Fallen - The Tale Of Exploration And Love

Three days for what?

It had been several weeks since the Rathore and the Rajput family were together at the dinner. Since then, the boy Vaishnavi thought was just an introvert like her turned out to be a mannerless jerk. He successfully ruined his image in front of her during their first meeting. 

Their occasional encounters would result in glares and mimicking making a rubbish-looking face. It was when the rumours flew around, and there were many misunderstandings between the students who took them as a forced couple.

It had already been a week since the two had been mentioned as a couple in front of the whole campus without any evidence. Both Vivaan and Vaishnavi knew that they would be in trouble if the families learned about any of the rubbish spread on the campus.

But still ignoring the already existing problem, they were more focused on their studies, which were much more hectic than handling a two-year-old child. 

Vaishnavi was aware of the shady things that were said behind her back. Her dadi-sa, on the other hand, had warned her to keep away from males and other such things. Her twin had a loud mouth and accidentally told their relatives about the rumours, adding gasoline to the flames. 

They would frequently call the girl and taunt her about these things, even though they knew it was all nonsense. All the things happening around and ambassador auditions on the head somehow dragged Vaishnavi to the point where depression was the only thing a person could imagine.

If anyone asked her about school and studies, the only reply they would get was, 'Wanna jump off a cliff with me, or would you like a knife piercing through your skin?'

Though not many people talked to her, she would occasionally bump into the most annoying and frustrating people - who do nothing but chew people's minds. Had she not hidden her situation from her mother or otherwise, she would have been given special counselling sessions. Which defined was not a thing she wanted at that time. 

Similarly, the next few days went by - following the same crunched schedule at school - her days were getting shorter written work, projects, assignments, extracurricular work, and most importantly, the audition work was too much for her to handle. 

Going to sleep late, waking up early, not getting enough rest, and handling the tantrums from her dadi-sa and teasings of cousins and Vivaan were the other problems she hadn't been focusing on. Just one month before her exam, she developed a few dark circles, and her body became weaker than earlier. 

On the 17th of September, at half past three in the afternoon, Vaishnavi left her school library after doing some additional studying and issuing some of the books. Her hands were stuffed with the slightly yellow-coloured pages and thick textbooks. Hardly handling the books in one hand, she searched the pockets of her pants school uniform for her phone. 

Calling her assigned bodyguard, she walked towards the main gate where he would be to pick her up. Just as she surfed through the texts, a hand came from behind and tapped her shoulder. She jerked, and all the books and the phone in her hand fell on the ground, scattered. 

"What the heck!? Aayush, you scared me." Vaishnavi screamed, hitting the shoulders of the boy in front of her. Her heartbeats increased as she huffed for more oxygen. Even the slightest of shocks resulted in gasping for breath - lack of physical exercise and sunlight - all the things were happening so continuously that she had forgotten what her previous timetable seemed like. 

"Are you okay? What happened?" As Aayush bent down to her level, he noticed she was hardly breathing. He patted her back tenderly and gazed at her with worried eyes.

After a few moments, she was back to normal. Standing up, she took the support of Aayush's hand. "Ya, I'm fine. It... happens sometimes. What are you doing here?" She was ignoring his gaze - knowing that she would have a breakdown - she started to pick up the books.