The Downsides Of Popularity ✓

Chapter 19

SHUTTING THE DOOR.

'Shweta!'

I'm awoken from the trance I had lost myself in.

'Yeah, what?' I ask and look up at Sreyansh towering over me, his hand on my shoulder. He was probably trying to shake me out of it. Whatever "it" was.

Srey sits down on the chair, on my left and stretches his arm to hold my hand. I rotate my body so that I'm facing him. There's concern etched on his face.

'It's probably a bluff,' Sreyansh says, 'She's jealous of seeing both of you happy so she's making stuff up to cause a rift between you two.'

'Happy? Do I look happy? It's hell. This is h-hell,' my voice breaks.

'You look happy when you're with him...'

'Yeah, maybe,' I say, wiping a tear that streaks down my cheek, 'It feels like a fairytale at times when he's holding my hand or we're sharing a hug but I'm always thinking of her...'

'Kriti?'

'Yeah. It's like she haunts every moment I spend with Utkarsh 'cause he never told me, clearly that he was in a relationship or whether he was really in love with her or not and that haunts me,' I feel like I let off a burden of my mind when I say it out loud.

The things I say don't make any sense and I don't know how much of it Sreyansh can comprehend.

'I understand,' he responds and gently rubs his index finger in circles over the back of my hand, to soothe me.

'Now what do we do?' I ask because our plan "Sabotage Kriti" was a complete flop.

'We have to figure out something else,' he replies and I sigh. It's been exactly 15 days since I made that wish turning my whole life upside down and I still can't figure a way out of this.

'Tell me again about what the witch said. There has to be some loophole in this,' Sreyansh asks and I repeat all the bits and pieces I remember Ms Walker telling me.

I hear footsteps echo in the corridor and turn around to find Utkarsh standing at the threshold of the door.

'What're you doing here?' I ask.

'He's the questions that needed solving?' he retorts. I immediately pull my hand out of Srey's grasp and stand up.

'Excuse me? He's my friend and-'

'You're clearly in love with him,' Utkarsh cuts in like he knows me better than I do. But the truth is, he doesn't know me at all as he never cares to ask anything about me. Bitterness is present, as clear as day on his face.

'You've clearly not moved on from your ex-girlfriend,' I say and before Utkarsh could say a word, I hold up my hand and resume 'cause this has gone long enough as it is.

'You still talk to her, share each and every detail about us with her. And you still have the audacity to tell me that I'm in love with someone else? For what? So you can- you can break up with me and put all the blame on ME?'

'Why would I want to break up with you?'

'Cause Kriti told me ABOUT IT!'

In my peripheral vision, I notice Sreyansh step away, trying to be out of this scene but he can't walk out of the classroom because Utkarsh is still standing at the door.

So instead, I walk out into the corridor and Utkarsh takes a step back from the door on seeing me enraged.

Rage. Frustration. Betrayal.

It's all I can feel right now. It's all I don't want to feel right now. That's when I notice Meera standing a few feet away from us.

'Hey, we were looking for you because Utkarsh told me you went to class to finish English homework,' Meera says and becomes tense on reading the anger on my face.

I hear the bell ring, signalling the end of lunch break. There are faint noises of several footsteps ascending the stairs that resonate in the hallway when Utkarsh calls my name, softer, 'Shweta...'

I turn around to face him, 'You were looking for me? Why? 'Cause you forgot to say your break-up lines after buying me a chocolate pastry from the canteen?'

My eyes start to burn from the tears that form over them, my vision blurs preventing me from seeing his face when he says, 'No. I wasn't looking for you because I wanted to break up with you.'

'Yeah, I did tell Kriti about thinking of ending it 'cause I thought I was exhausting you, somehow and irritating you by not being able to talk about stuff-'

'Gosh, just say it already. You don't have to give me an explanation for why you wanna end this. I already know.'

'What- Why don't you have any self-confidence? You always keep thinking I want to break up with you,' Utkarsh says in a higher tone which only infuriates me further.

'Self-confidence? Oh, I'm sorry for not having any confidence in myself . I can never be as popular as you people are. You probably wouldn't even notice me if I weren't FAMOUS,' the words come out of my mouth like reckless arrows.

I look around to see a bunch of stupid kids enjoying the free show they're getting to witness in the hallway, today.

'I'm done,' I state and pace down the corridor to the opposite set of stairs. I hear Meera and perhaps, Sreyansh call after me but I just rush down the stairs to the ground floor.

I bump into Ankita on my way to the washroom, who probably asks me what happened but I can't even hear her voice properly.

It's like all my senses just go, numb.

As soon as I reach the girl's lavatory, I walk into a cubicle and shut the door.

***

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