This is a story that I had been working on and I've posted it from my previous account (fun4eva) too. But this is the renewed version of it and some new parts are included. Please review.
The scene was pathetic. Two girls in the washroom helping another one to get over an insensitive creep of an ex boyfriend:
“This is the worst day of my life!” Cheryl wailed, tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. Being dumped by her boyfriend of three years, for her best friend, just before Christmas, wasn’t her idea of a perfect holiday.
“I mean, it was all so perfect. All those things he told me? Was it all just a joke?” She murmured helplessly, among tears and sniffs looking at her two friends – Tara and Sonia, who had accompanied her to the washroom to help Cheryl get over the hurt. “Leandra was like my sister. And how could she snatch him like that?” she asked herself.
“Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right,” Tara comforted her, with one hand on Cheryl’s shoulder and the other, fumbling with a tissue box. “You know, if he didn’t have the courtesy to come up to you and talk about it politely, maybe he just wasn’t the right guy. As for Leandra, come on, we all had noticed the change in her a few days back, hadn’t we? Come on now, wipe it off.” She lifted her hands from Cheryl’s shoulder and ran it through Cheryl’s pitch black hair comfortingly.
“But…but I love him more than Tara loves her chocolate shake!” Cheryl whined, as she fished out the last tissue paper from the second box.
“Tara’s right! You don’t deserve this, Cheryl. I didn’t like that guy since the first day,” Sonia, their other friend, drawled. Sonia kneeled on the marble floor of their school’s washroom and held Cheryl’s hand in hers. Locking her grey eyes with Cheryl’s, she went on, “always remember these words, Cheryl. Joshua doesn’t deserve the tears you’re shedding for him. But the guy who does deserve your precious tears will never let a drop roll from those beautiful green eyes.” Sonia said softly, shifting her gaze from Cheryl to Tara, who was clumsily fiddling with the tissue box.
Cheryl fell silent, but the unending tears continued to flood her eyes. For the first time in her life, Sonia’s counseling failed to take her to a safe place. Her comforting, wise words and knowing smile weren’t enough to put herself back into pieces. Cheryl knew what they were saying was true and that the guy was really not meant for her but this wasn’t about him, it was about something that mattered more - it was about her.
All her life, Cheryl had known the bad side of life – her mother passed away two years ago and she lived with her conservative aunt, her one and only brother died by overuse of drugs. She practically cried herself to sleep every night, wishing she could get back her mother and brother. Cheryl remembered the time her aunt found out that she had a boyfriend and took away her cell forever. She remembered the words Joshua said to her at that time. “Forget your aunt. I’d love you even if you had an army behind you,” is what he had said. It was now that she could see the falseness underlining those words.
Living with a poor aunt seemed to get harder once she reached middle school. The rich spoilt kids picked on her. So what if her aunt didn’t come to pick her up with a Porsche or Mercedes, Cheryl’s bicycle was good enough! And of she though that was bad, the worse was yet to come. Once she reached High school, the academic portion began getting tougher, teachers spotted microscopic mistakes and she had a lot of confidence problems but when Joshua entered her life, everything seemed to magically transform. His false appreciation and shallow promises changed everything in her life. One look at that alluring smile and all those troubles seemed to wipe away from her life, disappear into thin air. Now, when he betrayed her for another girl, the black marks in Cheryl’s lives became more and more visible. More than the hurt of deception, the realization that she had to return to her lousy life ached even more.
Steadily Cheryl stood up and walked over to the mirror. She saw the reflection, lost in her own thoughts of deceit and hopelessness, she realized something. She wasn’t just a girl dumped by some guy, she was the girl who had been shattered by the guy who had no value to the world and she wasn’t going to let that affect her anymore. Wiping her tears, she tried to look confident. I can do it, she told to herself. I don’t need him. One day, I will get some one who isn’t using me to get my best friend but some one who likes me irrespective of who my best friend is. She grabbed her white handbag from Tara’s hand and turned to the two of them. “Come on, we are missing science class,” she informed the two of them and opened the door to the hallway.
“Glad she realized it,” Tara whispered to Sonia, with satisfaction on her friend’s return to normality.
“Yeah but she realized it too late. Science got over 10 minutes ago,” Sonia bantered, folding her hands and giving a grin. “We better not bump into Tr. Gupta or she’ll give an earful on skipping classes.” Sonia warned, turning to Cheryl.
They had reached the hallway, which was buzzing with excitement like it always does on the last day of school, before their Christmas break. Boys’ howls and girls’ giggles echoed in the room. Cheryl watched them; all so happy! She was in the same state that morning, with plans of Christmas time with Joshua on her mind. But then came that moment; the moment she overheard Leandra and Joshua, and Cheryl was crushed…real badly. She stuffed all her books into her pink bag, still trying very hard to get her mind off the harsh break up. “See you after the holidays, Leandra,” someone’s voice boomed through the hallway. She turned around to see her ex best friend in a pretty white mini skirt and a green halter top.
“Have a great holiday with Joshua…Oops! My bad,” Leandra hissed, and turned around hitting Cheryl on the face with her soft, brown hair but more importantly, in the heart by her cold words.
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“Miss Sonia Sharma,” A husky voice hit Sonia’s ears. Sonia knew that voice…she knew it very well. It was Tr. Gupta! Sonia’s froze in front of her locker and her heart was beating at the fastest rate. Gathering the courage to look Tr. Gupta in the eye, she slowly turned around, her fingers crossed and her mind running fast, searching for explanation.
“Just about where do you think you and your ‘gang’ was during my class today,” she continued, pointing towards her with a pen and giving an evil smile.
