. And like his eyes were magnets, pulling me towards them, or a black hole. I don’t know how real it was, but somehow, I think our faces were getting closer and closer and closer... when there was a loud beeping noise. I jerked my head away instantly. The noise had come from my digital watch indicating that an hour had gone by. I checked it, according to my watch it was 1:00am.
"I-I think I should up back...it's too late to be outside" I was stammering. Exactly what I needed at that time, NOT.
"Er, yeah; I'll walk with you..."
I let him walk with me and said goodbye to him at my window.
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The next day, I was sitting at my desk trying very hard to solve a math problem and failing miserably. That was exactly what I was going to do on Monday, when Sujhata, Satan herself, I decided; was giving us a test. If it was just another one of her useless tests, I would not have bothered. But oh no, if I flopped this one, I was going to stay back every single freaking day! My God! And to think Aman was HER son!
It was around 2:00 pm when mom came into my room with a confused expression on her face. "Do you know anyone called Aman?” I noticed that she was holding the cordless phone. I felt the blood leave my face...had he actually CALLED? I did remember giving him the number...
"Er, yeah...he goes to my salsa classes," I replied, "he's Ashita's partner. Remember? He's my math teacher's son?"
My mother, after hearing this just threw the phone at me and walked away muttering something about how I got more calls in the house than my dad, who got a hell lot of calls, by the way.
P: Hello?
A: Priyanka?
P: Aman? Hi.
A: Hey! What're you up to?
P: Nothing, just struggling with math. Again.
A: Want me to help?
P: And how do you think you're going to do that?
How was it that, every time, I sounded completely cool when I was completely not and possibly having a heart attack out of hypertension?
A: I could come over if you want.
P: THROUGH THE WINDOW??!
Trust me, I was way more scandalized than I sounded, and I sounded VERY scandalized.
A: Of course not! I'll come through the door. Just tell me your house number.
P: Er; number 24.
I had not been too sure that I wanted to give him the number or that I wanted him to come. But I thought it would be completely rude to be all "I don’t want you to come!"
Then there was this part of me that was going YAY! AMAN'S COMING!
Yeah...........I am really pathetic.
The door bell rang around fifteen minutes after that. Thankfully I had told mom why he was coming home or mom would have completely thought that we were going out or something. Moms are blind really, which is why she would have never figured how ugly I was and how Aman would never ask someone like ME out. He was just helping because his mom was my teacher and he probably wanted to help her out or something.
But whatever it was, I could not help but be reminded of Michael and Mia..................Could it really be? I mean, could he really like me? As in, LIKE like me?
No way! Not happening on THIS planet.
I went and opened the door and stopped breathing. OH MAN! I had so completely LOST IT!
There he was standing looking so tall and nice and so, so freaking good-looking. No wonder I had stopped breathing.
Sigh...
Sadly, my staring at him had to stop and we had to head to my room to study math.
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I could not sleep all night. And thus time, it wasn’t even because of Aman. I had had a fun time with him. And we actually finished the freaking chapter! Can you BELIEVE that?
After that, we left for salsa class together.
Why I could not sleep all night was because that day, it was the last class. On Sunday, we had the show. And I was sweating with nervousness, and the ac was on full speed!
But the amount of nervousness I had been having in the night was nothing compared to what I was going through backstage right before the shoe. EVERYONE was there. Mom, Dad, Suman, Manasi, SUJHATA, Ashita's parents, and even my uncle from New York.
I was biting my nails and Aman, Ashita and David were trying their best to keep ME calm.
"But what if I suddenly fall?" I asked, biting deeper into my nails.
David grabbed my bare shoulders in frustration. I was wearing a black sleeveless dress like the other girls. "You don’t have to worry about THAT Priyanka," David said, "I'll handle that."
"Priyanka, you'll do fine yourself." Aman said, eyeing David's hand on my shoulder. That sort of made me feel happy, but not enough to forget my nervousness.
But somehow, somewhere I felt that things would go perfectly. Just like in Princess Diaries. Because, this was a dance. And I was there. And Aman was there. And he looked great. And the stage was waiting for us. And Benjamin was announcing us. And we were going to go on stage. And I and David were right in front. And the whole crowd was there. And the whole crowd was going to see me. And suddenly the feeling that everything was going to be fine vanished.
WHY DID BENJAMIN HAVE TO PUT ME RIGHT IN FRONT??!!!
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The show went GREAT. Manasi and Suman thought that I looked the best of all the girls, they were just being nice, and they thought that David was the handsomest. Which basically implied that we made the best pair, and danced the best thanks to David. After us, Ashita and Aman were the best. I thought they were THE best, but everyone else thought that I and David were better. Oh well, they could have all just been trying to be nice to me.
Whatever it was, it was the best night EVER!
I was standing there, surrounded by mom, dad, Manasi, Suman and my uncle who was saying something about how I should go and live with him. But the person I was looking for was nowhere to be seen. I excused myself and went to look for Aman.
If this really was the Mia moment, then it had to have Aman in it. Because, Michael tells Mia that he loves her and had always loved her from the beginning at the dance at their school.
And after that they kiss. I normally don’t like the kissing parts in books, but this was one of the rare ones that I kept and kept Reading; again, and again.
And I was well... You know....hoping....you get my point don’t you?
I found Aman in the green room..............and it really, REALLY was the true Mia moment. But not for me. It was the perfect Mia moment for Ashita. And this time, I was not assuming.
I always had this weird déjà vu thing. And this time, I was not too happy about it. Because this time, my déjà vu was coming true much too accurately.
I had been right; the two of them had the best friends falling in love thing going for them. And I guess that my first thought had been right all along. Ashita was his girlfriend. The one he had been talking about.
Either they had always been going out from the beginning or he had just proposed to her and I had just missed it.
Because this was no proposal. Oh no it wasn’t. It was a kiss; a full blown kiss.
Just like Mia and Michael...
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