100.
100.
Those were a lot of 9s and 0s.
That’s two marks lost.
Only two marks.
‘Those are SRCC marks,’ I mutter.
I turn to see her frozen. Her mouth is parted, stuck in a surprised expression. She’s not moving.
My body’s flushed with adrenaline. It’s like someone exploded a happiness grenade in my mind. I have known her for only four days, yet I’m joyous in her joy. I look at her, waiting for her to move, react, exult, run from the room to scream that she has done it. But she does nothing. Slowly, she becomes like those Christian statues that are reported to cry. Tiny tears streak down her cheeks.
‘Aanchal?’
‘3455902,’ she says finally.
‘But that’s your name. These are your marks. See? Aanchal Madan,’ I confirm.
‘Vicky,’ she explains.
I put in the roll number. This time the page opens quickly.
100. 100. 99. 94. 94.
‘98.25,’ she whispers.
These are not SRCC marks. All that separates Aanchal’s success and Vicky’s failure is one question.
‘Vicky’s not going to make it,’ she mumbles.
She opens her palm. The swastikais smudged because of the sweat.
Her phone starts to beep. She picks it up. And switches it off.
‘Who is it?’ I ask.
‘Classmates.’
She takes a few deep breaths—a sense of calm descends on her. And probably for the first time, I see how she really looks. It’s like watching a flower bloom in a time-lapse. It isn’t the Aanchal of fifteen minutes ago. It isn’t the Aanchal I kayaked with. It isn’t the beautiful, moonlit Aanchal of that night at the beach.
This Aanchal isdifferent.
A different kind of beautiful. This Aanchal has a smile on her face. A smile that emanates not from her lips but from her heart. Her eyebrows have smoothened. There’s a glow on her face. Her eyes have widened. There’s a blush on her cheeks. It’s as if she was a perfect sculpture but now the right words have been chanted and she’s coming to life. She’s transformed from a mortal to a goddess. I have shrunk and she has grown and what’s between us is not friendship but something bordering on devotion. She can order me to walk to the window and jump and I would, with a smile on my face. She could ask me to kill, and I would.
‘I should go,’ she tells me.
My heart breaks in slow motion. Each little fragment shredding my insides. Just three words—‘I should go.’ And yet, my mind can’t convince my body not to feel the pain.
I don’t want her to go anywhere. I want her to stay, and I want to keep looking at her. ‘You should go.’ It’s the biggest lie I have ever said.
‘Thank you,’ she squeals.
‘For what?’
‘You turned my luck, Daksh,’ she says. ‘Don’t you see it?’
