DESTINED TO CROSS

Chapter 4: When the Storm Breaks

Aurov's POV

Today has been hectic from the very beginning, and I wasn't prepared for even more drama after arriving at college. I got up in the morning and went about my usual routine, thinking I'd reach college early as always. However, my father had other plans to ruin my day once again. During breakfast, he started going on and on, for what felt like the millionth time since last year, about how I should have gone to the law school he wanted. My patience finally ran out, and we ended up arguing. I said something I shouldn't have, and he slapped me hard, leaving me with this fresh cut on my lip.
What I said wasn’t wrong, though—it was just the bitter truth he didn’t want to hear. I live alone with my father since my mom and dad divorced when I was 14. Honestly, I thought they should have done it sooner, so I wouldn’t have had to endure such a traumatic childhood filled with constant fighting. For a long time, I used to think it was both their faults, but now that I live with my father alone, I'm beginning to understand why they argued so much. He refuses to listen to anyone and expects everyone to listen to him.
The exact thing I said that made him hit me was, "You're so controlling to everyone around you. This is exactly why Mom left you."

After such an intense morning, I hoped for a peaceful day at college, but that wasn't the case. Now, Shanaya and I are sitting in the HOD’s office, facing her.While our HOD and all the lecturers in the room were freaking out, Shanaya and I sat there with our phones in hand, haunted by the notice about the leaked question paper.Beside me, I heard Shanaya mumbling and reading the notice for the 16th time. Yes, I counted. I could tell she was panicking just by looking at her face—she has this expression whenever she starts to panic, where her eyes go wide and her eyebrows scrunch together. Shanaya panics about everything and overthink a lot. She wants everyone to like her and be happy with her, and that’s exactly why I think she shouldn’t have been made head girl. When you’re given authority—whether it’s as head boy, head girl, or even class representative—you need to understand that you can’t make everyone happy. There will always be people who dislike you, whether it’s your fault or not. But Shanaya doesn’t get that. She wants to make everyone happy, even if it means she’s not happy herself. "I’m a peacemaker," she always says, but I honestly don’t know where that peacemaking spirit goes when she’s arguing with me.We didn’t always argue. In the first year, Shanaya and I were actually good friends. She had this habit of helping the whole class with statistics problems, and whenever she needed help, she’d come to me, and I was always happy to assist her. We were getting close, but I don’t know what happened between us. Now, we can’t have a normal conversation without arguing or insulting each other. I’m not sure when it all started—maybe after that exam where Shanaya helped me study, but I ended up getting 1st place while she got 2nd. Or maybe it was after we were grouped together for IT practicals, and some people speculated there was something between us. I really don’t know.Now, everyone knows we don’t get along, but as for me, I don’t actually dislike Shanaya. Arguing with her just helps me forget about all the drama at home. Plus, she motivates me to study harder.

"This has never happened in the 85 years of this university!" The HOD’s voice snapped me back to the chaos unfolding in the room."How can a student leak question papers for all the semesters?" one of the lecturers asked. "You don’t know about this generation, they’re very good with technology, and they are... what do you call them... heckser.." "Hackers," I suggested to our Business Statistics professor, Mr. Ashok Sena."Ah yes, hackers," he said."We need to find the culprit as soon as possible before the principal arrives tomorrow," the HOD said, clearly panicking."Does our principal know about this situation?" Shanaya finally spoke after what felt like two hours."Yes, she obviously does, and now she has to cut short her important business in Kerala to catch a flight back by tomorrow morning," our HOD informed us."And we need to find out who did this before she arrives.""Do we have any hints or clues that could lead us to the culprit?" I asked."A student's mother found out that he spent 6,000 rupees on purchasing the question paper and reported it. From that student's phone, we tracked the IP address of the email sent by the culprit, but it turns out that the IP address belonged to our PC in the 5th-floor computer lab," Professor Ashok narrated."So we should check the CCTV footage and find the culprit," Shanaya chimed in."Since this happened two months ago and our CCTV memory is set to automatically delete footage every month, we will have to wait for the footage to be restored," the HOD said."How long does it take for the memory to be restored?" I asked."We've requested it to be done as soon as possible since it's an emergency, so it should be available by tomorrow," the security head informed us."Then we can't do anything until tomorrow," said Professor Ashok."Hm, okay, let’s wrap up this meeting and see what we can do when the principal arrives," the HOD dismissed us.
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