Doubt

Kritvik Bhatt

“That… That rejection… kinda changed my life.”

***

The white school building stood still beneath the blue sky. It was a cold winter day, and the sky was filled with white clouds. There was no sunlight that day, for some reason.

The clock in front of the white paint filled with scratches and patches of dirt showed the time of about ten in the morning.

“And, kids, that should be all for today,” The feminine voice announced.

The books and notebooks were slammed shut in an instant and all the students bent to their bags to keep the book inside.

“It’s lunch-break now, right?” The teacher asked me, who was at the front center desk, obviously.

“Hmm,” I nodded as I turned to her while bent down on my bag, keeping the books inside.

She nodded back as she turned to her desk at the corner on my left and walked toward it. She kept the books down on it and then again turned to the class. “So, there are just two-three more topics left in the chapter, and then, we’ll be complete with our syllabus. After that, we’ll start revising everything, okay, kids?”

“Ma’am, when are the pre-boards scheduled for?” A girl sitting on the front desk right in front of the teacher asked innocently.

“Next month, child. In January itself.”

“Hey, what about Christmas, bro?!” A guy’s voice reached my ears as I turned my head backward. I looked at a guy on my row, some desks back, talking loudly to another guy sitting parallel to him on the row on the left. There were more guys between the two who suddenly rose up to a burst of laughter.

“Ahahaha!” He laughed. “Yeah, school won’t be giving us a carnival this year, bro. So, what if we go somewhere else? Like…”

I turned my head to the front, and for some reason, kept my forehead down on the wooden table. Closing my eyes, I started to think. “Was it… the right choice?” I thought. “Was rejecting her the right choice? Or… not?”

“Maybe, it was not a good choice. I… I must have said yes. She’s such a nice girl, after all. And, I… I used to be her best friend, man. I… I should have agreed. It… It must have saved both of us from losing each other. And…”

I gulped in.

“No. I-I like Sana, maybe. And, I like her a lot. She’s pretty, and beautiful, and… and she cares for me. She… needs me, and… I can’t betray Jiya like that, man. I… can’t do something like that.”

“But, Sana… Maybe, she doesn’t even like me back. Maybe, she sees me only as a friend. Maybe, we two are not made for each other. So, I should have said yes to her, maybe. But…”

Triiing. Triiing.

I opened my narrowed eyes. My surroundings were suddenly filled with footsteps of everyone standing up and walking here and there, of desks being pushed to and fro, and of other stuff. I also heard the hard and distinct footsteps of our teacher, who was maybe walking from right in front of me to the door.

“I shouldn’t even think about this damned stuff, man.”

Pat!

Someone slammed both their hands on my back loudly. I straightened my back and sat up on my desk, turned to my left, and smiled.

Sana was the one who had her hands on my back. She smiled.

“It hurts, man!” I said as my lips curved open in a smile.

“Be a man, emo!” She said as she walked and stood right in front of me.

I turned to her and looked at her face. She, for some reason, was not wearing her mask as she smiled. “Come, let’s eat out today.”

“Where?” I inquired as I frowned.

“We’ll see. Kavya is absent today, so it’s only the two of us. So, we should try eating out for once, you see.”

“It… doesn’t make any sense, for some reason.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Just come.”

“O-Okay…” I turned my head down left toward my back.

***

I had my head to my right as I looked toward the edge of the corridor. At the edge of the corridor was a garden—right in between the school’s building, for some reason. And, from the edge, we could see some trees and vegetation below. On my left walked Sana, and on her left were the classrooms.

The corridor was filled with the indistinct chatter of other students who stood there and chatted as they chewed.

“Damn, man,” I commented as I looked at the scenery filled with beautiful flowers and shrubs cut in shape. I had my lunchbox open on my left hand and took a bite in with my right hand.

She gulped her bite in and turned to me on her right. “It’s cool to eat here, right?”

“Yeah, man.” I then turned to her. “I didn’t know you could eat in this corridor.”

“That’s sad,” She smiled.

I smiled too. “Yeah, it is, maybe.” I then turned to my food again and started to break a bite with my right hand.

She too turned to her food. “Well, you see, you’re really dumb, because you should have found out about this corridor until now.”

Just as I was moving the bite toward my face, I stopped my hand for a second and replied, “Maybe.”

“You see, it’s just ten steps away from the corridor of our class.”

“Hmm,” I nodded as I chewed.

She then took a bite in too.

There was a little period of silence of a couple of seconds as both of us chewed our meals and walked. I then took in another bite, and she did too. We stayed silent.

“Does she… like me?”

“… Wait, do I… do I like her?”

