The Thing We Call First Love

Chapter 2 - Two Angels

With the regret and guilt, I passed 8th grade. Summer vacation was hell. Days passed like years. I would text her good morning, good afternoon and good night texts everyday with a vain hope of getting a reply. Now and then I'll lose my patience and start texting
' SORRY '
' IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK'
'PLEASE FORGIVE ME.'
Number of times, I also happened to type I LOVE YOU RAMYA. But I never had the guts to send it. Eventually my drafts section on my phone was piled up with I LOVE YOU texts. I continued this for about a month and I got fed up. I lost hope. It felt as if I lost everything. The words of ' I WON'T TALK TO YOU ANYMORE ' kept echoing in my head and the incident kept recurring in my dreams.

I still remember that day. It was Labourer's day, the first of May when I made up my mind. It was about 7'o clock in the evening when I gathered the guts and walked straight to my parents. They were watching TV. I stood there about a feet beside them for atleast 5 minutes without uttering a word. Seeing my weird behaviour, my mom asked me what had happened with a concern. She was not to be blamed because this was the first time I did something this weird. Then I spoke the words ' I WANT TO CHANGE MY SCHOOL.' I shouted in a weird manner. My mom was surprised. My father who wasn't even paying attention to the situation till then turned towards me and gave me a confused look.

Why wouldn't they be confused? It was the same scenario that I imagined in my head that happened. Just about 4 months ago, I was singing praises of my school that it was the best school in the world and that I never wanted to leave it for any reason. But my parents didn't know all that praises were because of only one person, my Ramya. My mother asked me ' WHAT HAPPENED? IS SOMETHING WRONG? YOU COULD ALWAYS TELL US.' I wanted to cry telling them the truth; telling them that I made the biggest mistake of my life by letting my angel fly away from me. But I couldn't. I stood there with tears in my eyes. Meanwhile my mind was working as hard as ever to find me an alternate reason for my controversial statement. But it came up with an even controversial alternate reason. I was doomed. I knew it. 'ALL MY FRIENDS WOULD BE SHUFFLED TO OTHER CLASSES. IT WOULD BE AS THOUGH I'M IN A NEW SCHOOL AGAIN.' I told them in an unreal tone. My parents knew that I was lying and that I didn't wanted them to know the real reason. My parents responded in an even weirder manner. They sucked at acting too just like me or should I say the vice versa. They told me that they would call my class teacher and ask her not to shuffle the class. The embarrassed me, knowing that I ruined my plan immediately went to my room and closed the door.

Oh god, it was only about 10 minutes after the conversation with my parents ended that I heard a knock on my door. I opened the door. Outside was my parents standing with a grin on their faces. They seemed as if they had achieved the impossible. With a uninterested tone, I asked them what they wanted. 'WE TALKED TO YOUR CLASS TEACHER AND WE HAVE AMAZING NEWS. THERE IS NO SHUFFLING THIS YEAR AND ALSO YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO THE CLASS WITH THE BEST TEACHERS OF THE SCHOOL.' Hearing it, I was even more frustrated but I managed to fake a smile. But I never knew that the next thing they were about to say would surprise me and bring a real smile on my face. They continued 'WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU. CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE AWARDED THE PROFICIENCY AWARD FOR THE YEAR. IT'S BECAUSE OF YOU THAT THE WHOLE CLASS IS GETTING THE BEST TEACHERS.'

With that, my hope of changing the school never happened. I had to see her again. We were in the same class again. Deep down, I thought that the coming 2 years were gonna be the hardest. But this little incident with my parents changed me. It made me realise that I have the best parents. They believed in me and trusted my decision even when I wasn't even into my teens. I decided to work hard for my parents. I decided to make them proud. With determination, I entered 9th grade.