Cracks (Part II)

Kritvik Bhatt

“But, what should we do?” I asked Sana. We both were standing a step away from the door, inside the all-white classroom.

“W-Well, we gotta think of something,” She said. “I’ll think of something, K. You see, you shouldn’t really get into this stuff.”

“Huh? Why? I-I’m the main concern here, for some reason.”

“Yeah, but still, you gotta stay away from this,” She said, her eyes dead serious.

I glared into those eyes for a second, fighting with myself hard, and then I said, “N-No, man. I’m gonna help you.”

“You don’t need t—”

“But why?” I asked. She saw the emotions in my eyes—those emotions of helplessness which could come flowing down anytime, maybe. “I… I’m just like her, man. For some reason,” I turned to my back, “I too get ignored by everybody else.”

“I… I wanna help too, man.”

She saw the truthfulness and genuineness in my eyes. “… Okay, K. But since I know her better, I’m gonna make the plan. You just follow, okay?”

“Okay…”

Ding dong. Ding dong. The bell rang. Movement between the students started as the break was over.

***

Aaryan Khanna

We both were still sitting under the shadow of the trees, ya see. There were little gaps between those silhouettes of the leaves from which the sunlight was fucking coming down over our heads.

We both had a vape each in our hands. Sooraj had his vape in his lips, and mine was in my right hand between my thighs. My back was tilted frontward, while Sooraj’s was straight. Both of us were in our gray trousers and white shirt uniform. I turned my head to my left, looking at the corridor-like pathway opening to a ground a dozen of steps away. On my right was a wall, which was the end of the school boundary. Sooraj looked to the front at the wall of the school building just a few steps away from us. The pathway was between that building and the wall on the boundary of the school ground on our backs.

“So, when do ya think this shit is gonna end?”

“Lunch break?” That asshole asked.

“Yeah.”

“Probably ended, dickhead.”

“Oh, that’s why no asshole is on the ground, right?”

“You’re legit high now.”

My eyes were narrowed. “Yeeeeeaaaah, asshole.”

Sooraj moved the vape out of his mouth with the two front fingers of his right hand, closed his eyes, and blew out a gray puff. As it covered his face translucently, he turned his head downward. His both elbows were on his thighs, with the hands in the middle—just like me. For some seconds, he kept on glaring at the fucking vape between his forefinger and his middle one as the puff turned more and more translucent as it moved up and faded away. “Man, this is gonna be my last one.”

I kept on glaring at the wall with my narrowed eyes, high on the vape, ya see. I turned down to my own hands and vape.

“… Alright, pal. Me too.”

***

Sana Kohli

“Kavya is not a normal girl. She… is different. Like, everyone’s different, but she’s… even more.”

My eyes were continuously glaring at the back of Kavya. She was sitting on the row on my left, some seats front. Her right cheek was on her right arm which stood on the desk as she looked uninterestedly toward the blackboard.

“Right, kids?” The male teacher in a white shirt and black trousers asked.

Everyone in the class nodded, but Kavya didn’t. Like, she was lost somewhere else, her eyes just glaring aimlessly at the front. “You see, I know what you’re thinking, Kavya,” I thought as I turned my eyes to the front.

As the teacher wrote something on the blackboard, he said, “And then, kids, we’d add this polynomial…”

She remembered her very first day at school some time ago. She remembered her same figure walking into the classroom with her head tilted downward. She had the same dark skin and messy hair. As she was walking inside from the front of the class, she turned her head to the left and looked at everyone scattered in groups. The desks and the backs of those people were tilted at her.

“She knew all of them when she first came here. At last, she joined this school in between COVID, so she had studied with them for a whole year online. But… when she entered the class that day and met those guys for the first time in real life, she felt… that she really didn’t really know anyone. And, it has been like that with her for over a whole year, you see. So…”

Kavya was sitting silently on the first bench of the classroom, studiously looking at the blackboard as everyone behind her back was, like, talking and chatting and having fun.

“… These shit losers, girl… will make me go nuts.”

“She has a toxic mouth and a more toxic mind, but… she is not really a bad person.”

“Girl, be sure to get your lunchbox inside every morning,” I remembered her voice. “You can’t stay hungry the whole day, can you?”

“Yeah, Kavya…”

“Over time, we’ve become good friends…”

“No, click on that button to punch!” I shouted at her. She was in my room that day and we both were playing some games on my smartphone. She was the one playing and I was telling her how to play it.

“Shit! We lost again!” Kavya shouted. She banged the phone on the bed with the yellow bed-sheet—where we were sitting, you see.

“Whatever. Give me that.”

“And… we were developing pretty deep bonds… in just about a month…”

“Y-You don’t even know what I’m going through, bitch!” She shouted at me. We both were sitting at one corner of the park, on a dark metal rusted bench. The grass was short, and everything—the grass, the pathway behind us, the bench—was in shades of black.

