How It All Ended

Kritvik Bhatt

The phone was ringing. A soothing lo-fi music played as the name and number of the caller appeared on top of the black screen, with the red and green buttons beneath it. The name said ‘Sam’.

I was sitting in front of the wooden table at the corner of my room. On my left, obviously, was the window, where the dark bluish sky stood on top, with a few white clouds here and there.

I glared at the phone beside the right hand of mine, on top of my open book filled with text.

I gulped in. My right hand moved toward my phone. Swiping the green button to the center, I moved the phone to my right ear. “Hello?” I tried to sound as normal as possible, man, but… I just didn’t. She must have known that maybe I was a little hesitant.

“H-Hello, Kritvik,” Sana replied.

“Yeah, she called me Kritvik, not K.”

“Yeah, Sana. What’s up?”

“Well, tomorrow’s our farewell party, you see.”

“Hmm,” I nodded, my voice shivering a little.

“I… I just wanted you to come.”

“W-Why?”

“Well, I don’t really want you to miss the farewell party just because of what happened between the two of us, you see. P-Please, don’t miss it.”

The lights went off. Maybe it was an electric cut.

I sat there at the corner of my dark room silently, with the bluish sky lighting the room from the window just beside me as much as it could.

I opened my lips. I wanted to say something, but for some reason, my lips just didn’t move. I then closed my lips, gulped in, and… and turned my head down. I opened my lips again, but it was of no use. The words… The sound just didn’t come out, for some reason.

“Kritvik? S-Say something.”

I took in a deep breath and exhaled it out. My eyes turned a little watery as my shivering chest moved up again and I took a breath in.

“Alright, Kritvik. If you want it to be like it, then be it.”

Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

***

“And, that’s how… that’s how I ended up there.”

I was wearing a black shirt along with a black pair of pants as I sat silently on the white plastic chair in between that crowd of boys and girls my age who wore different colors of clothes. The sun was right on top of our heads, obviously, and everyone was sitting in their seats which all pointed toward the stage at the center of that amphitheater.

A few were talking here and there and the place was filled with whispers, but most of them were looking at the dances being performed by those girls in red sarees. Traditional music filled with Indian tablas and stuff echoed throughout the amphitheater.

The music then stopped, and everyone started to clap. All the girls walked out of their poses and stood in a line, bowed down once, and then turned back.

“We have some really cute juniors, didn’t we?”

“Too bad we might never see these girls, pal.”

“For real, pal. I liked the one on the left. She was so darn cute!”

I heard some guys behind me as all of us clapped.

Those girls turned back toward the chairs at the back of the stage and started to walk away.

From the mike of the podium at the left corner in front of the stage, a nerd-type guy with spectacles on spoke, “That was a really nice take on traditional dances of our country by the girls of ninth-C. And this was such a spectacular end to such a spectacular day. Now, at last, I’d like to formally invite our principal ma’am to give a few words to all the students of the tenth class.”

Everyone started to clap again as that guy walked away from the podium and principal ma’am—a woman in her fifties, maybe—took over the podium with a smile on her face. She had a round face and wrinkles all over her fatty cheeks. She was smiling as she said, “Hello, dear children.”

The applause stopped, and the amphitheater went completely silent—with all the eyes now on her.

“Today is the last day of you all, and the reason we’ve gathered here is because we want to bid you all farewell, right? Well, I… don’t want to bid my kids farewell. Just like mothers want their kids to stay with them, I too consider you all as my dear children and don’t want to leave you all.” She turned her face downward. “But, kids have to go out of their homes to achieve big things, no?” She then turned to us again. “So, I want to tell you all that… when you leave this home, where most of you all have probably been studying for thirteen years, I want you all to… achieve big things. And the first step toward that is passing with good marks in the board exams, choosing the right stream for you, and then giving it your all in the next two years so that you all can get into a good college next year, and then a good job.”

I nodded.

***

Some time passed, and the clouds started to build up on top of our heads. They soon covered the sun, and the whole place was filled with its shadows. The sunlight was gone.

Beneath that dark sky, everyone was scattered all around the ground. At one edge of the ground, all the food of the buffet was kept on top of tables covered with white clothes. And, there was a queue of people in front of it as they took food.

