April 2005

"I mean how can they not have the design in a smaller size?" Shruti asked Ruvee as all four were seated in the cafeteria for lunch.

This had now become a normal thing. The four of them sitting at lunch together.

Hanging out with Aditya was not something Vikram had eased into but he didn't find it distasteful either. Mostly because Aditya kept to himself and rarely spoke. Shruti did most of the talking and Vikram, Ruvee and Aditya just listened.

Shruti was going on about a dress she had seen in the mall that she was interested in and wanted to buy and Vikram lost track of the conversation after that.

"You know I don't care about shopping and dresses, right?" Ruvee asked flat out.

Vikram wanted to laugh at how honest Ruvee was but decided not to. It would get Shruti very mad.

"But..." Shruti began, "You're a girl."

"Yeah, so? I can be a girl and not like girly things."

"Then what do you like?"

"I like horse-riding and reading books and writing..."

"And telling me I am stupid." Vikram intervened and Ruvee laughed and leaned on Vikram's arm lightly.

Vikram smiled and suddenly noticed that Aditya was starting at Ruvee. But he immediately looked away when Vikram met his gaze.

"I only call you stupid when you do stupid things." Ruvee said and Shruti began stabbing her fork on the plate that was almost empty.

"How long are you going to sit on my seat?" Shruti asked.

Ruvee shrugged. "As long as Vikram doesn't mind."

Shruti scoffed. "Vikram?" she asked. "It was my seat so you will have to move when I go back there."

Vikram suddenly looked at Aditya who had a book in his hand and was reading in silence now. Were they breaking up? Vikram, for the life of him could not understand how he was still reading in this chaos.

A few more words were exchanged between Ruvee and Shruti before the bell rang to indicate that lunch was over. Ruvee and Aditya walked ahead and Vikram was about to leave himself when Shruti grabbed him by the arm.

"How long is Ruvee going to hang out with us?" she asked sharply.

Vikram looked at her and then at Ruvee and back at her. "Why?"

"I don't think she fits well with us. You should have at least asked me before including her in our group"

Vikram pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Did you ask me before you decided to include Aditya in our group?"

"That..." she began, "that was different. Aditya and I are dating."

"Ruvee is my friend, Shruti. She has been my friend when you decided that having a boyfriend was more important than having me around. She was my friend when you didn't talk to me for a week because Aditya and I had a fight. She was my friend who tried to salvage the situation that resulted because of you."

"Me?" Shruti asked, flabbergasted. "What the fuck did I do?"

She looked around to see if no one heard her cuss on school grounds. Thankfully, no one had because Vikram and Shruti were the only two people remaining in the cafeteria.

"What did you do?" Vikram asked, scoffing. "You did what you've always done. You found a boyfriend and you forgot you have a friend too. It's so typical of you to find someone you think you want, only to make him your boyfriend before you get bored of him and dump him." Vikram paused and looked at her. "Did you even talk to me once before telling me that you were dating Aditya? How long had it been going on before you told me? And why him of all people? Tell me, would you have really gone out with him if he hadn't been the one who had beaten the shit out of Mohit."

Shruti shook her head and pressed her lips in a thin line. She was getting defensive now. "That's not why I started dating him."

"Is it not?" Vikram asked. He was so done with her bullshit. "I know you too well, you can lie to everyone but me. I know when you look at Aditya, all you see is your own entertainment."

Shruti crossed her arms and grinded her teeth. She was so used to being treated like a princess that this was not to her liking.

"That's not why I started dating him, okay?" Shruti suddenly yelled.

"Then why?" Vikram asked.

"Because..." her voice trailed off.

"Because what?"

Shruti scrunched her nose and looked around once more to make sure no one else could hear them. "Because I wanted to spite my parents."

Vikram had to replay the words in his head twice to understand what Shruti had just said. Even then, he didn't quite understand it.

"You wanted to do what?"

Shruti sighed. "My parents keep saying they want me to study at some local university so I can be close to them so I thought if I dated the most problematic guy in our school, they'd want to send me abroad for my studies."

"You've got to be kidding me. Shruti are you out of your fucking mind?"

"It just happened, okay? I was out having dinner with my parents, probably two nights before Aditya came back to school after suspension and we were at The Blooming Orchid when my parents began grilling me about staying here after 12th. I lost it, okay?" Shruti said. "I was mad and I ran out and Aditya was just standing there and then my parents appeared and all I could think was how much they'd hate seeing me with Aditya so I... I kind of asked him out. And he agreed."

Vikram shook his head. "Does Aditya know?" he asked. "About the reason why you're dating him?"

Shruti nervously tapped her foot and sat down, pulling Vikram down to the chair too. "He doesn't, so please don't tell him, okay?"

