One Last Time

Chapter 3 - To be or not to be.

I looked around at everybody in class and realized that half of them were sleeping while the other half, expect a few, were either doodling or day dreaming. "Either of two things are happening here, either I am actually awake or this is a very very bad dream." Arnav said from behind me.

"I am not sure. Is he still teaching Maths?"

"He is teaching maths!?" He asked, acting surprised and we both started laughing. Sir turned around and we froze in our seats. "Trisha, what formula will you use here?" He asked.

I stood up and stared at the board. The numbers began dancing around but I finally came up with the formula and blurted it out. He smiled and told me to sit down.
The next period was of our English teacher. Now she loved to take introductions from new students. So, the moment she noticed Arnav, she said, "We have a new student. Please introduce yourself."

Arnav got up and went to the board and wrote 'Arnav Oberoi' in a neat cursive. "My name, as you can see, is Arnav Oberoi. I personally don't think there's much to know about me. I want to become a Neurologist and the guitar is my hobby. Most of my neighbors want to throw me and my guitar into a lake because of the early practice sessions but otherwise I am a nice guy." He said and left most of us laughing.

"So now we will begin with an exercise on error correction." She began and everyone straightened up. English, everyone loves english. I noticed someone shuffling behind me and turned around to see that Nikita had shifted to sit with Arnav. Instantly, I felt a familiar pang... Of jealousy maybe? He bent towards me and blew into my ear and I felt a shiver up my spine. "Jealous?" He asked.

"Why would I be?"

"I don't know. Just thought so."

"Okay." I snapped back and he laughed.

"Don't worry. Nik and I are just friends."

"And yet you call her Nik. Whatever, I don't care."

"You know what, I think you do."

"Whatever." I said anger clearly creeping into my tone. When he didn't reply, I turned around to see that he was saying something to Nikita and I felt the anger in me rising but then she got up and went back to her place. "Maybe you could come?" He asked me. I don't know how but I found myself getting up and I sat beside him. "Where's Gaurav?" I asked. Gaurav was his partner who, by the way, I couldn't find anywhere in class. "Bunking." Arnav replied.

"So, uh... Do you have a girlfriend?" I mustered up the courage to ask. I crossed my fingers and waited. "Well, yes." He said and I could almost hear my heart breaking.

"Oh." I said, not even trying to hide my disappointment.

"I was just kidding sweetheart, I don't have a girlfriend." He said and I felt a sense of relief like never before. Sweetheart, he called me sweetheart!

I suddenly realized ma'am had stopped talking and I sneaked a look at the board to see that ma'am was handing out question papers. We both looked up just as she reached our bench and I started reading the questions. In 15 minutes I had finished and I looked around to see if there were any helpless eyes scanning the class in hope if answers. I found none and so I went back to looking at Arnav. He was chewing the end of his pencil and even that looked so hot that I couldn't stop looking.

After 5 more minutes, he finished too and then he saw me staring at him and smiled. I looked away sheepishly. After submitting our papers he turned to me and said, "Maybe we should go back to the playground today."

"Okay." I said and as decided, we were sitting under the same tree as before in 15 minutes. He looked at me and said, "I knew that eyes hold the stories of one's soul but when I looked into yours, I realized I wanted them to hold just one story."