Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Forty-Six : In Between A Dramatic Exit

A message from Jazz popped on my front screen. "Incoming bombs on dikSHITa in 3 . . ."

This was the hundredth time Jazz had typed her name like that, but I didn't have the heart to crush her pride and tell her it wasn't funny anymore. Not that I was kind, but because my heart was pumping fast like the engine of a Ferrari and the loud sound of it blasted in my ears. I was entering Dev's college, dressed in a red dress as he had invited me on a date. The whole of me was determined to turn whatever this college event was into a date and the pressure of that responsibility made my hair stick to the sweat sheening my neck.

"2 . . . " I shouldn't have told Jazz about any of this, she had pushed me to wear a Valentine dress. God, why was everyone wearing a black t-shirt? To add a cherry on top of my flamboyance, I was wearing heels the size of Burj Khalifa.

I began furiously typing, "I told you Jazz that a dress was a bad idea. Nobody here---"

"1!"

"Hey, you came! You came on just the right time!" The voice that I didn't want to hear interrupted the beating of my heart. A shrill voice that made my heart skip multiple beats and my fingers fumble with my phone. I had a quick second to recover from the suddenness of her appearance and that I did. I had to, to preserve my dignity.

"Hey, Dikshita," the name rolled on my tongue from the memory of Jazz spitting it out, a jarring pause before shit. "Where's Dev?"

She ignored my question, her thick palms clasping my arms with the joy of seizing the last loaf of bread in a store. "You look so pretty! I can never pull off dresses like these. Only a person like you can carry it so well."

Underneath the guise of humility was her taunt, licking its lips after biting me sharply.

"My friend told me to wear this," I blamed it on Jazz, a bit too hastily, for I was ashamed of being overdressed even though I didn't want to appear so in front of her. By saying "only you" she had already excluded me from the majority of people present here. She had snatched any sense of belongingness. The only person I wanted to belong to, who could make me feel belonged here was Dev. "Where's Dev?"

"Dev, Dev, Dev! He needs to be left alone! His event is about to start now and he's busy ," she said, clinging to my arm like a Koala and laughing. "It's a quiz event and they need more participants. You have to participate with me. It's a two people team and we're the bestest pair!"

Bestest pair. This had to be the Gods above mocking me.

I took to diffidence to defend myself from Gods' ridicule. "I'm not good at commerce, economy-related stuff. I'm haven't taken economics at---"

"It's nothing related to that, don't worry!" She bent down to write our names on a printed excel sheet, her top riding up and revealing hot pink underwear. Now that was something I couldn't pull off. Wait a minute, when had we arrived at the registration desk? Before I could process the hot pink underwear or my name dirtily scrawled in the list, she dragged me inside the auditorium and forced me to sit on the stools on the stage. Inside, it was too quiet to protest.

I was hurled into the spotlight, my body diaphanous for everyone to judge my pride, my intelligence, my wit. The quiz hadn't even started and I was scratching my head for all the potential questions that would humiliate me. The dress and heels drew more eyes towards me and I folded my legs, in a last attempt to not let the dress expose my underwear. Unlike Dikshita's, my underwear wasn't a sight to see. Suddenly, some angel placed a long writing pad on my lap and I looked up, squinting against the light penetrating my being. It was Dev who tapped on the writing pad and asked, "Is this comfortable for you?"