"He deserves to know the truth. You can't hide this from him. What if he has actual feelings for you?"

"That's it." Shruti said. "It might have started off as a joke but now I actually do like him. So it doesn't matter anyway."

Something about this did not sit right with Vikram.

"I would have told him if making my parents mad was the only reason I was dating him but now I feel different. It's not just that I like him, Vikram. I think I love Aditya."

For a second, the wind was knocked out of Vikram. She... she loved him?

But how was that possible? Shruti had talked about being in love many times. Sometimes she would watch a movie and sing praises about it all day, saying how she was in love. Sometimes she would hear a song and fall in love. Sometimes, she would fall in love with the flowers and the wind and the stars and the moon, but all of those times, she was in love with love. Shruti believed in the idea of love more than anyone Vikram had ever known. But she had, not once, confessed to loving a guy before.

Did Aditya feel the same way about her? For some reason, Vikram didn't want to find out.

"Did you..." Vikram began, only to realize that his voice had cracked. "Did you tell Aditya?"

Shruti shook her head and smiled. "I am planning to tell him after the match tomorrow."

All Vikram could think after she left was how fun it would be to lock Aditya in the locker room once again. And possibly the other teammates too. They couldn't play a match if there were no players, right? Then there would be no reason for Shruti to confess her feelings to Aditya.

Vikram found Aditya in the locker room after he had just come out of the shower. Aditya had a towel wrapped around his waist and had another in his hand that he was drying his hair with.

For a moment, Vikram forgot what he was there for when he saw Aditya like that. He then realized that he had been right- Aditya did have a full set of abs that Vikram had been staring at since he walked in.

Aditya spotted him and lowered his hand from his hair. "Are you here to lock me in again?"

"Hmm?" Vikram asked, coming to his senses. "No." he closed his eyes briefly, recalling why he was here. "I have to tell you something."

"Okay." Aditya said and dropped the towel from his hand to the bench and walked to his locker to pull his uniform out.

Vikram followed his movement and for whatever reason, took a note of his bare back as drops of water glided down the smooth surface. Too smooth to be honest. Vikram wondered if Aditya would whimper if someone were to trace the invisible lines water had made down his back.

"What is it?" Aditya asked, turning around suddenly and snapping Vikram out of whatever he was thinking.

What was it that Vikram was there to talk about? He was sure it was something important but right now, his brain was a pile of messy goo and language was something he was not familiar with.

"I... the..." Vikram began but words were betraying him at the moment. "Football match..."

What the fuck was he even saying? Nothing was comprehensible.

"Are they waiting for me?" Aditya asked.

Vikram had no idea. But he still nodded. It was probably true. Aditya was fashionably late to matches and that was something no one could do anything about. It was probably a right he had earned, considering how well he played and how tall he was and how muscular his body was and how toned his abs....

Vikram shook his head lightly and snapped himself out of it again. He had to mentally slap himself to come back on track.

Shruti, yes. It was Shruti that he wanted to talk about. He had spent the entire night last night thinking if he should tell Aditya what Shruti had been planning. And he was finally here to tell Aditya that.

"It's about Shruti." Vikram said.

Aditya raised an eyebrow at him. "What about her?"

Aditya took the uniform out of his locker and placed it on the bench next to him. Running his hand through his hair again, Aditya flicked away drops of water before reaching for the around him.

Vikram's eyes followed Aditya's hand and realized that he was about to undo the towel that was wrapped around his waist. A lump formed in Vikram's throat that he nervously swallowed.

He was about to do it. Aditya was about to take the towel off. And Vikram didn't know what to do.

Panic struck and the only solution he found was to perhaps dash. Vikram could have stayed and chosen to not stare at Aditya but he wasn't sure if he would be able to.

So, he ran.

"What about Shruti?" Aditya asked but the words were ignored. Vikram didn't even acknowledge how awkward this must have been as he ran away from the locker room to find a place that would not only be free of Aditya, but also the image of him taking the towel off.

Vikram decided to sit this match out.

He couldn't find himself going to the stands and watching Aditya play. When he left the locker room, Vikram's heart was beating so fast, he felt as if it would break out of his ribs and explode. He knew he needed to calm down first. So he ran to his classroom to find his water bottle.

He took the longest haul of his life from the bottle and only stopped when there was no more water left inside. For some reason, it still wasn't enough. He heaved and panted until he dropped on his seat, letting out wisps of air. The noise from the field was deafening and Vikram turned his head towards the open window, only to see what he had tried to escape so bad.

Aditya.

