Misfit in an Imperfect World

Chapter 1

It was the peak of north-Indian summers. But Vartika still chose to bury herself under the heaviest quilt at home that only the arctic winters would call for. She lay on her side, curled up in her bed, her knees closed to her chest and her hands cradling her flabby stomach. Her heart was riding on a roller coaster inside her chest. Her phone was on her pillow, on her scattered, silky, chestnut hair, right next to her face. She bit her lip unmindfully, smiling time and again, imagining the romantic pleasantries, if there were any. She was scared that her parents would come to know of what she was going to do; because if they did, she was sure that they would disown her. She didn't want any noise to leak out of the room. Thus, the heavy quilt.

The needles on the clock hit 12 and her phone buzzed. It was Shubham, her friend, Tanya's ex-boyfriend. Tanya and Shubham hadn't broken up over a week ago and she had already moved on with a boy from her previous school. And so, Shubham wanted someone too. She knew, for a fact that it wasn't his heart that was hurt, but it was his ego, being the most proficient 17- year- old in his school.

He'd been bugging Vartika to find him a girl. He'd also been asking her to call him for some 'moral support'. She couldn't say no. After all, the poor boy had just broken up. A rejection wouldn't be good for him.

She answered the call. In the mildest voice possible, she said, "Hello? Shubham? Can you hear me?"

Shubham spoke back, bold and carefree, "Barely. Speak a little louder."

"I can't speak louder! Can you also please talk a little softer? The volume at which your talking, my parents will probably hear you!" Vartika aggressively whispered.

"Calm down, Vartika. You sound like Donald Duck talking like this. You're such a kid! You're parents are probably asleep by now." He chuckled and said. His chuckles were to die for. She turned on her back and pressed her head to the pillow and closed her eyes and smiled in awe, her face towards the ceiling now, and said, "Okay now tell me why did you want to call me. Something urgent?"

"I just wanted to talk to you. Can't I just randomly want to talk to a friend?"

"Yeah absolutely. Why not? You just randomly wanting to talk to me could cost me my life. We could've texted instead."

"Oh my God! I'll hang up if you want me to. Okay? You're so annoying! Maybe that's why you remind me of Tanya sometimes. Even she used to annoy me like this."

This wasn't the first time Shubham had called Vartika annoying. But this sure was the first time he had equated her to his ex-girlfriend who he still claimed to love, and this made her feel weird. Actually, she didn't know what to feel.

He would sometimes text her, "You're single. I'm single. You need a guy. I need a girl." She was never sure what he meant by this. Did he want to date her? Was he interested  in her? No clue at all. She sometimes sent him pictures of Asian babies, something she was obsessed with. Then he would reply, saying, "Wanna make one??" These kind of things made her blush and laugh whenever she thought of them. Like who wouldn't want to be Shubham's girl? His grades were perfect, his looks were perfect, how he'd treated his girlfriends was perfect, and then they'd gotten quite close after he broke up with Tanya. In fact, she thought becoming his girl would make her perfect. But again, God alone knew what he meant by all those text messages that made her go bananas.

A day or two had passed since she had spoken to him over the phone. She hadn't been chatting with him too regularly lately.

He had sent her a picture of a girl sitting in a restaurant, looking a little drunk, a few weeks before the phone call, saying, "Meet Anya. Isn't she hot?" She wasn't surprised at him calling another girl hot. The girl wasn't even that hot. But she felt an instantly jealous of her
. She didn't know why. She quickly started typing out her name on all the social media she used, "Anya Sharma" , "Anya Sharma, Noida" , "anyash_rma198" , "any.snap19".

Anya was quite the opposite of Vartika. She was slender and tall in the right proportion. She had extremely long hair, reaching up to her tailbone. Her legs were twice as long as Vartika's and her night suits were far better than Vartika's muftis. She had an elegant, pointy nose and a sharp jawline. Her eyes were big and bright and her skin didn't have a single pimple.

Vartika looked at all of Anya's  perfecty taken pictures with bloodthirsty eyes. She felt like stabbing her when she read the captions that said "Ugh I'm so fat!!" and "#uglyme". She felt robbed of her identity. The only things she could own up to, no matter how unimpressive they were, were her obesity and acute ugliness; and now, along with Shubham, they too had been taken away from her by yet another girl who was perfect by worldly standards.

She despised herself for being so jealous of Anya. What had she done to her? Had dinner with Shubham? Why would it bother her? After all, Vartika was way out of Shubham's league and she didn't even know what she felt for him.

She wondered if it was silly to expect anything out of their friendship and closeness.