Fairy Dust and Jazz

four

Chapter four

Happily Ever After

‘Author of the moment, can you tell me

do I end up,

do I end up happy?’

When I didn’t respond to his Hello! Good morning! text, the whole world seemed to come crumbling down. Every spare moment of the day, when I was or wasn’t around people, when I was in class or in the hostel, when I settled in to eat lunch and when the time for dinner arrived, I thought of that unanswered text. It was for the best, of course, not to answer him. It was for the best not to expect too much or let him think I have nothing better to do, rather than sit around and hope for his attention.

One thing I’d learned, though. Girls loved boys for a reason. There was this unquestionable pull that defied all things logical, and all things sane, that had every force of nature at its mercy. Love, it seemed, could have been that easy, and I wasn’t a fool to use that word too quickly. This couldn’t be love. If he told me to jump off a cliff, I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t even think twice before calling up Airtel and asking them to block the number that came with his entire presence in my life. Right now, all I had was one text, and that text had my life at the edge of an unanswered question. A cliff hanger, if you will. A kind of limbo, once again. Should I answer the question and seem like I have nothing better to do? Well, it wasn’t a question. It was a statement. It was a good morning thing, but my morning hadn’t been too good, so there. That was why I didn’t respond, Nathan. I didn’t feel the need to tell you I hadn’t had a good morning, so I didn’t greet you with the same.

Richa, a common friend from class, observed that I wasn’t eating and staring off into space. At the hostel you had to have friends who saw things like that to make sure you were still alive. Without parents, and siblings, there wasn’t a soul who’d know if you existed. It was these common friends that kept you alive, and thank everything for that. I was on the verge of responding to Nathaniel when she broke me out of my stupor, the buzz of the dining hall all too clear and ringing in my ears as a clear sheet of sweat formed over my forehead. What was eating at me so much?

“Are you alright?”

I nodded unsurely. “I’m fine. It’s just...”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, no,” she jumped over to take a chair at my half empty table. “tell me what’s going on.”

Frizzy hair wrapped into a bun, her PJs were far too big for her small body, but I didn’t tell her so. She looked like she had had a long day, probably the same way I looked. “I’m having a sort of... dilemma.”

She nodded eagerly. “Hmm. Hmm. What kind?”

“There’s a guy...”

She clapped, quite eagerly, again. “What kind of guy? Do you like him? Does he like you? Are you in love? Are you dating? Have you had sex yet?”

So many questions, all of which muddled my already muddled mind further. “No! We... no! It’s not like that, at all!”

“Isn’t it?”

“God, no.” I shake my head all too earnestly. “He’s just a friend.”

Just saying the words left a bitter taste on my tongue, but it was quite true. We were just friends. How could I lie about it being anything else?

“Okay. But you like him?”

I shift uneasily in my seat as my dinner grows colder by the second. “I don’t really like him. I’m, kind of, scared.”