Invisible Strings

1. Shivaya

Someone wise once said that, "Every beautiful thing has a time limit". Who's that wise person? I don't know. But I am wise so I count. 

Today is the last day of 12 years of torture, hard work, tears, joy, fun and happiness. It will be the last time we see the teachers who scold us, punish us, taunt us but still love us, care for us and want nothing more than to see us succeed. Today might also be the last day I see all my classmates together. These people who behave like they have never seen food in their life during lunch period, who will tease you endlessly and the ones who I grew up with. I fear that all the promises of keeping in touch might fade in this endless marathon of life and we might not see each other again.

But hey, enough with emotional stuff, it's our farewell. Me and my friends have been talking endlessly about it since last year. We have spent more time on deciding the colour of our sarees than studying, but it was worth the results. We are all wearing yellow sarees and we asked the guys to wear green colour outfit. I can't wait to see Ahaa-everyone. I am not going to think about him, he has a girlfriend. I remind myself but these reminders never work.

I have had a crush on him since the time I know what crushes are, long before he had any girlfriend, maybe since sixth. We have been classmates since nursery. Although we were never friends but we had the same friend group. We never talked unless it was necessary, except for the one time when all our friends were absent in class ninth and he came and sat next to me and we talked all day. But the next day we went back to how we were. Correction, he went back to not talking to me and I went back to admiring him from far.

I shake my head and bring myself back from his thoughts when me and my girls get off the rickshaw. Isha comes to me and links my arms with her, Vasuhki does the same with Aditi.

"Do you think they put good efforts in the farewell.", Isha says looking around.

"Knowing our school I would say no. But maybe Principal sir had a change of heart or a heart attack and they actually put some efforts into it.", Aditi says

"That is assuming he has a heart.", I comment.

"Well, whatever it is atleast we would have fun seeing the juniors making an arse of themselves.", Vashuki interjected and we all entered the school laughing.

"Wow, this is good!"

It was indeed god. Our school for the first time had put efforts in something other than scolding us. We were all awestruck as we looked around at the decorations. They were beautiful. I wanted to cry but didn't because of the people around me.

We all noticed the guys sitting in the back so we went there. As we got closer I noticed him. He was looking etheral in the green kurta, I couldn't for the life of me avert my gaze, but I had to because I didn't want my friends to get suspicious. Yes, I didn't tell them. Not because I didn't trust them but because they were his friends as well. 

"It's good to see you all looking girls for once. Honestly, I had lost hope in you.", Ahaan said sarcastically. For some reason, his gaze found mine and didn't leave for a second before he turned back to Atharva.

"It's nice seeing you all look human for once. Honestly, we had lost hope and thought we were friends with pigs.", I quipped back sitting next to Isha. We didn't talk much but we occasionally enjoyed taking subtle digs at one another. 

Soon, the program started. There were a flurry of performance and I couldn't help but be nostalgic about how we had done the same for our seniors last year.

"I have a tissue if you want to cry.", Aditi said in a whisper. 

"Please don't cry right now. If you cry, we cry and it will ruin our makeup.", Vashuki said.

"Shut up, guys. I am not going to cry."

Isha snorted at this, "Tell that to someone who doesn't know you. You once cried because a character in your book died.", she rolled her eyes.

"He was the love of my life.", I gasped dramatically, feeling betrayed by my own friends to remind me the death of Sirius Black. Honestly, Julius Caeser had nothing on me.

"He was fictional.", they whisper shouted. This drew boys' attention because apparently they were more suckers for drama than any of us.

"What are we talking about?", Atharva archs a brow.

"Sirius Black."

"Looks like someone is still not over the death of their favourite character.", Shivank teased me. He had been like this since class eighth. I always used to tease him for being shorter than me. Then, during the summer vacation of class eighth he grew three inches taller than me and ever since he had been like this. I would never admit this out loud but he had always felt like a brother to me.

"Looks like someone wants a high-five in their face with a chair.", I rolled my eyes. Someone laughed at this and warmth filled me at the sound of his laugh. Ahaan had his head thrown back with a smile on his face. He then looked at me with one of the most beautiful smiles in the world. 

"Just a warning if she kills you all, I am helping her dig the graves.", he looked at everyone else.

"What makes you so sure that she wouldn't kill you?"

"Come on guys, look at me. Who would want to kill such a perfect person?"

"Aren't you a little narcissist?", I looked him in the eye and the butterflies in my stomach wet wild at the little smirk he had on his face.

"I am not narcissist, I am perfect. There's a big difference.", all of us pretended to gag at this.

"Dude, if you need some ego rub, why don't you go find Meera.", Atharva suggested. I tried to stop my grimace at the mention of his girlfriend.

"Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you guys, did I?", he looked around, "We broke up yesterday."

None of us looked surprised at this new piece of information. We saw it coming from a mile away.

"I am don't want to say it, but ha! I told you", Isha looked like she had just won an olympic award.

"Whatever"

We continued watching the performances but I couldn't help but feel a little happy about his break up. Soon the performances ended and our Principal sir got up to give one of his classic farewell speech. When his speech ended all of us attacked the food as if we hadn't eaten since our birth.

After it all ended, we all went to every classmate to wish them good luck for future, it was one of the school traditions that I loved. I wished everyone before he came to me.

He stood in front of me, "So this is it, huh?"

"I guess it is."

"Yeah, we had a lot of fun here, didn't we?", he had an unreadable emotion in his eyes.

"Like the time we were punished because someone set off the school alarm on purpose because he had not studied for the test and we all had to take the blame to soften the blow of our principal's wrath? Yeah, we sure did.", we chuckled a little.

"Hey! Sawita ma'am was threatening to call my parents if I performed bad. I was out of option.", he says dramatically.

"Of course you were.", I rolled my eyes at him, "But still it was fun."

We smiled at each other, "Can I ask you something?", I nodded, "Why did we never talk to each other as much as we talked to the others?"

"I don't know. I never wanted to be the one to talk to you first, I guess."

"Same", we looked at each other for a while before it was announced that the function was over.

Ahaan looked at me, "Well, good luck for the future, Shivaya."

"Good luck, Ahaan."

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