I sat silently at one of the tables at the center, with people walking all around me, talking and laughing. Everyone was happily chatting with each other.

In front of me, on the other side of the table, sat a group of boys who were laughing damn hard as they talked—their open mouths filled with half-chewed food.

I turned my eyes up at those guys for a second, and then turned my head to my food again as I took in another bite. “Why the fuck… did I decide to come here, huh?” I thought. “I’m still such a fucking simp, after all.”

I gulped my food in and stood up with that empty plate in my hands. I turned right and started to walk away from that seat filled with laughter and stuff.

I kept my plate inside the metal catering dustbin and walked away. I walked through all the guys and girls standing in circles as they enjoyed the food and talked. I moved my hands inside the pocket of my pants, took in a deep breath, and then sighed out.

“Damn, man. I… I’m so fucking miserable. I should have just stayed home, after all.”

I turned my head leftward and… and my eyes, for some reason, fell on Sana. She was right in front of that group of boys with two more girls. All of the boys and girls were laughing as they had their plates in their hands.

Sana wore a pink kurta whose ends touched her knees on top of her pink palazzo, with black wedge-heel sandals.

I remembered her face that night when I had first gone out with her. I remembered her smile that night, her shining studs, her smooth hair that fell on her shoulders, her black dress, and… that street filled with people, lit with warm mustard lighting, with the two of us laughing as we glared into each other’s eyes.

“Nothing goes according to how we daydream, huh?” I thought. “I… I loved her. I wanted her to be mine, but…”

Her eyes widened for a second in disbelief as she said something to one of the guys who, for some reason, was not Daksh. That was when I noticed the kohl eyeliner around her eyes.

“She looks so… so… damn stunning, man.” I then turned my head frontward. “But maybe… it’s not my fucking right to admire her like that.”

***

Sana Kohli

“I… I always used to run toward you whenever I used to cry. And, now that you’re… And, well, now that you’re gone, who am I supposed to run to?”

I had my eyes on Kritvik as he stood alone at one corner, drinking a soft-drink as he sat alone at a table. He then moved his glass down from his lips and kept it on the table. His eyes were narrowed and dark, like he was kinda depressed.

“That emo…” I thought as I glared at him. I then turned frontward at Daksh’s friends again, who were all laughing happily as they talked. On my right were two girls—my friends—who were talking to each other. I turned to them and, well, smiled. Like, it was a faked and forced smile. I jumped into their conversation again. “Dark red would look better on you, you see,” I said.

“But why?” One of the girls asked as she turned to me.

“Sana, don’t you think that light would match her outfit?” The other girl with relatively fairer skin and a heavier voice asked.

“You see, her dress is a little light, so maybe dark lipstick would stand out?”

The fairer one smiled. “That’s not how it works, Sana. I guess you need to learn a little about makeup.”

“Yeah, maybe I should,” I replied with a smile.

I then turned to him again as the two of them started talking. I glared at his depressed eyes and dark clothes, which looked like he’d come to, like, a funeral or something.

“We meant so much to each other at one point of time. But, well, one day, we… didn’t.”

My smile faded a little.

“I spent the best days of my life with you, K. It-It almost felt like a fairytale… because everything… was just going alright for once. Everything was just… fine, just so happy.”

I turned my head downward. “After this day… I might never see you again. We might never talk again. We might never… laugh again with each other.”

“If someone asks me why my love story ended like this, I’d just reply that, well, it was not a love story. It was really not a love story, you see. It’s… It’s the story of how someone came into my life, made me love myself again, and… and, well, walked away.”

***

Kritvik Bhatt

“Not all first-love and love-at-first-sight stories come to a happy ending, after all.”

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

I stepped out of the school building and turned left. There were a couple of guys and girls behind me who talked and laughed as they turned the other way from the building.

I had my head tilted downward and my hands inside my pockets as I walked away from my school building slowly.

Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

…

They stopped, for some reason. I turned my head backward, and looked at the proud school building standing beneath the dark but shining sky filled with clouds.

“It’s just been six months, huh?” I thought. I then turned my head frontward and started to walk away.

“Outside the windows of our classrooms, all of our lives are fucked up one way or the other, after all.”

“And, man, that’s the story of Sana and me, and everything else in between, to be honest.”