Agent 024

I'M OTHERWISE PERFECT

The disguise was the last of our exams or so we'd thought. It wasn't until the Thursday of next week that we received a notice of making it to the assembly ground in an hour. The perks of living on campus.

"Congratulations cadets, you are close to completing your first year. I'm glad that most of you made it this far. We are now left with the last leg of your first year."

"We were almost done.", I whine to Priya.

"I can't believe we made it this far. It honestly feels like a dream.", she says.

"A beautiful dream.", Prakhar says as he wraps his arm around Priya's shoulder and kisses her on her head.

I look around at my class. In these 12 months, I had gone from struggling to remember their names to finding my family among them. This place was home to me, and these people, family. For a lot of people, this Academy was an escape, a new shot at life, a chance to set everything right, to make a family they never had, to find friends in a place they finally fit in. And as I looked at faces around me, I'm glad we all had found our safe place here among our people.

"Now as my own son tells me, this is the damnest of all exercises, his words, not mine.", the Director of the Academy continues and we hear a murmur of laughs from where Abhay's class stood.

"But it's a rite of passage all our first years go through. It's what makes you a part of the Academy. So here's your task - find out your greatest weakness, give me examples, go deep, find out its roots and bare your heart to the entire Academy in 60 minutes from now. We'll be choosing cadets at random so I hope you're ready exactly at 4 pm."

"This is fun.", I muttered as a cold wind passes over me.

"What are you going to say?", Aradhya asks me.

"I don't know.", I say, "probably that I'm always late."

"Seriously, the guy said bare your heart out and you're going to be like, I don't like leaving my bed early morning, that's it, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming to my ted talk.", Roger says in a voice mimicking me.

"I'm otherwise perfect.", I laugh.

All around me, my classmates go about and find places to sit on their own and think. I follow the cue and walk towards the campus pond that's around five minutes from us. There's something about water that calms me. It's hard to describe but if I lived in Greek mythology, I'm pretty sure I'd be related to Poseidon and then it would all make sense. 

I end up finding a twig and forming circles with it in the sand. Recently, I had thrown myself into preparing for exams, and thinking about life, about myself wasn't something I had done in a while. It felt different, oddly strange as if something had changed in these past months and somewhere along I had taken a detour and continued on it so far ahead I didn't relate to the girl I was before the Academy. And I was still to decide if it was a good or a bad thing.

With my feet dipped in the pond, I thought about the past weeks. I relaxed on my arms as the setting sun bathed my face and I let out a deep breath.

Before I knew it, 60 minutes had passed and I had nothing prepared to speak about. I'd probably go with the I'm-never-punctual lead; it was true anyway. As I was walking back, I saw that all the students had already gathered and I jogged the last few metres to make it just as the Director reclaimed his place.

And then it struck me. As I stood in this assembly of students that widely resembled my school assemblies, I realised the blunder I had made. I had forgotten the birthday of my best friend. And at this point, I wasn't scared of a hundred intruders, I'd take all of them on single-handedly but I was afraid of angering Snigdha - that road I would never travel down on. I had promised my friends that no matter what I'd be there. Your best friend turns 18 only once in her entire life and I wouldn't miss it for the world. I felt like I was losing connection to my people back home, no thanks to my over-the-top schedule the past few months and  I was determined to make things right before I completely lost that connection.