Let Me Love You... and Lose You Too [ON HOLD]

Chapter 2: Unintentional Engagement

A fourteen year old Anshuman was pacing back and forth in his room, thinking about a gift to give the girl in his class.

He didn't have any money. If he asked his parents for change to buy something, they would immediately ask him questions. He couldn't answer their questions. Not yet. Not until she said yes. After she said yes, he would fight for her his whole life.

He knew he was going to be made fun of for doing this, and when he told his friends he liked her, they all thought it was some sort of attraction... that he just wanted to kiss her. The fascination with kissing was common in their age group. Some of his friends claimed to actually even have had sex, but Anshuman didn't believe them.

What he felt for her though, was not just an attraction. It was something more. His heartbeats went up when she was near. His palms would sweat. He would start to fumble nervously.

He never noticed these symptoms in his friends when they were near the girls they wanted to make out with.

Suddenly, as he was pacing through his room, an idea hit him. He remembered that Parvati Kalelkar, another girl in his class was wearing a ring yesterday. The ring looked cheap, but she never wore jewelry, so everyone noticed it right away. He overheard her telling her only friend that a boy gave it to her.

Perhaps someone proposed to her with it... although he didn't know why any boy would ask her of all people to be his girlfriend.

Anshuman knew what to do, and that girl Parvati, with hardly any friends, was the reason behind it. He would never admit to her though that she had given him an answer in his conflicted state.

The next day right after school, he picked up a few blades of grass and looked around for Sandhya Trivedi, the girl that he couldn't stop thinking about. She was nowhere in sight, but he noticed Parvati walking in his direction, her eyes fixated a little past him.

Anshuman waited for her to reach him, when he looked around quickly to make sure nobody was around, before stopping her.

"Hey," he said to her, making her stop in her tracks and look at him with shock.

He couldn't remember ever speaking to her before this.

"Hi," she replied, looking confused.

Anshuman examined her hand - it looked the size of Sandhya's. In fact, their body type was similar. Both of them were very skinny. In his opinion, Sandhya was much prettier, with long black hair that framed around her face perfectly, and light brown eyes. Parvati had her hair in an oily braid every day, and she wore glasses.

"I need a favour," he said quickly, deciding to get straight to the point.

"Yes?" Parvati asked, and he noticed her hand shake as if she was nervous.

"Can you take that ring off?" he asked her.

She looked alarmed at such a bizarre request.

"No... it's just... I need to see if this fits," he told her, holding the blades of grass up. "The girl I want to propose to has the same size hand as you... I think."

Parvati looked at Anshuman with shock, before nodding and slowly taking off her ring. She slid it into the pocket of her uniform and held her left hand out.

Anshuman looked around once more to make sure nobody was around - thankfully, it was only them. Then he wrapped the blades of grass around the ring finger of her left hand and tied them together, before sliding it off her finger.

Just as a safety measure, he slid the ring back on to her finger.

It was perfect.

"Thank you," Anshuman said, sliding it back off, and then he walked the opposite direction to find Sandhya, not turning around even once to look back at the girl who helped him..

As he went his way, the fourteen year old Anshuman Shenoy had no idea that he had just unintentionally betrothed Parvati Kalelkar to himself.