The Friend-Zoned Lover

Chapter 2 - The Prelude

Where it begin

Rubina POV

It all began when I was twelve years old. I had a best friend named Nisha, we studied in the same primary school for six years. I am not going to go in details how much of best friends we were. Even I myself don’t remember how we ended up being one. It was more of a sibling-like relationship that we shared, little tad annoying but extremely sweet with each other. We behaved like sisters we never had. This is getting even cheesier than I thought I should end it here.

It’s our final year in school; our hormones started its function pretty well. Nisha had her first innocent boy crush on her cousin. You read that right! I know it sounds rather nauseating but if you can take a moment to think during your childhood days, we all some sort of give in to this kind of ridiculous feelings.

While I on the other hand, used to like a boy from my class. He was well known by the whole school. Not for good reasons though, he was famous for getting punished by the teachers and discipline masters. I used to go head over heels for bad boys, who wouldn’t? I guess at one point of time in a girl’s life, she would at least once fall for a guy with a total badass attitude. But unfortunately, this story isn’t about that!

I hope…

Nisha and I were in different classes, the only time we could spare was during our recess period. That’s when we used to gossip on our friends and go crazy over chatting about boys.

“His name is Malhotra. Actually its Ishaan Malhotra, but people whom are real close to him, like me call him by his second name.” and Nisha doesn’t stop there. I was nodding my head for everything she was yapping about and that’s simply for the sake of being her best friend.

 “He is my cousin’s cousin. My second cousin of sort,” with her voice sounding even higher pitched, I finally decided to cut her off. “Isn’t it disgusting? To fall in love with your own cousin?” I asked her with a disgusted expression. She dramatically started defending her declaration of love, “No! I’ve seen him since young and he turn out to be a real nice boy”.

She began listing out points by counting using her fingers, “He is smart in his studies, his parents always have the nicest things to say about him and he looks really cute. So I felt, why not? And his mother always tells me how much she would love to have me as her daughter in law” she finished the sentence with a stupid grin plastered across her face.

“You know all these Indian aunties and their sweet talks. Why are you even falling for all that? And what kind of aunty wants to hitch her own 14 year old son and you together?” I had sarcasm all over my voice, enjoying the immense pleasure of teasing her.

Nisha points her lanky finger directly at me, “Don’t you dare tease me Rubina! Unlike you I like decent boys” she snapped.I sighed at her dumbest come back, “Yes Nisha you are right. But you know what as long something exciting happens along the way, than you can keep me updated. If not all this stories are just boring the crap out of me” I snapped back at her.

The school bell rang we exchanged deadly glares and went back to our respective classes. This was like the routine everyday. No matter how annoying we can get with each other and our different preferences in life, Nisha and I were the best buddies that people in our school envied.

Thanks to all the envy souls around us, the time we graduated to go to middle school, we got separated. I moved out of town and both of us went to different schools. The distance started deterring our friendship. After a year of trying to keep in touch with her, we both moved on with our own new lives.