Can I drop you somewhere?

CHAPTER 15

2 YEARS LATER

"Excuse me" I finally said.

"Yes?" A girl answered. All I could see was her tattoos and piercings and I wasn't hoping that she'll help.

"Uh... actually..." it was a simple thing to say but I was stuttering! Poor interactive skills you know, Right? And this girl wasn't a person who'd listen to me.

"Oh, God! Just speak." She said.

"My locker number is '612' and it's not opening from the number code," I said at last.

"So?" She said looking at her phone. Well, she looks dumber than me and that escalated my self-esteem.

"So can you please check whether the code is correct?" I tried being polite.

"Huh" she gave a weird look and took out a file to check. No wonder she 'Huh-s' everyone who's better than her. Wait, am I being judgmental?

"The locker doesn't belong to you. It's registered for, uh... yeah, it's registered for Pranay" she said after looking at the file closely.

"What?" I said as I was listening to this name after a long time and didn't realize that my voice rose.

"Keep it low you freak! Or deaf I must say" she said.

"May I know the last name of this guy?" I said trying to look calm though my heart was throbbing. 

"It's just Pranay written over here. Now take the code for another locker and get your stupid ass moving" she said and passed me the code for locker number '613'.

I didn't want a locker next to a guy named Pranay. Maybe he was the Pranay I know. If that's the case, I'm leaving this college right now.

"C'mon! There ain't just one Pranay in this whole damn world" I said to myself as I reached my flat.

You must be wondering what happened to all clutter I got into and also dragged Pranay and Reyansh in it.

Well, what do you think huh! My life is just as miserable as it was.

I somehow managed to get out of that school where people talked behind my back, out of my home where I wasn't allowed to go out with a boy, out of that stupid city which didn't have one good college and out of everyone's life though I made their life worse so whatever and now I have my freedom with me which is the best thing that happened in these years.

And here I am, persuing my BA degree in St. Xavier's, Mumbai.

Fascinating, isn't it?

No, it's not! And you'll get to know why college sucks more than school does when you get there. Okay, not to everyone, but unfortunate people like me. I'm hoping to make some friends though (just girls). 

But girls like the tattoo girl whom I just met and who forced me to go two years back and recall all this, are just not my type.

Speaking of friends, Seher is still in touch, though we don't talk that often and our bond isn't that strong anymore but at least we talk. The distance can ruin every relation if you're not strong enough to deal with it. And apparently, I'm not!

I hope she found a boyfriend and if not, I bet she'll probably end up becoming a priestess or something. It seems that she's still obsessed with some celebrity crush as she used to be! Most girls do that and even I wanted to, but hey! I've got real-life boys to get obsessed with though I must say celebrity crushes are better coz you know? They don't mess with your life.

Sometimes being teenagers, we are wrong at our judgements and the irony is I'M SAYING THIS! Coz I've been making the wrong judgements all my life.

But I'm saying this coz Reyansh wasn't the person I thought he was. I mean HE WAS WAY BETTER. 

I mean girls, how would you feel if you come to know that a boy loved you for so long even when you didn't use to talk to him? Special right? I also did. Though I was dating Pranay and it was clearly not a good decision to be friends with Reyansh. But these kinda things melt our hearts real quick huh!

But we were actually just friends before my breakup. Reyansh never even talked about being anything more than that and we had a hell lot of fun hanging out together.

But boyfriends! You can write a letter to them from your blood claiming that 'He's just my friend' but they won't accept it. You know, they have a typical mindset that if your boy best friend is single, he's into you. That happens in most of the cases but not every time!

Yes, he liked me but for that period I can totally agree that we were nothing but friends.

'Why the hell am I justifying so much?' I said to myself. 

And boys, how would you feel when the girl whom you loved so much becomes single again? You know it better than I do.

So Reyansh also felt like this and that was the only reason we came close but then I realized that I am destroying both of our lives. I mean I could never feel for Reyansh the way I did for Pranay.

Eventually, we ended up being friends again which was a good thing at last! And he moved on and now he's dating someone else.

I don't like dwelling on my past, not because I broke up with the person who was so special to me but because I made so many terrible mistakes, realized them and did nothing to rectify them and that's the worst part.

Pranay really was a good guy and he did everything he could to make me happy. And I was the one who messed up things. I don't exactly know whether I still love him or not but one thing that I'm certain about is that I can't face him anymore. And that's the reason I don't want him to be in this college.

Maybe he still hates me.

Because you know, the heart heals but the scars are always left.  

...

My heartbeats were gradually escalating as I was walking through the corridor. Because it's not every day that you expect your Ex-Boyfriend being in the same college as you.

 I was purposely wearing a hoodie and I made a bun out of hair and of course, I had my specs on so that even if he's there he won't recognize me. 

Though a part of me wanted to see him again. I mean just imagine, we would have lived together without any restrictions and cook, eat, study, and do stuff together (not what you're thinking). 

Now read the word Imagine again. 

After so much of overthinking, continuously looking around for him, bumping into people, acting weird and adrenaline flowing through my body, I finally reached my locker. 

I entered the code and pulled the knob but it didn't open. I tried again and still, it didn't. I tried again and again and at last, I punched the locker. I know it is a lame thing to do because it still won't open right! It did help in grabbing attention and now people were staring at me and I started cursing this damn locker and the tattoo girl who again gave the wrong code. 

I decided to try one last time and started entering the number code again when I heard a voice from behind, a familiar one. 

 "What the heck are you doing girl!"