Chapter 4: Paper Roses and Distant Laughter

After that, Ananya still refused to break up. But in front of others, she rarely interacted with me. She kept me tied to her, yet kept her distance.

She'd tuck a folded chit between the pages of my Civics book, the paper smelling faintly of her rose-scented hand cream, but in the corridor, she'd walk past with only a fleeting glance. Her loyalty was silent, but the world never let me forget how alone I was.

Although I was allowed back in class, every day during lessons, morning and evening reading, and evening study, I could only watch as Ananya and Kabir studied together, helping each other, chatting and laughing.

Their laughter felt like daggers. I would stare at the same page for hours, words blurring as their voices echoed from the front.

Morning and evening reading were especially unbearable—my personal nightmare.

As I tried to focus on my poetry, I could hear their energetic recitation, their shared jokes, their little triumphs. My own voice was swallowed by the fan’s whirr and their shared giggles—every 'Wow, you memorised it so fast!' felt like a slap.

Their high-fives and secret smiles were like salt in my wounds. Every day, the gap between us grew.

During evening study, their voices discussing problems were always loud. The wall clock ticked loudly, its second hand scraping away at my patience as their laughter floated from the front row. Every teacher supervising evening study not only didn’t stop them, but even praised them for creating such a positive study atmosphere in the class.

Sometimes, the supervising teacher would even say, 'Baaki sab bhi inse seekho. Yeh hai teamwork!' I wanted to scream, but all I did was clench my fists beneath the desk.

They grew more and more inseparable, more and more in sync, more and more dependent on each other. Teachers and classmates increasingly accepted this harmonious arrangement, as if whether early romance was good or bad depended only on the people involved…

It felt like the rules were different for me, as if my love was a crime, but theirs a virtue. The injustice gnawed at me, but I bit my tongue and endured.

I endured in silence, memorising vocabulary, economics, political science, poetry, and history all by myself…

Sometimes, the only company I had was the ticking of the old classroom clock and the rustle of my notebook pages. My grades slipped, but no one noticed.