To be with you.

Existential crisis.

When I came back to my room that night, I was hit with mixed feelings. I didn't know if I wanted to be happy for conquering my fears and getting rid of my phobia or if I wanted to be sad because everything I felt for the past week was just momentary. My heart already yearned to just rewind and go back to the start of that week. When I realized that all those times I spent laughing with them won't come back, it pained me and mostly I was sad because I knew I won't be able to do it again. I went to bed that night consoling myself to forget all about it thinking that it was just one long beautiful dream. A lamb can never be with a lion pride. It is what it is.

But thankfully, the coming week kept me busy with my pre-final exam for that semester. It was hard for me to start my preparation after I was done with the dance competition but I did my best. I worked my ass off that, nothing came to my mind than just passing that exam... not even my boyfriend. Sorry, my ex-boyfriend. He was a problem that I would like to deal with for another day, maybe even another life.

I saw my dance partner and his friends here and there inside the campus while I was off to the library or the exam hall. But all of us behaved just like we talked... as strangers. I tried not to let it bother me as much but it still sucked and I wanted to throw a fit and yell at Aryan for what he said and how he hurt me. Those harsh words were etched in my mind which made it hard for me to forget and forgive.

Sometimes, Ruby smiled and tried to start a conversation just like she used to with me. I couldn't completely ignore her but I tried not to lengthen my time with her as before. I was upset with her as well. She did nothing listening to Aryan while he threw those spiteful words towards me as if she was agreeing with everything he said.

Days went by monotonously. I felt like a little girl who came home after having the day of her life at the carnival. It was hard but slowly I went back to my routine which was filled with Lectures, projects, homework, quizzes, and my friends Nyra and Simon.

Sometimes after a couple of weeks, our results for the pre-finals were out. They were posted on the notice board in front of the dean's office. Everyone including my friends rushed to know their marks but I didn't bother much. I knew my marks wouldn't be that great and I wasn't in a rush to ruin my mood with it for the day. So I decided to go check it out later, once I finished that day's reading.

The day was over and I saw people getting ready to go home when I finally came out of the library. I walked towards the dean's office to get my scores. Unfortunately, the hall wasn't empty as I expected. They must have also posted my senior's scores that day and the hall was filled with them.

Cursing my luck, I navigated through certain groups of my seniors to reach my destination.

"Look who is here," I heard a high-pitched female voice making me grimace, alerting her friends about my arrival.

I guess I ran out of my luck for that day. I cautiously walked behind her back to avoid her but somehow she saw me. Elena was the pawn of the devil himself who personally came to earth to make my life miserable. But I tried so hard to escape from her that day. I didn't want to spoil my mood any more than already it was.

When I ignored her and tried to walk past her, I saw Aryan and his friends a little further from where I was standing, watching my little exchange with his classmates. 'Fucking great!'

Elena was Aryan's classmate. She used to walk around the campus claiming that Aryan was her guy as if he was some property but in truth, he never even looked in her direction. Her focus fell on me when she saw Aryan talking to me on the day he asked me to be his dance partner. From that day, she and her friends made it their life goal to make my life miserable.

They followed me everywhere I went, throwing spiteful words towards me, mocking me, spilling her drinks on me, stealing and hiding my book and notes, making me run searching for it like a maniac, she did everything in her ability to make me suffer. And it only got worse when she learned that I was Aryan's dance partner and I was actually practicing at his house.