Crossing The i's And Dotting The t's

(XVII) Farewell- Finally!

A/N: THIS CHAPTER'S UNEDITED
-------------

It took me about a week to control my fingers from brushing over my left cheek everytime I thought of Kian. I still found it hard to digest the events of that night. The hug, the almost kiss, the actual a-bit-too-long-to-be-a-peck on the cheek.

Holy fuck I would've snogged him!

I couldn't figure out whether I was disappointed or not. On one hand I frequently caught myself wishing that my mother had texted me a second later while on the other, I was glad that she didn't.

The whole point of rejecting Kian had been to avoid distraction. Then why did I let...that happen?

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

These thoughts pestered me throughout the week-long autumn break. When I wasn't bullying my brain into concentrating on every textbook I owned, I was cleaning my room obsessively, desperate to prevent my mind from...straying.

Sadly, such tactics were not as effective as I would've hoped.

A pause in this frenzied routine came in the form of the first term result declaration. Like last year, I ended up sitting beside ma whilst facing my forever smiling class-teacher.

"Exactly a year ago you had failed physics and were listening to my reprimend with a bowed head, weren't you Ashiana?" she had asked, peering into me.

"Y...yes."

"And now you've got the top score in the biology batch of students."

I blinked. My mother beamed.

"Well done honey," ma said, gripping my palm.

"Yes, well done," ma'am agreed, the corners of her mouth crinkling as she smiled even wider.

All three of us discussed my marks for ten more minutes before ma and I stood up to leave. The light warm October air surrounded us as we stepped into the parking lot, promoting my mood from cheerful to elated.

I had made some discreet, innocent-sounding enquires which ma'am had happily answered. As a result, I now knew the ranks of my friends. Vivaan and Karan had tied for the top spot in the batch of science with economics students, with Kian following second. Rads came seventh merely because she lost marks in English, due to her supposedly bad handwriting.

Having copied from her notes throughout middle school, I knew for a fact that this was not the case. Her hand was famous for carving the most delicately thin letters on a page. Plus, English had always been her best subject.

Something was off.

{[]}

Once school reopened it became evident that the result had affected everyone, in ways both good and bad. The teachers had not wasted in wrapping up what was left of the syllabus. By the time mid-October rolled by, we had finished jotting down the last of our notes. So now hours upon hours of our weekly school time was spent in the labs, perfecting our skills of handling equipment in physics, identifying salts in chemistry and mounting slides in biology.

November was welcomed with hollow enthusiasm. The level of smog increased in the city along with the frantic revision of all students. In every class of grade twelve, one could find nearly, or recently-turned adults buried in NCERT textbooks, reference books and piles of sample question papers higher than Burj Khalifa. Coaching was no different. We had so many tests everyday that exam anxiety now felt like a distant emotion. Juggling the preparation of boards and NEET had never been more exhausting.