“You… are going through loneliness, right?” I said as I looked leftward at her. I moved my left hand up around her shoulders. She wore a pair of pink and yellow shorts and a t-shirt, and I was on a black palazzo with a white t-shirt. I moved my head to her, so that our ears could touch each other. I too turned my head downward. “Like, I am, too. That’s sad, right?” I took a deep breath in, closed my eyes, and said,

“… So… let’s end each other’s loneliness.”

She turned her head up and tilted her eyes at me. “We both are going through the same shit, ain’t we?”

“Yeah,” I replied, still glaring aimlessly at a distance. “You see, because of your language and such, people don’t really talk to you. It’s not your fault, you see, because I know that you’re from some place where this type of language was common. And, they judge you based on your background, and… I don’t like it. Well, they might be judging me too, and that’s why they don’t really talk to me, you see.”

“Yeah, girl.”

“Whatever. Let’s play Jenshi—”

“Don’t you dare say that name outta your mouth, bitch.”

“She’s also kinda boyish, you see.”

***

“That bitch… has left me.”

Kavya was glaring at the front, her eyes focused on the math on the blackboard. My eyes were tilted to my left at her. Sir was still teaching something in his faint indistinct voice while pointing to certain numbers behind him.

“But… the thought that people are ignoring and shunning her is… is just something she’s made up herself. She’s a pessimist, and… like, she’s just like that. That’s just her.”

“That bitch… how can she?!” Kavya thought in an angry tone, but her eyes or facial expressions were not really angry. “She’s fucking that boy, while I’m alone here! How can she do this to me?!”

Kritvik turned his head backward, looking at me who was looking at Kavya. Kritvik glared at me guiltily for a second and then turned to the front again.

“Imma fuck that boy if he tries to make a move on her. Wait, a loser like him won’t really try to do it, though. But, he’s getting attention, so he might.”

She then starts to imagine the scenario in her head. She imagined the closed classroom, dark and empty, with two figures inside each other at one corner. Kavya, in her imagination, opens the door of the class, and the first thing she notices is Kritvik and me on the other side of the teachers’ desk. I had my face in front of Kritvik’s chest, and he was moving his waist front and back vigorously. He then turned to his right, looked at Kavya, and then hastily turned to me as he started to pull his pants up. I turned to my left, looked at her shocked widened eyes, and then took the shirt on the table between her and me, placing it in front of my breast. Kritvik hesitantly walked around the desk and turned to her. “I-I-I can explai—”

“Kavya!”

Kavya’s eyes jerked open wide. She turned her eyeballs up toward the math teacher standing in the front.

“Concentrate here, Kavya.”

“Y-Y-Yeah, sir,” She replied hesitantly.

***

Ding dong. Ding dong.

The math sir continued his explanation on top of the bell. “And, that’s why it’d be x raised to the power of seven.” He then turned to his left and started to walk to the teachers’ desk. Everyone stood up. As he was taking his books, he turned to us, corrected his glasses with his left hand, and said, “Complete this exercise by tomorrow. I’ll take your doubts tomorrow.” He then turned to his back and started to walk to the door.

Everyone sang in unison, “Thank you, sir.”

Well, one girl in the middle, Kavya, was still sitting, you see.

I was wearing the straps of my bag and everyone was taking bags and had started to talk among themselves, but she kept on glaring toward her shoes, her hands in between her thighs. As I hung my bag on my shoulders, I walked out of my bench and started to walk to her. “Kavya…”

I stopped beside her and shook her right shoulder. I was looking at her worriedly. “K-Kavya…?”

“You too don’t wanna talk to me now, right?” She asked.

“What? No!”

She turned her dead-serious eyes to me and looked into my eyes. “Liar.”

“That’s what your problem is, Kavya!” I shouted at her. “I was just talking to him, and you started to imagine things on your own!”

“I can see where it’s going clearly, bitch!”

“No, you can’t!”

“I ca—”

“Just shut up, Kavya!” I started to walk away, dashing between all those gangs of students who were talking and smiling. My tone said that I was irritated and about to cry. My tone felt like it was breaking a little.

Kavya stared at my back walking away.

I turned to my right toward the door, walked past Kritvik, and he started to follow my figure, worriedly asking me questions.

“Hey, Sana! What happened? Why are you rushing so fast? Is something up? Hey, talk to me!”

We both walked out of the class to the corridor and turned to the left. Everyone was walking in the same direction and the corridor was filled with the indistinct chatter of dozens of students compressed into that corridor.

“Man, at least tell me what happened!” Kritvik asked me.

“I don’t wanna talk right now, K. Better leave me alone.”

“I… I can’t leave you alone in a situation like this, man. And obviously, I won’t.”

I had my head tilted down as we walked slowly through that crowd where everyone was touching each other somewhere. “Then… just shut up for some time.”