The Captive of True Love : 3

This is the third part of ‘The Captive of True Love’. So, if you are new here. Please first read the previous chapters here.

Chapter 3: First day at the tuition.

I used to avoid seating near windows in the classroom because I knew it very well that I love to observe, observe people and guess their names/occupation by just seeing them walking on the road, observe the different kinds of birds taking rest on terraces of nearby houses (Actual birds okay… It took me two more years to know another meaning of “bird watching”), So if there’s a window beside me, it becomes impossible for me to concentrate on the lecture.

But, at that time, I wanted to distract myself, I wanted to stop thinking about Prapti and I knew that I can’t do that by paying attention in class… Because, it was the first day, so, Sir was asking students to introduce themselves to class, I knew almost everyone. Even those folks who were from other schools (a perk of participating in different competitions)

Besides, we all know, Teachers don’t start teaching anything new on the very first day. So, I decided to sit on the bench near the window to keep my mind distracted enough that it won’t get a chance to think about Prapti. I didn’t want to feel sad. But, I was already sad.

Perhaps I just didn’t want to admit the fact that I had ended the still-new relationship with Ankita, I had joined the tuition even though I hated those, all this, just because I believed that I had a chance to slowly make things better with Prapti, to eventually make her mine, for never to let go.

But now that I knew Prapti has dropped her admission, I started thinking that maybe I should get over her.

I was gazing out of the window, but it was 6 am and there was no sign of any movement in that neighborhood, I don’t how but I end up getting lost in those thoughts, staring blankly at one window of the building on the other side of the narrow road. Suddenly someone came and slightly opened that window, then that person turned on the lights, as soon as the lights were on, the chaos of the thoughts inside my head stopped in an instance. Because, with lights on, I was able to see that person. A familiar face. Priya.

I hadn’t seen her after the previous year’s district-level tennis tournament. I believed it was the universe’s way of saying that there is plenty of other fish in the sea.

I mean why else I was seeing her there? I knew she used to live 10 km away but she was there in that apartment across the road, which means her family must have shifted there recently. If this was not the destiny, playing her game, what was it? What are the odds that the girl you find prettier than your ‘major crush’ appears in front of you at the very moment when you’re considering moving on?

Current me would have simply taken this as a big coincidence. But, for my 16-year-old self, it was a sign from the universe.

Priya was the type of girl that I loved in movies: the fun-loving girl who is also grounded in reality, someone who knows more about the world than me and yet chooses not to give an eff about it. She was that girl who shared my taste in music and love quoting corny dialogues from the movies. I have always liked her, from the first time we met.

As I stated earlier, I used to think that she looks far prettier than Prapti. Priya was a tennis player, a dancer, and a swimmer, Maybe that was the secret of her picturesque figure.

I almost had started falling for her last year. But after the district competition, she stopped coming to the tennis court and we lost contact. Besides, She was a rich kid, a student at Westview Highschool, where my dad was working as a school bus driver. Thus despite having a crush on her, I never let my feelings grow.

Thanks to her dad for beating the shit out of one guy who had proposed to her. That helped a lot for staying at arm’s distance from her.

To whom am I kidding? I never stopped thinking about her.

To me, Priya was the sun that was constantly pulling me and brightening my day, however to her, maybe, I was just one of the million stars in the night sky. I wasn’t sure whether she even remembers me.

To be continued…