Till The Count Of Five ✓

Chapter 40

Chapter 40

Only once for them. Every time for me.

Ash

18h December 2018, Tuesday
15:30

I stared at Mehak's retreating figure and curled the paper in my hand. Sixty marks and she was worrying. I scoffed. I was what? Thirty marks behind? They'd be covered quickly, as fast as they had fallen. It was not my fault that they fell. I tried to maintain my grades but things were not just working at the moment. Mehak did not get it. No worries. No one would get it unless they were in my position.

I pulled my chair and sat down. Just fifteen minutes more and then I could escape. Tomorrow I'd tell my teacher I was not doing anymore Stay Backs. A gust of wind blew outside and I pulled my blazer closer. I hated winters and how everyone looked like snowmen in winters. The window rattled and I glanced outside. I could make out Mehak standing at the school gates with a frown possibly. Another dejected person. I was such a disappointment.

I remembered Rishab spat those words at me when he saw the magazine this morning.

"So you won," he had said after slamming the magazine on the table.

I had managed to grab the open bottle of paint before it could fall on his shoes and destroy his clothes. For someone who should be thanking me if not praising my success, he had a huge frown plastered on his face.

"Careful," I had said. "I couldn't possibly ask you to draw this again for me."

"You can ask Shay. Or wait, don't ask, just copy. I'm sure you're an expert at that."

I had smiled at him and turned back to my canvas. "Keep on dreaming."

"Keep on lying."

"I do not understand what Sameer sees in you." My hands had searched for the eraser but found none.

Rishab had showed it to me and shook his head. "He saw exactly what you saw. I just did not see anything in you."

"Then, you need to get a pair of glasses."

"Glasses won't work, Ash. They simply don't. Kiara is still blind to your lies."

After he'd left, I kept on telling myself the entire day that the man was full of bluffs and lies. It was him who lied all this time, not me. My fingers lifted to touch my face and I caught myself staring into my reflection in the transparent glass of the almirah. I was all right. I was Ashiamma Apte. I nodded to myself. I was a good person to hang out with.

"Hey."

My eyes lifted and met Hardik's through the glass. I turned and smiled. He smiled back, walking in.

"Vee is not here," I said.

"I know. Can't I come to meet you?"

My heartbeat picked up, not for the usual reasons. But then again, whatever happened to me now had become usual. Rather, his smile did not seem sweet anymore. I heard him pull a chair and sit next to me. I did not dare to look up, knowing his eyes were the same colour of Rishab's. Lunatics have to be made pretty, I reminded myself, or else they'll cease to impress others. I was sure Sameer just liked his eyes, his tall height or maybe even his hair, those brown voluminous...stop! Stop! The guy I like is right next to me.

"I knew she was wrong," Hardik murmured.

"Wrong? Who? Mehak?"

He nodded. "She told me about those grades. I told her not to worry." He leaned back and stared at me. I tried not to push my chair away. "You're worried about something."