Page 165 - The World's Best Boyfriend

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Ritika woke up with a bitch of a headache. This was the closest she had felt to

death. She spent the morning vomiting, grunting and moaning, dehydrated like a
century-old mummy.
She was rolling on the floor, the cold mosaic calming her down when the
Jaundice Girl walked in. She made Aranya sit on the bed, marshalled her girl

troops, none of whom seemed hung over, and they nursed her back to normalcy.
‘Are you coming for the class?’ asked the Jaundice Girl.

‘I will decide,’ said Aranya. Lazily, she looked over the timetable. It was
Raghuvir’s class. She dragged herself out of the bed and washed her face. She
owed Raghuvir an apology for last night. She had been a pain in the ass, she
remembered, begging him not to drop her to college, to go on a long drive. She

faintly remembered Raghuvir talking to a policeman, playing his professor card
and wriggling out of the situation.

She was fifteen minutes late for the class and Raghuvir still wasn’t there. The
moment she walked in and took her seat, she sensed the class shift in their
places, their voices lowering to a murmur. She could feel the stare of her
classmates, and heard stray sentences with her name and Raghuvir’s. And that’s

when she knew what it was all about. She remembered those moments faintly
when she had walked through the college gate with Raghuvir the night before,

leaning on him because her steps were unsteady and she was seeing things in
triplicate. She had thought the college was deserted and was sure no one saw
them. But she also knew it took only one person to concoct a rumour and make

is spread like wildfire.
‘Did you see this?’ the Jaundice Girl came up and fired up a video on her
cellphone. It was Aranya and Raghuvir stumbling through the corridors.

‘People are saying you seduced him to get a spot in his research team.’
‘Are they blind? Raghuvir would get seduced by me? Fucking retards.’
Despite knowing the truth, her eyes welled up. Everything intensified in her

head. Despite her talent, the years of hard work, she would never be able to live
this down.
Her options were clear—to wait for things to settle down or clear it out. The

first was a defensive move and Aranya didn’t play defensive. She reminded