Like Me, Please

Chapter 1

Astha was frustrated. She just couldn't understand why the world was going out of its way to being cruel to her. Her class teacher had just announced her lab partner and it was the ONLY person in class that she hated.

Aastha, her soft demeanour and ever-smiling face were loved by everyone in her ninth standard class. In turn, she loved everybody too. Except, Sneha. She just couldn't understand her. It didn't help that Astha had a feeling that Sneha didn't like her too.

Why do you think so?

Well, earlier Astha and Sneha were just two people in the class who only existed but didn't care for each other. Then one day, with a twist of fate, Astha became the seat partner with Sneha. Well, it wasn't just fate. Turns out Sneha's original seat partner got chickenpox and thus would be back only after a month.

Anyway, the day that both of them became seat partners was just like any other day. Astha, ever-smiling and hoping to make a new friend smiled at Sneha and Sneha; all but scowled. Astha was so surprised! It was the first time in her life that somebody hadn't smiled at her when she had smiled at them.

Next period, Astha tried again to be friendly and said "Hey Sneha! What a nice morning right?"

Sneha looked at her as if she was a bug and couldn't believe that the bug could talk.

Astha didn't try conversing again.

Next day was even harder than the first. She thought she should try again but whenever she wanted to say something, something stopped her.By the third day, she was sure that Sneha hated her and she hated her too.

" Why should I be the only one trying to make a conversation?" " Why doesn't she even try?"

It just didn't make sense to her why anybody would not like her. Astha believed herself to have a pleasant personality, was not very fussy about things and loved to know more about people. She was voted " The most friendly" twice in her row in class and even had trophies to prove that.