Confessions of A School Slut: A Story about Slut-Shaming ✓

Chapter Ten (Part One)

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Days passed and things improved. Soon it was only a month left for our third quarterly tests. It was a time to pace things up, to focus on the studies and forget about all the other non-educational drama. Yet, life could never let me not deal with nonsensical drama anymore.

As my friendship with Manas strengthened, so did a lot more of my other relations. Isha and Lia, for instance, were there by my side a lot more than they were a month ago. Strangers changed their behavior toward me, although I had a lot to thank Manas for that, too. He was almost always ready to fight the first person who'd call me names. No more slut-shaming for a while. Especially since the exams were looming over our heads.

Di often suggested he liked me, but come on, he hadn't done anything like that since then. Probably because I yelled at him about it later on.

"So you remember my cousin, Naman?" Isha asked me one day in school. We were sitting idly, waiting for Lia to arrive. "He's transferring to our school," she said with a huge smile on her face.

"And that is a good thing why?" I asked flabbergasted. "I thought he was studying in an amazing school. Honestly Ish, don't let him commit the same mistake I did." In fact, he studied in a similar school to mine. While I was in an all-girl boarding school in Nainital, he was in a neighbouring boarding school for boys. Our schools were actually kind of sister-brother schools since a lot of parents dropped their daughters in our school and sons in Naman's.

"I wish!" she exclaimed. "But he can't stay there any longer." She looked sad, and so I asked a concerned, "why, what happened?"

"He had a nasal injury while he was here for his last vacations," she answered sadly. "Don't tell him I ever told you that. He'll kill me!" Her eyes widened in fear.I laughed. Isha could be such a baby sometimes.

"Okay," I nodded, my face still crinkling with laughter as I struggled to not fall into fits of it.

"But seriously, is he okay?" I asked, once I gathered enough strength to control myself. This could be something serious.

"Yeah, everything is fine. It's just the temperature," she answered. "That place is at a high altitude. The low temperature makes his nose bleed often. Sometimes three times in a week. Ever since then, Uncle and Aunt have been on the constant toll of worry. Finally they decided to end this all and bring him here."

I nodded. This I could totally understand. Health issues were the reason I left that place, too. The one decision I regretted making ever since more than anything I've regretted in the world.

"I always thought noses bleed due to excess of heat. Never knew cold could also affect that," I observed.

"I'm not sure what it is exactly," Isha answered honestly. "Just something with a nasal injury and nose bleed so I assumed the two are connected."

"Okay," I chuckled, understanding her problem. I wasn't particularly good with remembering such things either.

"So I guess Lia isn't arriving today," she spoke after a moment of silence. She picked up her bag to come and sit next to me. It was their turn to sit together that day.

"Yeah, and that dummy didn't even inform us," I added, irritated at her for having done that. Although I was a little happy that I won't have to sit alone for the day. I hate to sit alone!

"Do you think it would be weird between us if he started here?" I asked after a moment of conscious thinking.

"What? I honestly doubt," she replied, while she picked up her things to come and sit next to me.

"You know," she continued. "When you first told us that you had a weird incident with him, Lia and I assumed someone to have a crush on the other one. We were placing bets on who it would be." She laughed.

"You were placing bets on my love life?" I pretended to be shocked and angry at the same moment.

"Don't act so surprised. You've done that with me too," she shrugged. I nodded with a laugh. It was true. A few days earlier, we had. Ah, the memory still brought smiles to my face.

"Wait, was that the reason why you were literally ready to kill me if I didn't tell you?" I asked. Now this was surprising. And disturbing.

She nodded. "Yet, what you told us was so different than anything either of us had expected."

"Totally!" I exclaimed. The bell rang, leaving no place for conversation after that point.

Isha was right. What happened between me and Naman was strange, and certainly very weird. It was new. I hadn't experienced anything like that ever before. It was the first time lies had taken a toll on me — lies about who I was and what I did.

I was in middle grade back when it happened. The last few months of middle grade.

Being in a boarding school was hard, but harder than that was the lack of holidays. We didn't get the weekends off to spend with family. The only times we got vacations where when some or the other festival approached. Sometimes, not even then.

Back then it was Diwali — the festival of lights. One of the most important times of the year for us.

The day after the festivities were finally over and it was time for me to return the next day, I figured it wouldn't do me any harm to check social media for a while. There were a couple of friend requests. As a habit, I checked where each one of them lived and where the person was from so that maybe they were someone I had forgotten but knew once a while ago.

There was this one particular request by a boy named Naman Arora. He studied in a neighboring school to my previous school. He was from around the area. I had often heard his name leave my neighbour's mouth. I figured he'd be an okay person. Hence, I accepted.

The next day I left for school, and returned only during the winter vacations. I had no access to internet in the meanwhile. When I returned, I found a message he had left me about a month ago.

It went something like, "can you please tell me when you'll be online? I have something important to talk to you."

The message seemed weird, but I anyway responded I'd be available in the evening. Out of curiosity, I arrived online at that time. Turned out, someone had lied to him about something I did.

Apparently, someone told him I'd spread some rumors about him having too many girlfriends in my school. I didn't even know him! I had only ever heard his name from my neighbor, Gaurika. Gaurika, who possessed a bitchy attitude toward me. Her mindset called for prettier people to have more friends. Her definition of pretty was colour. According to her, she was less beautiful because of her dark skin. I was more because of my fairer one. Her mind perplexed me.

Later I came to know that it was Guarika who had told him this. Later, I came to know a lot more though. But that's for later.

❤️❤️❤️

A/n: Later? Eeh, I wonder what does she mean by that. 

Anyway, I divided this chapter into two parts because together the word limit was crossing 3k. I didn't want my readers to go through a torture like staring at their screens for that long continuously, so I figured I'd divide it in two. Hehe! I hope you don't mind. 

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