Strangers?Or Not? ONGOING

Chapter 1

2014

Wednesday

I was having a wonderful day. Until I woke up.

I lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling and contemplating life when I heard my mom yelling at me to get up and get going if I wanted to get to school on time. Internally groaning at the thought of giving a physics test in class today, I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.

Twenty-five minutes later, I reached the bus stop, only to realise that I had missed the bus. Ruefully, I walked back home to hitch a ride to school from my father. One that I knew came with a complimentary lecture on tardiness.

***

It was the period before Lunch Break when the English teacher was discussing the wonderful writing of an author whose name I had never heard while I tried my best to not fall asleep. I had given my Physics test which was in the first two periods. Needless to say, it did not go very well. I didn't know a few things and I had to wing it. To make things worse, I fell short of time. Five marks out of fifteen went down the drain just like that. To top it all off, in the periods after we broke for snacks, I got yelled at by the Math teacher for no reason at all. The idiots sitting behind me were whispering when ma'am was teaching a new lesson and I was trying my best to pay attention. The minute I turned around to ask them to keep it down, Ma'am had decided to look at us. Before I could say a word to either of them, she had begun scolding me for not being attentive in class and disrupting the decorum.

And so I dreamed on about how torturous my school was and how wonderful it would be to instead study at Hogwarts, I'd choose Professor Snape over the teachers at my school any day. Just then,  the bell rang, breaking me out of my wishful daydream. It was Break, finally!! Within seconds of the teacher leaving the classroom, Pragya, Kriansh, and Kanak had gathered around my table with their tiffin boxes. The chair next to mine was empty, and Pragya took a seat while the twins turned the chairs from the next table to face the back of the class.

"Ms. Neha hates you doesn't she?" Pragya asked referring to the Math teacher.

"Tell me about it," I replied with a sigh.

"Forget that, have you heard Justin's new song?" Kanak said, in her usual cheerful tone, always the little ball of sunshine.

"Yeah! I was waiting for you to bring it up. It's so nice." Pragya replied with a laugh while I half-smiled. I hadn't had a good day and was not in the mood to laugh with them and pretend that everything was just peachy. They both ranted about how silky his voice was as I tuned out of their conversation, focusing on the task at hand, which was to finish my food.  You'd think they were being bad friends who didn't care about me. But they were experienced with my sour moods. I liked to be left alone or I would become even more cranky. I felt someone tap my shoulder and looked up to see Kriansh looking at me with concern.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing; just had a bad day."

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I didn't notice someone sitting on the other side of me. It was only when said mysterious person decided to take a bite out of my lunch, did I look up. It was Anquit. He had started joining us during lunch breaks recently.

"Mmmm! Sandwiches!" He said as he relished on what was to be my meal. I don't normally let people take my food, not without asking anyways, and if they did I would make sure they regretted it. Not today though, I didn't have it in me to yell at him. I just scowled at him as I scooted away from him and towards Pragya, making sure to keep my lunch box out of his reach.