ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴏʟʟᴇɢᴇ ʀᴏᴍᴀɴᴄᴇ [ᴄᴏᴍᴘʟᴇᴛᴇᴅ]

• Part 62 •

Nikita POV:

"Forced? By who?" I asked her.
"Have you ever heard of Riya? Riya Gupta?"

I sighed, I wish I hadn't but here we go. So I nodded, "I have."

Shruti chuckled, "I might have an idea as to what happened with you and her, considering that we're on the same boat, but, Mayukh and I have been together since school, almost 1.5 years, and when we both finalized going to Bournebrooke, it felt amazing. Our relationship would continue and things would be good."

I heard her but felt a knot in my own stomach. The guy I'm wishing asks me out has his super amazing looking ex, who isn't even a bad person, right in front of him. Plus, they have history. Unlike Riya, Mayukh actually liked her.

"... Riya is his family friend. I am also his family friend but I'm not as close to his family as her parents are. Her mother was chancellor back then, and she used that to her advantage and wrote me a recommendation to study in USC, in the US."

"USC, that's a great school." I said.

"It is." She said, "She knew it was the perfect school for my career, I wanted to get into film direction, and this was exactly what I needed. I don't know how she knew. I never really told anyone much about what I wanted to do."

"Why didn't you select USC beforehand?"

"Well, I figured, Bournbrooke has the same level of global credibility as USC, so my plan was to get into USC for Masters, later on. That way, I was closer to him, I'd save up and I would have Mayukh with me."

"What happened then?" I asked, intrigued.

"Well, one day, my mother gets an email from USC saying that they're ready to fund my course, the whole 3 years of it, and that I would have to leave a semester before. My mother saw it and instantly said I should go, even though I told her that I had my plans, but you can understand the way our mothers might think, she didn't want me to miss the chance."

Sounds very familiar.

"So then, she said yes on my behalf. I didn't know how to tell Mayukh about it, but the day I thought to tell, Riya started to message me saying that she was worried she wouldn't get into university and things and asked me if I could ask Mayukh to help."

"Riya asked you?"

"Riya and I were friends, Nikita. We were quite close until I realized much later on what her true intentions were. I never saw them. She told me all sorts of things that her parents were having issues and everything. I even reassured her that she'd be fine since her mother is chancellor but she said that the Roy's will not let her in. Riya asked me to get her into events and things, but she always just used my name."

Oh.

"I didn't like hiding it from Mayukh but she swore to our friendship that I shouldn't tell and I felt bad for her since I knew she might not get into university. Her track record wasn't the best. So, I tried to help. But then...."

I saw her face get upset, "We... we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"No." She said, fixing herself, "You should know. Then, one day, when I was coming to school, on the last few days of it, I see Mayukh and his brothers looking at me in extreme anger. I didn't understand what was going on. When I tried to talk, they said that I've been cheating because my behaviour has been very distant, I've been hiding things, and then they labeled me as a gold digger who was using Mayukh and his power to get into where I wanted to go."

Oh my God.

"I couldn't defend anything because all the documents had the Roy's label as her mom was the chancellor. I tried to tell them about Riya but they didn't let me talk. I tried to talk to Mayukh but he didn't let me confront Riya or even hear me out, instead he just blocked me in front of him and then walked away. I spent weeks trying to contact him through his parents, his brother sister, but no one was ready to talk to me. Eventually, I came to terms with it."