The Matchmaker

18. Amyra

November, Tuesday, 8th

I was feeling very flustered. Very, very flustered. Because I had just now been back from a very important and prestigious mission. No, nothing with Vedraj. It was an olympiad. Namely, International Astronomy Olympiad. Yes, even though I was studying in the medical stream, I was allowed to have varying interests.

One of which included astronomy, and a few others were maths, art and Sanskrit. In this manner, I had studied, burning the candle at both ends. And the result was that I came first. Not at the center level, or district or state. A whooping national level, that is, in whole of India. Unfortunately, I was cut short by 48 other people for achieving the same at the international level.

Even though that did upset my parents a little bit, I was a lot satisfied. I had never accomplished such a great achievement ever before. All the olympiads I had attempted always concluded with me being in the top 5 at the national level and 1st only at the state one.

Yet, there were not many people that were familiar with my deed. Because, as you might have realised by now, I hated attention. My father always advised me to never boast of one's even mightiest actions. The only person other than my parents, whom I had shared this incident with, was Vedraj. He did seem overjoyed over the chat, but I was nervous over his personal response.

My father soon brought his Pulsar to a halt, signifying the completion of our journey. I stepped down and bid him goodbye, before rushing inside the center. Though it was an ordinary day, I weirdly felt that there were rather lesser people than usual around. Ignoring the feeling, I proceeded towards my classroom.

The door was strangely closed. And surprisingly, I couldn't see any light coming from the inside. It led me to rethink my timetable, doubting whether there was a class scheduled today. I decided to examine it properly, and stepped in.

As soon as I had done that, the light abruptly switched on, and a loud cheering erupted.

"Surprise!!" yelled the whole class.

I found myself completely alarmed and confounded. My classmates were arranged into some kind of a pattern, but their eyes all on me. The middle ones bore some kind of sheets, each of which had letters written on them. When read together, it pronounced my name. A few balloons and ribbons filled the otherwise barren texture of the room.

Before I could take another breath, I was showered with what I first presumed to be rose petals. But upon a closer look, they were revealed to be simply dark red confetti. The students in chorus sang a cheesy 'congratulations'. As if this wasn't enough, Vedraj soon himself emerged from behind the sheet holders.

He walked up to me in elegance, and grasped my palm as he lightly tugged me further.

He then began announcing, "My girlfriend, is the first in the whole of India in the Astronomy Olympiad. She is indeed the smartest person I've ever met. A big hand for my girl!!"

He pulled me closer to himself in an embrace as everyone hollered and clapped. This was all seriously too embarrassing. Literally all the students, that I'd never even talked to, were staring and yelling at me. There even seemed to be some of Vedraj's associates from the other batches. I had become the center of attention, and I could already imagine the whole center soon gossiping about me.

And to my further horror, our chemistry sir walked in. He seemed puzzled at the beginning, but after taking a look at the board, he got a drift of everything. On the board lied an artwork that I had fully missed, which was an expression of my achievement.