The Rivals (Rewriting)

Shot-16

Rishabh's POV

I stood infront of a small old house marked Dixit Villa on one of the crooked gate-pillars. The house looked quite dilapidated and the paint had worn off on many places. The wretched condition of the structure made me doubt whether anyone could live in such a place. And the thought immediately punched a hole in my gut as I imagined Sanvi's state in that house.

I had come to know about the existence of this property for the very first time. Although I wasn't very cheerful about the condition of the apartment Sanvi had led me to that day, this house appeared hellish in comparison to that filthy apartment building. I stood in front of that house for the first time and I had already begun producing a sense of dislike at the sight. Perhaps the dislike wasn't so much directed towards the house but the people living in it?

The house stood mere one block away from Dhruv's lavish mansion and I was quite surprised that I had never taken interest in this fact whenever I drove past that street while visiting Dhruv.

Did I even think about her so much back then? She was kind of an annoying flea to me until the past month. Our ego clashes had never resulted into something fruitful. The girl named Sanvi Dixit in the other section solely possessed the audacity to trigger my nerves. She was the only one who could ignite the fire of competition in me and I sure as hell didn't like the times when our names would be together in the result sheet hung after every exam on the school bulletin board. My blood boiled at the letters inked next to me in bold and I hated the prospect of sharing my rank with her. Anything related to her would always bring the worst out of me.

She had her admirable qualities for sure but I didn't care for them. I couldn't let my mind care for them. I had a rank to protect. I had never seen her as a person with a background of her own. While in reality, she had quite a compelling one at that. I could never look at her the same way after having read her diary.

If someone would have told me that I would be standing in front of Dixit's house in the middle of the night, with nothing as particular in mind, but the prospect of seeing her and perhaps apologizing for my indecency, I would have laughed my ass off at that person's face and then flipped them off.

Running my sweaty fingers through my hair, I contemplated on the proposition of going through the crazy act I was about commit.

It felt weird to admit but I had never been that nervous in my life. The nervousness wasn't solely caused by the idea that I could be jailed for breaking into someone's house at midnight. It was mostly for the fact that I needed to confront her after all that had happened. But I wanted to sleep and in order to have a guilt free sleep, I needed to apologize to her immediately. That girl had already been driving me crazy since the last month, I could perhaps take a few more minutes of her temper, right?

"Calling bell is definitely a bad idea." I muttered to myself while running my gaze around the area of the house, looking for a way to sneak in. My fingers nervously tapped my thighs over my ripped blue jeans. I didn't even have her phone number!

After everything, I was a bit reluctant at the idea of sneaking into her room when I didn't even know which one was her room!

As if on cue, the lights on the upper storey window switched on and I saw a slender silhouette throw the window open. My feet scurried to hide myself from the line of the person's sight behind the half-wall. I peeked from the top of the wall and saw Sanvi standing at the window with the curtains flying in the cold breeze.

It might sound weird but I was sure that I could see her crying from that distance as she held her head upto the sky.

What might've caused her to cry?