Epilogue

Kritvik Bhatt

“She… trusts me enough, huh?”

“But, well… it really helps, you see, to get things off your chest,” I remembered her voice telling me.

My lips smiled. My eyes were covered with my arm lying on top of my eyes and forehead as I lay on my bed in the middle of the night. My body beneath my neck was all covered with that thick brown blanket.

The window across the bedside table on my left was covered with dark pink curtains which threw out the shiny silvery streaks of lights, obviously. The fan above my head was rotating slowly as it glowed in between those streaks. My bed too was shining a little in shades of black, for some reason.

And, in the middle of the bed was my face, smiling damn hard, for some reason.

“I… shouldn’t smile like this, man! She… She’s going through some hard times, and…”

My smile suppressed a little.

“I… It feels so good to know that… there’s someone who trusts you so much, for some reason. No doubt—it feels just great.”

There was now just a little curve of my lips, man.

“I… love her. I wanna take care of her. I want her to be happy. Really happy. I don’t want her to cry like that ever again. I want to be with her… always… and be there when she’s worried or crying or going through stuff, man.”

I gulped in. The lump in my throat was rising, for some reason. From the edge of my arm and my eyes, a drop of tear shone.

“I… love her. And she loves me too—no doubt.”

I took a deep breath in, filling my chest in, and then exhaled it out.

“And… I didn’t want today to end the way it did, man!”

I remembered the car’s black interior lit with the yellowish light in the front, with Sana and me on the backseat, beside each other, as my father drove it in the middle of the darkening street.

“It was so… awkward, for some reason,” I thought.

“But maybe… goodbyes are just meant to be this awkward, man.”

“Finally… this day is ending, huh?”

“And that… was the last happy day I was gonna live for a long time, man. It… It was the peak of my happiness, maybe. Yeah, no doubt—I was literally at the peak of my happiness. After that, everything… every single thing started to go downhill, for some reason.”

***

I was walking in the corridor of the school with my bag hanging on both my shoulders behind my back. I wore my usual all-white uniform with green buttons, a belt, and other stuff. On top of it was a dark green unbuttoned blazer, obviously. As usual, my hands were inside the pockets of my pants and my face neutrally looked forward. On my left was the layer of windows on the corridor, where the cloudy sky stood, for some reason. The corridor was filled with other students standing here and there and, as usual, talking.

The school ground in front of the building was filled with students walking in through the footpath at the edge of the green ground—some alone, some in groups. Football practice or some stuff was going on at the far left, on the other side of the ground, maybe, since there were some colorful plastic cones and stuff where about a dozen or so guys stood in red and black football dresses.

As I walked through the middle of the bunch of students toward my classroom, I suddenly looked at Sana walking out of a classroom some steps away from me.

I smiled. “Sa—!”

“Ahahahhahaa!” She was giggling at something.

Then, another smiling guy walked out beside her. Both of them turned right, the other way.

I exhaled out. My shoes stopped. I stood frozen as I glared at their backs walking away, smiling and laughing and cracking jokes with another guy, obviously.

For some reason, my smile, which was genuine a few seconds ago, had turned into a painful one.

“Who’s… he?” I thought.

My right foot stepped up slowly, and, after a second, I continued walking. I turned right and walked inside the same classroom from where they had walked out.

As I entered the dark classroom which was lit with only a couple of tube-lights, I noticed the groups of guys and girls scattered all around. There was one at the corner, one at the center, and one on the left row.

A couple of guys walked out talking and laughing as I turned left and walked inside the aisles of the wooden desks. I walked a couple of steps until I reached the gang of girls at the center, sitting on top of their tables as they laughed, and walked past them quietly. I walked a few more desks behind, turned right at the second-last or third-last desk, maybe, moved my left arm out of the straps of the bag, and then kept it down on the ground. My head was tilted down as I kept on glaring at my bag with a little smile on my face, for some reason.

I thought, “Obviously, man. We’re just friends, after all.”

“Just friends…”

“I sometimes think that… what type of a fucked up guy I am, huh? Really. Everything’s been going so well, but… it’s always my thoughts that… make things worse, for some reason. I just looked at her laughing with another guy, and… started to have such negative emotions. No doubt, the problem’s always me and my mindset.”

“Hey, K!”

My smile faded as I turned my head rightward, looking toward the front seats from where the girly voice had called me.

Sana was waving at me, smiling, as she walked toward me.

I smiled again—not a pained one, obviously. “Hey, Sana!”

