My Ex - Crush

Episode 5

Deepika's POV:

“Shall we start?” I asked Meera, looking around at the small group of friends who had gathered.

We were sitting at the college canteen since the classrooms were locked on Saturdays. Lavanya, Sanjay, and Manoj had already arrived, and Sanjay was waiting for another friend who said he’d be coming.

“Maths internals are on Monday, right?” Lavanya asked, scrolling through her notes.

“Yeah,” I replied, mentally going over the topics I’d prepared.

“Here they are! Sorry to keep you guys waiting,” Sanjay said, waving toward Arjun and Vinoth as they approached.

I turned to see Arjun and Vinoth heading toward us, waving casually. But why was Arjun here? He was usually good at Math. This wasn’t like him.

They joined us, and we all settled down. “Alright, shall we begin?” I asked, taking charge of the session.

“Yeah,” everyone nodded.

I started with the first topic: trigonometry. I walked them through some of the key problems our teacher had emphasized in class, breaking them down step by step. To make it easier, I showed them my own shortcuts for the more difficult questions. Some of them jotted down notes while others listened intently.

Arjun, however, seemed lost in thought, giving me a confused look as I worked through the steps.

“Arjun, is something wrong?” I asked, pausing.

“No, nothing. It’s just... this step could be skipped, don’t you think?” he replied, pointing at my notes.

I raised an eyebrow. “We need that step for accuracy.”

“Yeah, but there’s a quicker way to get to the answer,” he said confidently.

Curious, I handed him my notebook and gestured for him to show me his method. He worked through the problem in his own way, and I watched closely. I didn’t have anything against Arjun personally, but when someone questioned my methods, it rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was my ego, but I liked being thorough.

“This is right,” I conceded, “but it won’t work if the question includes negative values.”

Arjun shrugged. “Sure, but none of the problems we’ve been taught in class involve negatives.”

“True, but I’ve checked past question papers. There’s always a chance they’ll throw in a negative value,” I said firmly. I didn’t just make things up when I taught others. I’d done my research.

“I doubt it,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “I really don’t think that’ll happen.”

Vinoth jumped in, “Yeah, most of the questions are based on what we learned in class. We just need the easiest method to pass, that’s it.”

Sanjay nodded in agreement, clearly siding with them.

I decided not to argue further. “Well, I’ll leave it to you guys. Whoever wants to follow their own method can do so.”

I moved on, covering the other topics with the group, and Arjun kept quiet for the rest of the session. After we finished discussing everything, we had lunch at the canteen and started to leave.

As we headed out, Arjun caught up to me. “Hey, Deepika, are you going to the bus stop?”

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at him.

“Let’s go together,” he offered.

I hesitated, remembering what had happened the day before. “Don’t you have Vinoth? He’ll drop you off, right? Maybe this way I won’t get left alone halfway like last time,” I said sharply, walking ahead without looking back.