The next day, the voices greet me at the school gate and cloud my brain during every period. No explanations could be registered in my mind. The whole while I was sitting and eating my nails that has now vanished and kept tapping my foot to fulfill the desperate urge to move. Sitting in one place is sending me on the edge. It is when school ends that I feel relieved to get up and leave the classroom first.
"Arasi?" I stumble upon our class teacher. "I was coming to class for some work. Come." She gestures and walks back to class, making me groan. I want to go home and lay in my bed for hours until I doze off or at least drown myself in some music so that I can't think at all.
Waiting in front of the class, I notice Kavya coming towards us with two of her classmates. She stands beside me as I keep my gaze down.
"You were going home already?" Kavya asks.
"Yeah, that headache again."
"But today you and Anirudh were supposed to come to my place so that I could show you that expensive silk dress my uncle bought for me."
"Can you stop saying expensive every time you speak of that dress?"
She gasps. "Why shouldn't I? It is an expensive dress."
"Well, I can't come. I'm not well." I sigh.
"You're making excuses, Arasi."
I groan. She doesn't even ask how I am. She never does.
In my class, the teacher comes out with Onkar and Kartik. We gather around as the teacher with a book in her hand stands between the circle we have made. The pain in my head increases tenfold, an invisible hammer hammering nails into it. I want to scream and cry. Yet, I stand there among the group, clenching my hands and eyes.
'Stop! Stop! Stop! Parin, please help me!'
Get out of here.
'What?'
Get out!
Turning on my heels, I run. I don't look back at the receding voices that call me out. I snake through the departing students who are flooding the campus grounds and find myself in the empty common girl's washroom.
I stare at myself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes, curls sticking out of my braids, cracked lips–I pity myself. Still, the pain doesn't dissipate. I pat the pockets of my skirt and take out the packet of Roth that I sneaked out. I hold it in front of my face, contemplating what to do with deep breaths.
Guruji flashes before my eyes and for a moment, I consider throwing the packet out from the window. But the voices wake up again from their short nap making me dreadful and nauseous.
"I'm sorry, Guruji... I promised you I would never do this again but-" I sob while putting Roth on the dry sink table. "I'm so sorry. I can't keep my promise." I tear the packet and roll it up before sniffing a straight line of white powder up my nose.
I throw back my head. Suddenly, the silence is all I can hear. And it's too good.
"I'm sorry..."
***
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The Greatest Villain of All Time
ФентезіNivaan thrives upon its rivers. And yet, the same rivers are now spreading a deadly disease. *** Onkar is destroyed after losing his best friend to a vile disease. But that won't stop him. He's determined to find a cure for this unnamed disease that...
