Till The Count Of Five ✓

Chapter 32

Chapter 32

I'll do it again for her. Because no one could love her like I do.

Kiara

11th April 2018, Wednesday
18:55

I knew it. I knew they both were having a tough time. There could be no explanation for Ash's sudden disinterest in Shay other than this. The heels clicked against the floor, unmistakably Ash's attitude walking away. I looked up through the flight of stairs at Shay who was visibly boiling. Steadily, I climbed up, trying to mask the excitement bubbling out of me.

Shay threw the ball of paper in her hand across the small space. It landed right at my feet and I picked it up. The aggregate of words was Ash's writing. Happy to see you do this!

"She is crazy," Shay mumbled and grasped the handle to go back in.

"Definitely crazy," I said.

She stopped, her face going white as I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, the paper resting in my hand. Ash turned seventeen today and had a fight with Shay while I was present to witness it all. How convenient for me.

"Go and tell her what I said," Shay said.

I hid my smirk behind a frown. "I'm not her puppet." You are.

She left the door handle and sat on one of the chairs close to the elevator. "We are all just puppets for her. She snaps her fingers, we snap our necks at her order."

I folded my arms and leaned against the wall. Shay looked far from snapping her neck. "You're a rogue."

"I'm just asking for justice. How is this fair to me?" She snatched the paper from my hand and tore it. "How does this work?"

I stayed quiet, letting her violence die down and waited for the moment of breakdown, the moment when she'd lose her breaths, take a seat again and explain the entire story to me while cursing Ash. I simply hoped that there was a story strong enough to pull her strings that Ash did not hold anymore.

"How?" Shay threw the paper, aiming for the door behind which Birthday Girl was partying. It fell halfway.

She got up and jogged past me down the stairs. I followed. The hitched breaths audible could be her tears, or curses to Ash. She stopped outside in the parking lot.

"Why are you still following me?"

I gave her the only answer I knew. "Sometimes, I think she is so passionate about art that she forgets us."

"She is passionate about her art," Shay replied, "which isn't even hers to claim. The guy up there, he's the mind. Vicky came in 2017. Have you seen her skills before that? She couldn't even make something that held meaning to it. Her interpretations were always wrong, because she never tried to think. Thinking is the key, Kiara. Whatever you do, calculations are necessary. He calculated, she copied."

I wanted to correct her. There was a reason Ash was the topper. No one could manage extra curriculars with high grades and friends and parties except her. I had always been proud of Ash.

Shay stared at me and I thought again. Was I still proud of her?

"What did she do?" I asked as soon as possible the question rose in my mind.

"Do you know about the Inter State Competition?"

Of course I did. I was a Samaritan. We handled these competitions, from lists to practice hours.