We Both Cry So Damn Much

Kritvik Bhatt

“Another damn morning, and… and another damn time…”

I stood in the middle of the corridor, just some steps in front of the staircase with my bag hung on my back, as I glared at the doorframe of my classroom a dozen steps away. My right hand clenched hard as some students passed by me, talking like nothing happened.

In front of the classroom stood a bunch of guys, with Daksh at the center for some reason, talking to Sana as she stood bent by the doorframe, laughing as she covered her lips with her right hand.

Daksh and the other guys were constantly chattering and laughing hard as she giggled and spoke some stuff here and there in between. Suddenly, another girl with a bag walked to them—maybe she had just come to school like me.

I took in a deep breath and started to walk toward them, moving my right hand inside the pocket of my trousers.

“No doubt, man. Those guys… They surely look better than me, and maybe… they surely look good with Sana, unlike me,” I thought as I walked to them silently, my head tilted downward.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

“Excuse me,” I said as I stood behind their backs.

Some guys turned to me and stepped a little aside as I resumed walking in from the center of the group.

For some reason, Sana’s smile faded a little as I walked in the middle of the group and went past her. She turned her eyeballs to me for a second before suddenly turning to the front again.

Thump! For some reason, my heart punched me as I went past her like that and stepped into the classroom.

“It’s… finished. We don’t know each other anymore, man.”

***

During lunchtime, I was sitting alone in the back left corner of the classroom, obviously. On my right was the classroom filled with a bunch of unorganized groups of students here and there, and on the left were the wall and the window. That window revealed the dark cloudy sky, man, even though it was not that dark as yesterday, obviously.

My eyes were still dark and narrowed as always as I ate my lunch, obviously.

As I chewed, I remembered that smile on Sana’s face that morning as she talked to all those boys.

“Damn, man. She used to have no friends, and now…”

I turned my head rightward to the door at the front right corner of the room, where Sana and Kavya stood between some four-five boys with a couple of girls, laughing and chatting with each other.

I then turned my head to my lunchbox again. “That bastard…”

I then turned to her again, for some reason. Man, I didn’t mean to, but… but I just couldn’t stop myself from glancing at her for another second. And I looked at her talking to the bunch of guys as the girls were busy on their own, obviously. I turned to my lunchbox again.

“I’ve always heard in movies and stuff about how you feel this… this sensation of something burning inside your chest when you see something like that, man. But, for some reason, I… I really felt it. It-It really burns a damn lot, man.”

With my left hand, I scratched the center of my ribs a little for a few seconds. But suddenly, I then started to grab it hard with my fingers.

“Damn… man. Fuck it!”

“Maybe I was really going insane, man.”

I moved my left hand away from my chest and started to close the lid of my lunchbox. I then turned my head leftward at the cloudy sky.

The dark blue sky with those dark whitish clouds seemed relaxing, for some reason. The clouds were carelessly floating as the sunrays seeped in just fine.

As I glared at it aimlessly and closed my lunchbox, a thought suddenly hit my head—“Yeah, man. It’s gonna be my last day at school. From tomorrow, I’m not coming back to this classroom, whatever the fuck happens.”

I then turned to my bag between my desk and the wall and bent in to stuff my lunchbox in it. I then stood up, walked out of my seat, and started to walk frontward. “I don’t really think Sana and I are ever gonna talk again anyway. It’s gonna be too awkward for both of us, after all.”

I turned right as I crossed the rows of desks and turned right toward the door, which was right in the front. And obviously, on the right side was Sana as she stood on the edge of the group and talked to other girls.

I moved both my hands inside the pockets as I crossed her back and stepped onto the corridor, which too was filled with people standing here and there and eating food. I turned left in the corridor and continued to walk.

After some seconds, the door at the roof opened and I walked out of the bricked place. I turned right as always, obviously, and walked to the railing of the school roof. I crossed my forearms on the roof and bent my back a little frontward as I stood beneath the dazzling dark blue sky and white clouds.

“The weather’s so nice today, man,” I thought. A little whiff of wind went past from my right to left, blowing the trees at a distance. “If my days had not been so fucked up, it’d have been so damn nice to be here, man.”

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. A pair of feminine shoes hurriedly stepped up the staircase.

