The Wrong Number

59

After what seemed like an eternity, Alankrita decided she'd stayed inside the cubicle for long enough. She wiped her cheeks of curry, and fished a piece of carrot out of her bra. At least she smelled delicious. Stepping out of the cubicle, she saw her reflection in the mirror and made a face. Her first thought was 'shit'. Her lipstick was bleeding down her chin, and her foundation had blended into mush with the greasy food. Grains of rice stuck to her face like little stones and her 'smoky eyes' had taken their name a little too seriously and now she looked like she'd been standing over a bonfire looking straight at it. An overall summation would be she looked the current state of her social status- a mess.

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to put her blurry thoughts in order. She had to get back in control of herself; running to the girls' washroom in tears was not the most dignified thing to do. But then neither was lying to a boy and subsequently making him fall in love with you.

Alankrita frowned. Why did she always find a way back to that?
"You need closure."

Alankrita looked around in alarm, but the washroom was deserted and the only sounds heard were muffled music that came from outside.

"In here."

When Alankrita saw her reflection talk she thought she was going crazy, to say the least. Her eyes widened as her mirror-self continued very matter-of-factly, "You can't run away from the truth. You made a mistake. And you need to fix things."Alankrita, figuring this was just a figment of her imagination, winced and shook her head, "I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can look at him without wanting to run the opposite direction."

"Don't be a wuss," her reflection said, a hand on its hip, "You're Alankrita Sundar, you're supposed to have an indubitably true moral compass, and you're telling me you'd rather run away from a problem- a problem you caused, no less- than woman up and fix your mistakes?"

Alankrita sighed, "It's not that I want to ignore it," and, looking at her feet, added in a small voice, "It's just that given the other choice I'd prefer to ignore it." This made her reflection throw its hands up in despair. "Alankrita!" it exclaimed, irritated. Alankrita's lower lip quivered. Her reflection held up a hand, so that it touched the surface of the mirror. "Listen," it said and Alankrita looked straight at it, "it doesn't matter what he thinks of you now, because when you're done he's going to know that you love him and that you never meant to hurt him. But you need to apologize."

Alankrita gulped and shut her eyes, trying to compose herself. Then she smoothed the front of her ruined dress, shook the biryani out of her hair, wiped her tears and walked out of the washroom. Anu was standing outside, and judging by the line of angry girls around her she hadn't granted anyone access to the washroom while Alankrita was inside. "Oye, how are you feeling?" she asked, and when Alankrita didn't stop, scurried after her. She marched into the auditorium, scanning the crowd till she found Ruhan and his friends. They had pulled up some plastic chairs and were sitting in a circle, laughing and being obnoxiously loud. She stopped before them abruptly, causing Anu to run into her. She steadied herself and turned to face six teenagers who looked amused at best. "Uh..." she trailed, feeling crowd shy for probably the first time in her life, "Ruhan, can I have a moment with you? Uh, alone, please."

For a few seconds, nobody said anything and Alankrita felt like she was being publicly flogged. Then Ruhan mildly nodded and moved towards her. Tanya, who was sitting beside him, placed a hand on his arm, stopping him, and for a second Alankrita thought he'd sit back down. Instead, he shook it off. "So?" He said, with a tinge of annoyance that Alankrita tried not to let hurt her, and the two of them walked a short distance from the group. When she was sure they were out of earshot, she stopped and Ruhan leaned against the wall, Alankrita turned to face him. She gave him a once over- he looked beautiful in his smart suit, and his blue tie made his dark eyes look menacing. And those eyes were looking at anything but hers. "I am really sorry," she said, and immediately realized she sounded pathetic. Ruhan must have thought so too because he mumbled, "Yeah, you said that already," looking at the floor. This was not going the way she wanted.