“Well…you see, madam…umm, Tara was hurt real badly on the ground so…umm…we took her to the…to the…nurse,” Sonia concluded, hesitantly. Once her cooked-up-at-the-spot story was presented, Sonia felt really proud of herself.
Tr. Gupta’s looked at her with a questioning expression and quizzed her further, “Couldn’t you bother to spare a few minutes and take my permission for it?”
“Umm…Yeah, actually her leg was bleeding way too much so we didn’t have time for permission. Sorry, this won’t happen again,” Tara apologized, faking an expression of shame. Tr.Gupta gave her a skeptic look, and told Sonia, “I want to see your friend’s injured leg before going home, okay?”
Sonia nodded. No problem, she told herself. All it would take was some bandages, ketchup and five minutes of rehearsing with Tara. She had done it a million times before but this time the level of excitement was higher because she never thought she would get an opportunity to use it on Tr. Gupta. She was the type of person who could make a hungry lion look friendly. But Sonia had gotten excited too soon because just when Tr. Gupta was about to leave, Tara shouted from the other end of the hallway, “Hey Sonia is Cheryl okay now?”
Damn! Sonia thought. Her back-to-normal heart beat began racing again.
Tr. Gupta turned around with a look of pure malice on her face, and with sadistic pleasure she beamed, “Broken leg, huh?”
Oh no! Horrible Timing Tara, jut plain horrible. Sonia said to herself.
When Tara noticed Tr. Gupta standing right there, she was dumfounded. “I…I…I-” Tara began.
“I heard from your friend here, that you were hurt, Tara,” Tr. Gupta said, twirling her pen, raising an eyebrow.
“Did…did I say Tara? Oh…I meant Cheryl. Forgetful me!” Sonia mumbled, hitting herself lightly on her head.
“Really? Which game was Cheryl playing, Tara?” Gupta said, shifting her gaze to the mumbling girl, but occasionally giving Sonia doubtful glimpses.
“I…I…actually…I”
“Ice hockey,” Sonia sang. “She was playing ice hockey, Tara,” she said, with clenched teeth patting Tara on her back, but deep inside she wanted to hit Tara like anything.
“Oh!” Tr. Gupta smiled, as if, for a minute, she almost believed them. Then she cleared her throat and continued, “That’s a fair reason but as much as I want to, I can’t believe you since we do not have an ice rink!”
SHIT!
Go get you third ‘gang member’. You students are in big trouble,” Tr. Gupta instructed. “Don’t mess with me, girls,” she reminded before she turned to walk over to the staff room.
Sonia turned around to call Cheryl, while Tara just stood there still trying to put her words into sentences, “I…science…bunked…I….Sonia…sorry…Tara…I.”
Tr. Gupta smiled to herself. She loved putting students on the right track, especially when they insisted that they weren’t on the wrong one.
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Tara was on the verge of crying when she walked out of the staffroom with Sonia and Cheryl. Unsure when she would break into tears, she hurried to her class to collect her books and rush off before she couldn’t hold her emotions anymore.
“Bye Tara,” a girl with an extremely large pimple on the face wished her. “Enjoy your holidays.”
Tara smiled at her meekly, “You too.”
Tara picked up her book and was about to make it out of class, but she was stopped by Jason.
“We need to talk, NOW,” He said, in a mocking way.
“Jason, can you call me later. I really can’t…”
“Oh! Later, huh? Why? So you can get more time to think up excuses? I need it now, Tara. I need to know why you dumped me.” He said, folding his arms across his chest.
“It’s nothing like that. I am just not in the state of…”
“Enough already!” Jason raised a hand. “Now spit it out.”
Tara looked the other way, and sighed. “Fine. I really don’t want you to feel bad, but somewhere along the way, you changed. You weren’t being yourself and I meant to talk to you about that. But all of a sudden there was…there was this…guy, and the feelings…they changed,” she bit her lip as she finished.
Jason looked at her angrily, rage in his eyes and Tara was clearly scared as to what could be his next move. She had never seen him like that before and he looked capable of turning the Eiffel tower upside down. Before Tara could realize what he was going to do next, she felt a hard lash on her right cheek, excruciatingly painful. The sound kept echoing in her ears, the murderous look in Jason’s eyes seemed to have been permanently settled in front of her eyes. Her cheek ached, it felt really bad and she could still feel the force of his sturdy hands. She couldn’t see it but was pretty sure it had turned red, and even her favorite chocolate shake couldn’t stop her from breaking into tears.
“Cry all you want,” Jason barked at her. “It’s your turn. And just wait till I tell everyone what a slut you are and that the only reason you went out with me was because you couldn’t find any other guy. You just watch, you bitch,” He said pointing a finger to her before he left angrily.
She fell on the floor, crying her heart out. She made all kinds of sounds and for some reason, everything bad in her life seemed to come to her. Tr. Gupta’s scolding in front of practically all the teachers, which was highly embarrassing. Her ex-boyfriend going around telling everyone that she was just playing with him, when it was actually Jason who would flirt with every other girl when she wasn’t around. And her secret crush on Joshua. She hated it! Her heart bled to death every time she saw her best friend, Cheryl, and Joshua hanging around the corridors. She tried so hard to put a damper on her feelings, because it wasn’t meant to be! Even after she realized what a jerk he was for cheating on Cheryl, her love for him still refused to fade off. Worst of all, she had no one to talk to about it. Obviously, she couldn’t tell Cheryl. And telling Sonia was out of question because she would give another one of her expert advice and offer solutions like, “Talk to Tara about it” or something. She cried and cried in the same hall for more than fifteen minutes. She hated her life!
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