Another Typical Teenage Love Story Pt. I

Episode 9 - PAUSE. REWIND. FAST FORWARD.

"The finale", Aaryan starts with a mellow tone.

"Well, at least for this part of the journey", Disha adds as she looks at Aaryan and then back into the camera screen.

"I think we should just give this to them as it is", Anya continues as she takes over the narration.

-x- Anya -x-

You see, there were a lot of things about Aaryan that annoyed me. But that's it, they just annoyed me. Not once, had anything angered me, or made me upset. But this. This was upsetting. It was really upsetting. At that moment, I started to question how much Aaryan actually cared about me. I had all the right to do so. He knew what I had gone through. In fact, he was the only person until Disha who actually knew what I felt. I had let myself be vulnerable in front of him. And he betrayed me. That's what I thought.

He betrayed me.

Agreed, this competition needed a person for the Sports Segment. But he could have thought about it a little more. He could have asked for some extra time from Mr. Braganza to actually discuss this decision. I started to wonder, "Did he for once think about whatever I had told him about me? Did he really not care about that?"

I couldn't sleep that night.

The next morning, I took the early morning shuttle to the university instead of the Mustang.

He was already at the lab. I knew he had to spend his night there.

"Anya!", he called out as he saw me, "You're early. You could've told me, I could've brought the Mustang around", he smiled.

The audacity of that smile irritated me. I wanted to scream my heart out. I wanted to yell at him at how he could do such a thing.

"I won't be requiring the Mustang anymore, thank you. Can we get back to the Artificial Neurology project", I replied in the coldest tone possible.

"Oh, come on Anya", he said, "I'm really sorry. I didn't have a choice"

'YES, YOU DID. YOU SO DID!', I thought.

"Can we please focus on the project", I shifted away from him and set my bag aside as I removed my laptop.

Aaryan knew not to mess with me when I was mad. He knew I wasn't in the mood to talk.

"Umm. Okay. I have finished the final update to the code, the only thing left now is to validate all the action sequences as planned. Also, I have planned how we could go about our presentation..."

"No need for that, I'm redrafting it", I interrupted.

"But could you at least give it a look? It's really good..."

"I'm aware of what's good and what's not. You don't get to do all the work for this. THIS IS MY PROJECT, don't forget. You're supposed to be assisting me here, not taking over!", I yelled.

Aaryan's smile vanished, his body became stiff. His eyes stared into mine. He was hurt by those words. But he flickered.

"Uh yeah sure. This is your project. How could I forget?" he laughed nervously as he scratched the back of his head. He was really hurt. "Uh, let me know what you think of the final update. I thought that it was efficient for the robot, but as you said, this is your decision to make. Not mine. I could probably email it to you. I could also email you the Graphic User Interface, you could let me know if any changes are required"

"Yes, that would be good", I replied coldly as I stared into my laptop screen.

Aaryan smiled and continued to scratch the back of his head. That was pain, I knew it.