Page 61 - The World's Best Boyfriend

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Half an hour had gone by and she was sitting on the toilet pot, jumping over

derelict bridges, collecting gold coins, all while holding her phone sideways. It
was tougher than she had imagined it would be and it was making her restless,
even angry. How could she not be better than him? She took little breaks to wipe
the sweat off her palms, the tears off her face, and then breathed slowly and

calmed herself down, and tried again.
Two more hours passed by. Her fingers had started to hurt by now. For the

first time in eight years she missed a class. She took out her timetable. It was
organic chemistry by Prof. Mitra, the dean of the college. She put a reminder on
her phone to meet him in his staffroom, apologize profusely and tell him how
big a fan she was of his work on—whatever the hell he did his PhD in.

She stretched her fingers. Her eyes were burning. Another hour passed by in a
flash. She was hungry now.

‘You can’t be beaten,’ she told herself, cracked her knuckles and started
tapping again. It had started to sink in that she would probably not beat the boy’s
record—her first defeat in years. Another half an hour and the battery of her
phone died.

‘NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!’ she shouted at the phone and slapped it against her
palm. She left the cubicle and washed her face. She whispered to herself,

‘You’re good. Let it go. It’s okay.’ She put her phone into the bag and walked
out of the washroom.
‘So I’m presuming that you spent the last few hours trying to beat my record?’

She turned to see Dhruv sitting on the stairs, smiling his strange, creepy,
lovely smile. ‘Look. I don’t care about your score, okay? I am good at a million
things that you’re not good at. You’re probably just some Temple Run junkie

whose fingers will fall off some day. I have better things to do. So just leave me
alone.’
‘Why does defeat bother you so much?’ asked the guy, texting on his phone.

‘IT DOESN’T!’
‘Clearly.’
‘So what if I want to win everything? What’s wrong with it?’ She stepped

closer to Dhruv.