The crowd roared as he shot the ball into the goalpost. It was kind of weird how they all loved Aditya when he was scoring goals for the school but did their best to avoid him otherwise. Vikram would have been lying if he said that he hadn't noticed how alone Aditya was until Shruti decided to date him. Since the rumors of his father being imprisoned spread like wildfire in the school, people who looked up to Aditya suddenly turned against him. He had noticed the silent lunches Aditya took in a cafeteria full of people and the whispered voices that always followed him around. He had noticed how Aditya had begun spending more and more of his time in the library and the field and basically anywhere that didn't involve him sitting with a bunch of people who liked to talk more about him than to him.

Thinking back, Vikram felt a ball of guilt looming over his head. Maybe he should have helped him, maybe he should have told him that despite his hate, he was still there to talk to him. But he had never. And now that he had started to know Aditya, Vikram regretted his actions.

Aditya was a wonder, really. Despite everything that had happened in just a span of one year, Vikram had never seen Aditya break down or absorb the hate and discomfort people showed him. He had never let sympathy break him or the hostility affect him, well except that one time when he beat Mohit up.

When Vikram had first heard about the fight, every fiber in his body wanted to find Aditya and haul him out of the class, drag him all the way out of the school and bash his head against the iron gate. But now, after knowing how little Aditya reacted to everything, Vikram presumed it must have been something big for him to do what he did.

But that wasn't how everyone else saw him. In fact, him beating Mohit up was another reason everyone stayed away from Aditya after he came back from suspension. Because who wanted to associate with a troubled guy who was not only hot tempered but had actually put a fellow student in the hospital? If it hadn't been for Aditya's educational track record, Vikram was sure the suspension would have been permanent.

And then, things changed when Shruti came along. At first, Vikram had hated the idea of her dating Aditya but now, he wasn't so sure. Maybe it was meant to happen. Maybe they did belong together. Had it not been for her, Vikram would not have had this weird feeling in his heart that was swelling against his chest. He would still have hated Aditya and he would have never found out that Aditya didn't hate him at all.

Maybe it was right for Shruti to confess her feelings to him. Maybe, their relationship was not the problem, but Vikram was!

He closed his eyes for a while and then quickly shut all the windows in the class that reduced the noise from the field to a mere murmur.

Peace, at last.

Resting his head over his hands, Vikram tried to understand what was going inside of him but he didn't have a clue. He had no explanations for why his eyes lingered for more than necessary on Aditya in the locker room. He didn't have any comprehension of why he had bit into his lips when Aditya's fingers played with the edge of the towel on his waist. Vikram, for the life of him, could not understand why he had to fight with his own heart to escape the locker room when his feet refused to move.

"No!" he said to himself. "This is wrong."

Vikram presumed that he was just confused. That the situation was unexpected and that he was just flustered but if it was just that, why was he sweating so profusely in the middle of April when the weather was pleasant and cool on that particular day?

"I need more water." he said and rushed out of the class with the bottle in his hand. The water cooler was at the end of the hallway, near the stairs. He filled the bottle to the brim and drank it all down again. And yet, it didn't suffice him. His cheeks were still flushed and the wave of heat running over him hadn't died down.

"Fuck!" Vikram muttered before running to the washroom.

He turned the faucet on and dunked his head under the jet spray. As the water ran through the strands of his hair and down his face and neck, he felt the heat escaping him, slowly but surely. Vikram closed his eyes and only pulled his head out to inhale a lung-full of air. And then, he doused his head under the water again.

When he was done, he walked out of the washroom, feeling calmer but instead of going to the class, he decided to go to the clubroom where he could be as far away from Aditya's presence as possible.

Away from the noise and thoughts of Aditya, Vikram decided to lie on the sofa to calm himself down further but before he could realize, he already dozed off.

Vikram woke up two hours later and was thankful that he had slept for the entire duration of the football match instead of obsessing over Aditya again. He quickly got up and decided to go back to his class. Skipping steps of stairs, Vikram rushed to his classroom before he could miss any lectures, only to find out that not only were the hallways, but even the classrooms on the floor were empty.

Shit! Vikram thought. He'd forgotten that the match was after lunch and the school day was already over.

He decided to go to his classroom to retrieve his backpack when he heard voices coming from inside and he stopped. It was Shruti.

"But why?" she asked. Vikram had no idea what was going on and then it suddenly dawned on him. She was perhaps telling Aditya that she loved him.

Vikram was definitely in the wrong place at the wrong time and this conversation was not something he should be witnessing. A part of him wanted to walk away but another part, the most curious and the most bothered part was trying to convince him to stay, telling him that he needed to hear Aditya's answer as much he needed to hear the sound of his own breathing. That it was pertinent for his sanity.

"I am sorry Shruti. I just need more time to think about it." was all Aditya said and before Vikram could turn away and pretend that he hadn't heard any of it, Aditya was already at the door.

He looked at Vikram for a second too long and then, without a word, walked away.

After he was gone, all Vikram was left with was more confusion and a crying best friend who needed him right now.