Page 145 - The World's Best Boyfriend

the silence and a yellow neon light flickered to life at a distance. She crinkled
her eyes, and saw Aranya drag and push one-half of a table tennis table against
the wall. Aranya stretched—she could touch her toes, Ritika would have never

guessed that—eyed the wall as an opponent, threw the ball up and swirled her
TT bat like she owned it. The ball spun and hit the wall and she smashed it on its
return and smashed the return too. Aranya moved nimbly on her toes and soon

the hall echoed like someone was firing an AK-47. She didn’t miss many shots,
and on the rare occasion that she did, she cursed.
Ritika frowned when she saw Dhruv looking at Aranya shuffle like a pro,

returning smashes to her own smashes, beating her own shots.
‘Let’s go,’ said Ritika.
‘But didn’t you want to be here?’ asked Dhruv, his eyes still on Aranya, who

had broken into a sweat and whose deft feet reminded Ritika of a video she had
seen of Muhammad Ali.
‘Not any more. I didn’t know the fatso would be here. Do you see what she’s

wearing? Bleh. She should keep those legs hidden.’
Dhruv had nothing to add. A pissed Ritika got up to leave. ‘Are you coming
or should I leave?’

Dhruv stood up and they walked across the hall; Aranya didn’t notice them
leave, her Zen-like concentration unbroken. Outside, Dhruv and Ritika walked in
silence.

‘What do you think of Aranya?’ asked Ritika.
‘I don’t think of her.’
‘You don’t? She’s the most popular girl in college right now. Everyone loves

her.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘She’s holding classes for everyone, fights for extension of deadlines with

professors and is the vice president of the debating team. She might make it to
the Students’ Council as a first-year representative. Everyone’s talking about her
and you want me to believe you don’t think of her. The entire college knows you

loved her back in school.’
‘She made it up. She was just a friend. My parents were going through a
divorce and she was around. That’s that.’

‘But didn’t she get you kicked out of school?’
‘Can we stop talking about it, please?’