Flaws| ✔️

Chapter 2

It is 4 a.m and Kabir is scrolling through his Facebook feed. Most of his friends have a happy and sorted out life and he heaves a sigh in frustration .

He is about to doze off when the screams of Jaaniya rings to his ears . This has been going on for days , her having nightmares and screaming . But the way her face shines in the day indicates that she has no such problem .

There is something in her screams which makes him uncomfortable . He didn't know how to deal with people having nightmares . Well , it was Jaaniya and he didn't care about it at first but now he kinda felt bad for her .

The only person sleeping in the house peacefully was Neha as she had soundproof walls in her room.

Kabir saw his bestfriend Ranvir online and decided to message him .

Kabir: Dude she is screaming again .

Ranvir : Woah! You that good at bed ? ;)

Kabir : Shut up dude.But this is starting to trouble me.

Ranvir: wow , you starting to care for her ? . Baby steps bro :)

Kabir : Shut up . I can't sleep because of it .

Ranvir : Well , you were not the only one to loose your wife , she lost her husband too last year . Must be the trauma caused by that.

Kabir : But she is so cheerful in the morning with Neha . It's like she's happy but then the nightmares confuse me .

Ranvir : And how exactly do you know she is happy? . Comon Kabir , she can be hiding her emotions too.

Well Ranvir was right . There were times when he was wrong about Jaaniya . Times when she was not happy but pretended like everything is fine and nothing could shatter her .

Flashback:
( When Jaaniya and Kabir were in 10th grade )
Kabir's pov:
It was the month of October and the students of Loyola High were supposed to give a test of 30 marks in the first hour. Apparently , for me this test was really pointless as only 10% of this test would be taken as internals .

But some people really took this small test seriously ,like Jaaniya Goenka , beside me.Well during periodicals , we were supposed to sit accordingly by roll number wise .

Fuck the man who put J after K in alphabets because I am stuck next to her for 1 hour . It was three students in a bench and i was stuck between two girls with Jaaniya in the right side and a chick named Krushna in the left .

Subhaanshi turned from her seat and Jaaniya muttered 'All the Best ' to her to which Subhaanshi rolled her eyes and glared at her .

Well apparently they both had a fight yesterday because Subhaanshi was tired of her parents always comparing her to her perfect cousin Jaaniya.

You all must be wondering how I knew about their fight . Well I text Subhaanshi a lot and we are pretty close but doesn't show that in public.

Being an all rounder and also being the topper of our grade , she was even praised by my mom in my household but i didn't seem to care about it .

Jaaniya was the perfect star kid. Good in studies , sports and even in arts and literature . Well , she being sorted out and perfect annoyed me too . As you see , I loathe her because everything about her annoys me .

I realized Jaaniya was staring at me . My face automatically formed a scowl, "What?"

"You have your mother's eyes Kabir ", she said giving me a small smile.

There she goes . I hate someone mentioning that I look like my parents .Like yeah, they gave birth to me obviously I will have their features but I didn't want anyone telling me that.

"Too bad I can't say the same to you because you don't look like neither of your two parents ", I remarked .

Well it was true though . Even Subhaanshi looked like her mom but Jaaniya didn't have a slight resemblance like any of her family members .

I swear I saw something shift in her face but she blinked and covered it up . " Well that makes me different then", she replied giving her brightest smile .

God how can someone be so postive about everything .

I felt someone poke me and it was the Krushna chick. I gave her a death glare .

"Hey don't say stuff like that to her ." She whispered

"Why not ?" I replied rolling my eyes .

" She is adopted . Didn't Shubu tell you?"

That revelation from Krushna shocked me . If this was really true , the thing I said a few seconds ago was really rude . Well all the things I say are rude but I started to feel guilty at this point .

It was sure Jaaniya heard us but she kept playing with her pencil as it didn't seem to affect her . Feeling my intense stare , she sighed and said, " You asked me last year that why I have to be perfect for everything right?"

I nodded waiting for her to continue .

"Well that's why , it's my way of being less burdening to my family and no matter how imperfect Shubhu is , she will always be their blood and not a burden."

And that was the first time I noticed the eye bags under her eyes and the sadness lacing her voice . And that was the reason why Jaaniya Goenka despite being the star kid only had one best friend in the whole school.

She was scared .

Scared of being a burden to people.

***