***

“Yeah! We got both the comics signed!” Sana told Kavya.

“Good for you, girl,” Kavya said as she turned to her lunchbox and took a bite in.

Sana too took a bite.

I gulped in and turned to Kavya. “You should have been with us there. It was so great!”

“I agree!” Sana cheerfully said as she turned to her again. “You see, just being there with us would have been so much fun for you!”

“And maybe you’d get to know a thing or two about our interests, man,” I said.

“Yeah.”

All three of us were on our usual seats, man. Sana was in front of me and Kavya on my right, with her chair tilted toward us and her lunchbox on our table instead of hers.

“No, girls. I won’t want to roam around such losers with losers.”

Sana narrowed her eyes. “Well, that’s cringe.”

“No doubt,” I agreed, turning my eyes at her. Both Sana and I turned to our lunchboxes at once and took bites in.

“C’mon, boy, you were only there to ogle at bitches, weren’t you?” She turned to me.

“No.”

“K’s not like that,” Sana said as she turned to her. She then smiled. “But, well, you might be, you see.”

I smiled as I gulped in and turned to Sana. “She even looks like one, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “That’s why I said that.”

“Shut up!” Kavya smiled as she turned to her lunchbox. “You both have forgotten the art of comeback, I guess.”

I was chewing as I turned to her and gulped in. “Looks like you’re talking about yourself, for some reason.”

Sana chuckled as she chewed her food. She then turned to me and said, “Anyway, what about meeting after school today?”

“Huh? Why?”

“I get bored in the evenings, you see.”

“We can play badminton, man. But I don’t have one.”

“I don’t have one either,” She replied with a smile. “Well, we can do something else, you see.”

“Yeah, man. By the way, when do you want to meet?” I frowned a little.

“Well, what about five in the evening?” She took a bite in.

I smiled. “I play badminton with Aaryan and others around that time. You can join us too. But all of them are boys, for some reason.”

She gulped in and replied with a smile, “No, sorry. I’m not really interested now, you see.”

I chuckled as I took a bite in. “Damn, man. Alright.”

“I don’t wanna be with that type of guys.”

“He’s changed a lot, for some reason, man,” I said as I turned my head leftward, looking toward the windows of the classroom.

It was then that I noticed that the day was so cloudy that there was no sunlight seeping down. The whole day seemed a little darker than usual, man. No doubt—cloudy days are just gloomy like that.

“Anyway,” Sana turned to Kavya as she started to close her lunchbox. “Well, I have a really good anime for you. It’s a Bollywood-like romcom, and you’d like it, you see.”

Kavya turned to her, started to close her lunchbox too, and replied with a rude smile, “I’m mentally alright, girl.”

“You’re obviously not,” I turned to her.

Sana chuckled as she turned to her. “I agree. Anyone who watches only Indian daily soaps is really not okay.”

She frowned. “Girls, why do both of you hate them so much?”

“It’s bad,” I told her.

“Worse,” Sana added.

“Worst,” I corrected.

“C’mon, boy,” She turned to me. “You both ain’t telling me what to watch and what not.”

I smiled.

Sana smiled too. “Whatever. I guess we should keep on talking about JenCon and other anime things, you see.”

“No doubt, I feel that too, man.”

“Argh! You both are gonna make me go nuts!”

***

The clouds still covered the sky. It seemed like it could rain anytime soon, for some reason. The clouds were dark grayish, man.

The street too was a little darker than usual. And, for some reason, it was silent and empty, like always. Cars stood on both the sides of the street silently, and so were three-four-story apartments behind them.

I had my hands inside the pockets of my pants and my head tilted rightward at Sana. Her glossy light pink lips were open and laughing. “No! Ahahaha!”

“Yeah, I knew it!” I said, smiling, as I turned my head frontward.

She closed her eyes, laughing damn hard, man. She even bent frontward a little, man. She then straightened her back again, controlling her laughter. “You cringe emo…”

“Ahahaha!”

“For some reason, I… I love her so much. I really love her so, so much, man. I just wanted to be with her. And, as we were walking, the time to part ways for the day was coming near, man.”

Our indistinct chatter was the only voice all around the street, including the four-lane intersection about a dozen steps away from us. At the intersection, for some reason, there stood a guy in a gray pair of loose trousers falling on the black shoes, with the right shoe turned rightward toward the two of us.

It was Aaryan, who was glaring at the two of us with his frowning eyes. “You… asshole…”

He tightened his fist as he turned frontward and continued to walk from our right to left.