More Than Friends

Let's begin

The story is mine so you should know me before knowing my story.

I was an eleventh grade school student. Academically I was brilliant but each and every teacher of my school had hundreds of reasons to scold me all day. I have done every possible mischief in my school life. Some of them were innocent while others were enough to get me thrown out of my parent's house. Stealing lunch boxes, bunking lectures, keeping nicknames for teachers while checking out some of them, not returning to class after games period, cheating in exams, writing on toilet walls and keeping my shirt untucked. the not so innocent ones are responsible for this story telling session. There isn't a single thing I haven't done to piss off my teachers. That particular day was parent teacher meeting. it was the scariest day of my whole academic year. Not the class tests, not the vivas, not the practicals, not the exams and definitely never the results. If anything could scare me it was this meeting.

I have always been afraid of parent teacher meeting but this one was a little more scary. Dad returned from the teacher's desk a little disappointed. I couldn't gather any courage to apologize to him. He looked at me with disgust. Had it been my home I would have been beaten black and blue. I looked down in shame. My friends were around and they were equally scared of the situation. They tried talking to dad or rather distract him from whatever he had on his mind. they even appreciated me for various things before my dad to probably create a good impression. they all were trying hard but i knew nothing would save me this time. dad laughed at a few gossips of my friends and finally broke the silence.

'Lets go for a drive.' - he said.

I was shitting in my pants and he asked me for a ride? That was quite strange. All my friends looked at me a little amazed. It was parent teacher meeting and I had created a huge mess so i couldn't refuse for the ride. He handed over me the spare helmet that he had, I put it on and we left the school. He didn't take me too far. It was hardly one kilometre far from school where we stopped. He asked me to get off. A little scared now, i took off my helmet and neither did he slap me now. I thought all this ride excuse, taking me to lonely place and asking me to get off was to give me the reward of my deeds but he didn't touch me at all.

'I am considering this one only because you have scored 99% this time.' - he gave me a furious look.

'S-o-o-r-r-....-y' ...he left me there and drove back to home. He didn't say anything. I know whatever i did wasn't acceptable but his scoldings would have been lesser of a punishment than his silence. I was ashamed of whatever happened. I am not sure if I was ashamed of what I did. Perhaps I was ashamed of only the humiliation my dad suffered and not anything else.

I returned to school campus and all my friends were there. Still amazed. They looked at me like an alien must have been looked at if anyone saw them. Anuj came to me and said that I was lucky to have such a cool dad who would take me to ride after knowing that I was caught making out with my girlfriend.

I didn't clarify their confusions. They had wrong information but they concluded it right. My dad was really cool. He knew where to rule me and where to stop controlling.

I went behind the school campus where she always met me. I waited for exactly thirty five minutes and she came. She had a broad smile on her face. Even before i could ask her something, she said - 'I got B+.... I am sooo happy.'

I met Ragini in 9th standard. We didn't talk much but she was always this cute. I used to adore her beauty a lot. Whenever she spoke something i thought of telling her how innocent those pink lips looked. When she walked it was like watching a six years old hop around. She was short and smart. Just adorable. I probably had feelings for her but I never thought about it. I had my first girlfriend in my high school. She was definition of hot but nothing that she spoke could ever melt me. We broke off the relationship within months for no apparent reason. We didn't have reasons to be with each other so maybe that was a reason. I then started dating someone else who wasn't half as hot as her but she was beauty with brain. I finally had someone of my competition. Unhealthy competition always gets dirty so we broke off as well. And then I dated someone else and someone else and someone else. In whole one year I couldn't count the number of flings I had and then all of them came to wish me luck for my board exams so I counted it was exactly twenty seven. Few of them were my girlfriends too.

After visiting the world I returned to home, that is my first crush Ragini. No matter how many girls I dated, she didn't have a competition. I had such strong emotions for her since forever but I never tried to put the girlfriend tag on her. Maybe that's why I felt it was true love. Afterall if you can't let them free its imprisonment. We were batchmates but had different sections in high school. In eleventh standard both of us chose science. Coincidentally both of us got same section and since day one she has been my constant.

'B+? And you are this happy? Ragini you used to be a topper.'
'I am persuing science now.'
And this was always her excuse these days. She wasn't interested in science and she was forced to opt for it. I can bet she could've done much better in exams if she wanted to but she was getting used to giving excuses now. She was scoring low since last three exams and every time I asked for reasons, it was always science. I knew science wasn't the reason. The reason was that she wasn't handling her life well these days but one just can't get to hear her problem easily. It is earned. I tried to talk but it wasn't working so I changed the topic to create a happy vibe. For faking, she laughed at my jokes and smiled constantly in every conversation but I knew none of them were genuine because she laughed harder now and her smiles were unfamiliar to me. I had noticed her smiling so many times that by now, I could notice slightest change in her smile.

It wasn't as if I was totally unaware of what she was going through but I wanted to know more. She was a jigsaw puzzle with extra pieces to confuse and I had solved her in last one year but the one missing piece was everything I could think of.

She was my best friend by now. Last one year made us lifeline for each other. If she wasn't going to school, neither was I. If I wasn't studying she stayed online all day for me. We met everyday and when we couldn't meet, we spent hours on Facebook. She was my world and I was hers. Every love story has twists and turns and our twist was that we didn't know we were in love.

Let's talk about what happened in our lives few months back.