With Mangoes And Chocolates | ✓

23. Labyrinth.

I was freaking out. Usually, I wasn't the one to panic. I got sad a lot, sometimes anxious, crying a bucket, but that was that.

The Manasvi Mehta in the mirror stared back at me with a huge question mark. Girls' washroom was the worst place in the whole goddamn school. The only time I liked in here was when I was left alone in silence and solitude. I couldn't understand those who liked walking into this place in a pack.

When I sauntered my way out, the tension in the air began prickling my skin. Boards. First paper. Invigilators. Index number. Unique ID. English Language. Essays, notice, letters, prepositions. All a mess.

I stood on the way to the classroom, searching for Bhavuk. He was somewhere there, surrounded by the crowd, with dozens of books opened on his table. Sample essays, grammar, PYQs, and whatnot. I guessed that removing certain distractions from his life really helped him.

I lowered my eyelashes and picked up my notes kept over the first seat, going through the long vocabulary list I'd prepared.

Ishita wasn't as anxious, because apparently English wasn't the kind of subject which required constant revision. She was busy playing tic-tac-toe with some girls so I looked out for Vihaan instead.

It did not help because a bunch of boys encircled him too. I found myself lost among the fifteen year olds mob, struggling to keep calm and not die out of another anxiety attack.

The paper wasn't hard, it was okay-ish, but I sucked at it. I knew there were a lot of myths already flying about me in the corridors, that I excelled at the language and loved studying literature just because I loved reading books. People forgot that reading books wasn't learning 'keywords' and 'specific details' and vomiting it out on some paper, like literature exams. Reading meant analysing and forming opinions, learning and knowing, which was what I'd always preferred.

Vihaan was my own, personal ray of comfort during this depressing session. He was so easy-going, optimistic; something impossible for me to be. He was there for me when I fucked up Mathematics. I'd cried in front of him for a whopping fifteen minutes; taking full advantage of his niceness.

I stood beside him, repeatedly going through the Biology paper in my hand. "This one? Option A? How many chromosomes in each sperm. . .gorilla. . ."
"Twenty-four, Manasvi. You know the answer."
"Yeah, I'm just. . .can't afford losing one mark."

As I shoved the set of papers in my bag, my eyes fell on Bhavuk, ten meters (miles) away from me. I watched him scan the plane I was standing in, and completely overlook my existence. My throat wrenched with a familiar feeling. I blinked rapidly a few times, trying to ease off the heat crawling up to the back of my eyes. 

"He doesn't even look at me anymore." I muttered and bit my lip to keep myself from sobbing.

Vihaan didn't comment, which was understood. He had nothing to do with what happened between me and Bhavuk. He got involved somehow, and the reason I even stood beside him right now was because he was generous enough to not to leave me alone amidst everything.

Perhaps I hadn't said anything yet, but I knew how the situation impacted him. The expressions of guilt in his face were so clear; he still thought that he was the reason of my despair. I wished he knew that he was the right guy who entered in my life at the wrong time. It wasn't his fault. We were supposed to break up with or without his presence.

Biology was fine, but I still found myself losing two marks. I hated how I was still not prepared enough to score a full hundred in any of the subject. I hoped that Bhavuk would. I'd be happy with good grades but I'd be celebrating if he scored the best there was.

On a side note, I'd started to witness Nitya Arora a lot more. Most of the time, she appeared like she'd been weeping for hours. Kartik stood beside her, sometimes with Arav and Bhavuk too. I remembered him mentioning something about her mother having medical complications and that she wouldn't survive long enough, which made me wonder if her mother had died or was about to. I didn't know how she was handling all of it. If I knew my mother was about to die, I wouldn't have been able to write one word in the answer sheet.