ALMOST THERE

CHAPTER 28: Two can play this game.

Kabira - Rekha Bhardwaj
🍃🌧️🌠✨

"He's...hot, not gonna lie--" her voice cut off midway, as I landed the most effortless slap humanity has ever witnessed on her head, causing her to groan harder than necessary.
Tejal looked up at me, her features curved in a frown laced with a hint of hurt.

Okay, the slap might've been harder than I intended.

"Hey," I said softly as I put one arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a side hug. "I didn't mean to hit that hard. I'm sorry babe.."

"Yeah yeah I'm stronger than you think. But you might be even stronger." Her voice cracked with a hint of laughter as she rubbed the top of her head gently. "But you have to agree with me, he is hot."

To that I just frowned. She wasn't wrong, but I couldn't bring myself to admit that either.
My gaze tore from hers as I noticed a figure pass by, his hands shoved in his pocket, his black hair hanging infront of his big doe brown eyes.

Raahat.

His expression was the exact same as the day I first bumped into him in the hallway. Cold, irritated, annoyed with the whole existence.

Eerily similar to mine.

Everything about him was what a typical teenager, or a human in general, would consider attractive. But for whatever reason, I just couldn't utter the words 'hot' or 'cute' or 'handsome' for him. The same words I would've used without a second thought for a random cute guy I saw on the streets.

Ever since the Mishra Ma'am announced the arrival of a transfer student and the transfer student being that same odd guy with an odd vibe, my gut kept telling me something was wrong. He introduced himself as Rahaat but heavens know rahaat (relief) isn't what I feel when he's around.

I remember thanking God a thousand times when he was put in section B because of his initials.

Section C already had weirdos like me..one more and the principal would officially acknowledge us as an asylum.

All of it just seemed, strange, like something wasn't clicking in place. But I couldn't shake that feeling again-that something was building up, waiting to explode.

I shook my head as soon as I felt the same haze of thoughts curling up around me, threatening to pull me back into an abyss I'd spent the last few days in.

All through the morning, my thoughts scattered like a deck of cards. Maa didn't say much during breakfast, and honestly, I didn't care to fill the silence.

I wasn't in the mood for another lecture about how I needed to "focus" and stop getting lost in my own world. Today was a new day, and I wasn't about to let anyone-least of all myself-ruin it.

By the time I got to school, I had convinced myself that today would be different. I would do what I always did: blend into the chaos, survive the day, and keep my head down.

Except, blending in was hard when you had a million things going on in your head all at once, and pretending not to care about anything was exhausting when, deep down, I cared too much about everything.

"You cannot be serious," Tejal's voice dragged me back to reality, like they always did.

"What--" But before she could reply, I followed the line of her gaze and my eyes land on to humans walking from a distance towards the class.

One tall, with a devilishly handsome face that made me go weak in my knees every single time. The other, a short failed lab experiment.

Wait that was harsh.