The door opened again as a girl, just about my age and height, stepped in hurriedly on the roof. She stopped and panted as she turned her head left, and then right. She noticed my back standing silently. “Huff, huff. Huff, huff.”

I turned my head backward and looked at her.

THUMP!

My eyes widened too.

It was Sana as she glared at me, panting.

I frowned as I turned the rest of my body to her. “Sana?”

She started to walk to me. “K.”

“Yeah?”

“I-I… Huff, huff.”

“Damn, man. Catch your breath first,” I tried to act normal as she stood in front of me, facing me with commitment and purpose in her eyes.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, and then she exhaled out. “Okay, lemme get this clear, K.” She opened her eyes. “Well, about yesterday… W-Where had you run off to?”

“I, uh,” I didn’t really know how to respond. “Home, man. Obviously.”

“It was on the exact opposite side.”

“Uhm, I navigated around the corner.”

She nodded as she glared into my eyes. “Well, actually…” Her eyes turned down, like she didn’t know how to say what she wanted to say.

“W-What?”

“Well, I wanted to tell you some stuff.”

“… What’s it?”

“… Well… I… just wanted to say that I love you a lot.”

My eyes were dumbfounded for a second. “… Really?”

“Like, platonically, you see.”

“… O-Okay.”

“And, uh,” She then turned to me. “And I care for you, you see. And, you care for me too. I like the way you handle me when, well, I can’t really handle myself. And, I can share stuff with you that I can’t really share with Daksh or anyone else, you see.”

I nodded.

“So, K, I-I want things to be back as they used to be.”

I nodded as I turned backward to the railing again. “Today’s weather is so nice, right?”

“Well, yeah,” She confusedly replied as she glared at my back. “But, what… do you…?”

“Sana, I… I’m sorry I fell in love with you. For some reason, I-I’ve always been in love with you like that—ever since I first came to this town. I… I-I can’t see Daksh and you from a distance like that. It hurts me.”

“K…”

“I don’t wanna see myself standing like a fucking third wheel between you two ever again, man. After all, it… damn hurts.” I turned my head skyward and I sniffed in. It was obvious to her, maybe, that I was getting emotional as I said all of that stuff. “I wanna be with you too, but not like this.”

“I’m sorry, K, that you have to see this, but…”

“No. It’s not your fault, obviously. No doubt—it’s me. Maybe I should have confessed to you a lot sooner. Or maybe, I… I should have never confessed to you at all and continued to go with the flow silently.”

She gulped in.

“For some reason, I don’t wanna talk to you and remind myself of you. I… I wanna… I wanna forget you and move on. Or else, I’d always be around you like a side character, thinking that… maybe, one day, you might come to me. And I don’t wanna live so miserably as that, man.”

A drop of tear ran down my right cheek. I moved my right hand up and rubbed it off, obviously, as I turned back and looked into her eyes with my filled eyes.

Her eyes, for some reason, were filled up too.

“It melted my heart again, but… but I knew that I can’t do this any longer. I gotta fucking sort all this stuff.”

“So… I’m sorry, man. Let me go.”

She turned her head down and covered her face with both her palms.

I smiled as I covered my eyes too. “We both cry so damn much, huh?”

“You’re… so mean. You only think about yourself, K.”

“I’m sorry, but my head’s filled with all of this mess that I’ve created. A lot has been going on in my life, for some reason. I gotta sort all of it out.”

“Here I am, crying for you, but you still…”

“I’m sorry,” I said under my breath. I then moved my hands back and rubbed my cheeks. I then, for some reason, reflexively stepped toward her, flung my arms open, and… placed my arms on her neck. I moved her forward to my chest as she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. “I’m really sorry, man.”

“It’s alright,” She said.

She moved her hands below her eyes and rubbed her cheeks as my arms covered her face. “Well, I never thought you’d leave me if I… went into a relationship. Or else, maybe, I’d have never said yes to him and got attached to him. You… You mean so much to me, K.”

“It’s an honor, man.”

She then pushed me away, I stepped back a little and caught on the railing on my back as I shockingly glared at her. Her hair, for some reason, covered her darkened face.

“FUCK YOU! DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH ME AGAIN!”

She, for some reason, then turned back to the door and hurriedly walked away.

I closed my red eyes and covered them with my right hand. “It never fucking ends well, huh?”