My Ex - Crush

Episode 33

Deepika's POV:

"Open your eyes, you scored an A in all subjects!" Aarthi, my cousin, said with a grin.

Phew. I let out a loud breath of relief before finally gathering the courage to glance at my results.

It was way better than I had imagined.

"You were panicking for nothing," Aarthi added as she got up from her chair, ready to start packing for her internship now that her call letter had finally come through.

"You don't know how brutal the structures final was!" I groaned, helping her pack while replaying the stress of that exam in my head.

My aunt entered with two glasses of milk and asked about my results, congratulating me when I shared the good news. After lunch, things seemed to slow down, and I noticed our group chat had gone eerily silent.

I shot a message into the group on WhatsApp. No response. Weird.

Suddenly, Sanjay called, and I found myself in a conference call with everyone.

"Hey guys, what happened? Did you-" Before I could finish, Lavanya cut in.

"Deeps, I'm in deep shit. I got an arrear, man!" she exclaimed, her voice heavy with disappointment.

"And I got two," Manoj chimed in, his voice equally defeated.

"What??" I asked, completely shocked.

"Structures professor screwed over the whole class. Only 14 out of 40 cleared the exam. And guess what? I fall in the majority who failed," Sanjay added with a sigh.

I was too stunned to respond immediately.

"Only you, me, and Daniel cleared structures in our group," Meera said.

"My dad's going to kill me if he sees my grade card!" Joshitha groaned.

"Guys, it's okay. You'll write the supplementary exam next semester and clear it," I reassured them.

"Till then, we're hiding all our grade cards for the second semester!" Manoj said, sounding a little too enthusiastic about this "brilliant" plan.

"If you clear it by the next semester, it won't show up on your third-semester mark sheet," I pointed out, trying to sound practical.

"And, we can pretend we 'lost' our second-semester grade card and get a new one without the arrear mentioned!" Sanjay said, almost too excited about his master plan.

"Such a wonderful plan, as if we'll actually clear it next semester," Joshitha muttered, clearly doubting the effectiveness of this scheme.

"Deepika, only you can save us!" Manoj pleaded dramatically.

"This is partly Rahul's fault. If that idiot hadn't messed up our study session, we might've passed," Lavanya grumbled.

"Guys, no point in going over the past. We'll study together and clear the arrears soon," I said, trying to boost morale.

"Thank you, savior!" Joshitha chimed in, followed by a chorus of relief.

After about two hours of random chatting and venting, we finally ended the call. But even after all the chaos, my thoughts drifted back to Arjun.

He hadn't texted me in over a week. And the one time he did call, it was brief and awkward, barely lasting a minute before he cut the conversation short.

Why did that sting a little? Maybe more than a little.

I sent him a quick message about his results. No reply. He wasn't even online. I sighed, trying to shake off the weird feeling and focus on the moment.