Page 184 - The World's Best Boyfriend

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Aranya and her father waited in the canteen for Dhruv to turn up. The onslaught

of slaps had ended for the time being but Aranya waited for it to resume. Her
father had a striking memory when it came to her misdemeanours and it
wouldn’t take him long to recognize Dhruv as the boy from school.
By now, news had spread throughout the campus about Aranya’s sweet and

docile father.
The canteen had started filling up and they were all talking in whispers about

Aranya and her father. She was eleven years old all over again, surrounded by
kids who laughed at private jokes about her, and jibed her needlessly. It was as if
she had walked into a time machine. Another four years in the labyrinth of soul-
sucking sadness, of judging students, of her maligned self. Her life was in a

fucking loop.
What did she expect? It was her fault entirely.

She had come to this college to study, maximize her scores, get her projects
done on time, get a high-paying job and spend the rest of her life being a lonely
overachiever. Why did she make the mistake of thinking that someone else
would take care of her problems? Why did she have any hopes with Raghuvir?

What was she thinking? That a professor in shining armour and floppy hair
would waltz into her life, they would solve complex equations together, be the

greatest friends anyone had ever seen, maybe even fall in love, and everything
would be hunky-dory for the rest of her life. All those fucking Disney films!
Why didn’t she notice that only pretty damsels deserved to be rescued? What

would have happened to Cinderella if she were ugly? She would have been
rotting at her stepmother’s still.
What happened to all the lessons she taught herself about being alone in every

battle of hers? How did she allow herself to be distracted from the goal just
because Raghuvir left the college? Why did she let Raghuvir play such a pivotal
part in her life?

So what if she thought for the first time somebody had truly appreciated her
and looked beyond her patchy skin, her less-than-average face and her oddly
overweight body? So what if she felt loved for the first time, even

acknowledged? So what if for the first time she thought there was someone