“And that’s how that incident changed my life. For some reason, it… It made me think every second of my life if what I did was right or not, or what my life could have been if I had chosen the other way around. No doubt, I was regretting my decision. But, if I had accepted her confession… would I have regretted that? Or not?”

“Anyway, you seem kinda worried about something,” She suddenly said.

I turned to my food, and was preparing a bite as I gulped in. “Huh? What do you mean?” I simply asked.

“I used proper language with proper usage of grammar, emo. And I said it right. You really seem worried about something, K.”

I nodded as I took a bite in and started to chew it. I turned my head up, chewed it for a second more, gulped it in, and then turned to her. “Nah, man. I’m alright.”

She turned her head to me and looked me into my eyes. “You would have replied with a smile if you were alright, K.”

I frowned and smiled. “Damn, man. I’m alright, really.”

Sana smiled too. “Whatever. Anyway, did you catch the first episode of that series yesterday?”

“Man, learn to use their names for once,” I said with a smile.

“You see, I can’t remember those Japanese names at all.”

“Yeah, man. That’s what makes you dumb,” I turned my head to the front and took a bite in.

“Anyway, can we talk about who’s even saying this?”

“Nah, he’s outta your league, man.”

Her eyes widened as she turned to me. “I just wanna ask you one thing.”

I turned to her again. “What?”

“… Ever seen the mirror?”

“… Yeah.”

“Bet you haven’t.”

“Why?”

“If you had, you’d not have said something like that, you see.” She smiled and I continued to look into her eyes.

“… That was dumb, man.”

“Yeah yeah, that was cringe,” She turned her head frontward again. “Like, I don’t know what’s happened to me today!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get through this,” I consoled her.

***

“Anyway, you seem kinda worried about something.”

I had my eyes wide open.

The sun had set and it was dark in the sky. Half of the streetlights were shut and the other half too only dimly lit the street, for some reason. There was no one on the street, except those stationary cars that stood on the edge of the street.

The curtains on the window on the left of mine had a little opening, from where the sharp moonlight appeared in.

My face, my blanket, and all the other stuff in the room were lit in that shade of black. I had my eyes wide open as I lay straight on my bed.

“She cares for me, huh?” I thought. “Maybe I have a chance. And, if I had discovered that while being in a relationship with Jiya, this obviously would have hurt her and me. So… So maybe that’s a good thing…?”

I tossed my body leftward toward the window.

“I… I’m not even able to choose between the two of them, man. Why? Do I like Sana so much that… that I even rejected Jiya… who… who… who…”

“I was lost with words for describing her.”

“Huff,” I sighed, and closed my eyes. “What… What’s even happening in my life, man?! I got fucking caught up in this love triangle stuff! I… I’m not a guy like that. I’m not a fuckboy or something, man!”

“Anyway, you seem kinda worried about something.”

“Yeah, man… I’m kinda worried about something. But… I can’t tell you about this stuff, for some reason,” I imagined my reply. I imagined standing in front of her in the corridor, my head tilted down and my face with a pain-filled smile.

“I-I’m with you, K. Don’t worry. Tell me what it is. We can get to the solutions together, you see. And…” She then turned to me in my imagination. “And, you see, it’s important to get such things out of your head.”

I nodded, my head still tilted down. “But, it’s… it’s something I can’t tell you, man. Believe me.”

She patted me on my shoulder. “Well then, I hope you can cope by yourself. If you ever need to feel energized, come to me.”

“Yeah, man. Sure.”

My imagination broke, and I was back to the real world. I was looking at the wall-long window in front of me, with a little bit of opening between the curtains. The curtains were lit up because of the moonlight.

I closed my eyes.

“I gotta focus on my studies, man. I gotta stop thinking about this stuff.”

“I used to think about this stuff every day for some days, and… it had badly fucked me up, for some reason. And the more encounters I had with Sana over the month, everything… everything made me think if she liked me or not. If she… If she loved me or not. And, if she was the right one or not. Because, I had bet a lot on it this time, and… and I didn’t want to lose. Obviously. But… But soon enough… it was gonna happen, man. For some reason, the worst phase of my life was yet to hit me. I shifted homes, I rejected Jiya—as if all of this stuff was not enough.”

“And maybe, I should sleep now.”

I tossed my body to my right side, and then pulled my blanket up. I covered my face with my blanket, with only my hair left out. I took a deep breath inside the blanket, and then exhaled it out. “I will never think about this from now on, man. No doubt, I need to focus on my studies and other stuff, and not on this useless stuff. At last, I’m just a kid. I should not get into girls and all this stuff at this young age. We don’t live in America. It’s India. It’s not good to be involved in all this.”