The Wrong Number

36

As soon as she was out of the cafeteria Alankrita began jogging after Ruhan, who was walking very stiffly towards to washrooms. "Hey!" she called out, not bothering to lower her voice as the corridor was deserted except for the two of them. Ruhan paused, as if he was contemplating turning around, but continued till he reached the boys' washroom. Alankrita stared helplessly as he swung the door shut. She knocked on the door, calling his name in the hope that he would reply but got no response. She leaned on the wall next to the door and sighed. 'Well, there goes my plan of talking to him' she thought unhappily. Suddenly, she was struck by arealization and pushed open the door of the girls' washroom.

Now way back in 1987, when the East building of Columbia Public was being constructed, the building designer probably went, "Four washrooms per building? What- is this some fancy private school?" and this resulted in there being one large girls' washroom on the first floor and one large boy's bathroom on the third floor. However, with the population boom Indiranagar saw in the late 90's, more students were attending the school and this had resulted in a lack of amenities. Thus the two large washrooms were converted into four much smaller, more cramped washrooms with the help of artificial walls. The fact that the wall was made of a material not much thicker than cardboard made it susceptible to damage, and sure enough, some poor student had torn a hole through it above the tank of a toilet with his elbow.

Alankrita went to the cubicle where the hole was and leaned in close, taking away the roll of toilet paper that was always kept there as protection against peeping toms.

"Ruhan?" she called tentatively, and thought, 'This is a stupid idea'.

She chewed on her lip before knocking on the wall. A quiet voice arose from the other side. "What do you want?" She gave a small sigh of relief and said, "Ah, hi."

Ruhan was quiet and Alankrita scrunched her eyes together at the stupidity of her response. "Are you okay?" she asked. It was a few seconds before he answered. "Why are you talking to me through a hole in the wall?"
"It's not like I can join you in the boys' loo. I wanted to see if you were okay."

Ruhan sniffed and said, "Yeah, I'm fine. I bit my cheek really hard though. I'm bleeding all over this commode." Alankrita's heart picked up. "Are you okay?" she asked, sounding worried, "Rinse your mouth or something."

"Yeah I did," Ruhan drawled, and Alankrita heard him hawking and spit. "Did you just spit into the toilet?," she asked, making a face. "Yeah," Ruhan mumbled, and followed with, "So did you come here to talk to me or are you going to actually use the washroom for what it's meant for?"

Alankrita pursed her lips and inhaled deeply, and her sensitive nostrils were strongly assaulted by the metallic smell of blood wafting through the hole in the wall, making her want to vomit. She did follow him to make sure he was okay, but she also wanted to tell him that she knew everything. After seeing him walk into class like he had in the morning, she wanted to tell him that she knew exactly what had happened, so that he would have someone to confide in at school. But would he do so after he found out it was her?

"I don't believe you," she said, and Ruhan laughed once. "Don't believe what?" he asked, his voice thick.

"I don't think you got punched by some girl's father."
"Oh really? You don't, huh?" he asked, and Alankrita could tell he was sneering. "No, I don't," she said, "There's no way you would stand still and let some random guy beat you up that bad. I saw what you did to Prashanth- you're not that tolerant." Ruhan was silent for a while. Alankrita hoped she hadn't gone too far and hurt his feelings, and was about to apologize when he murmured, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

She leaned on the adjacent wall and stared at the hole wide-eyed. She honestly hadn't expected that to work. He continued speaking. "I didn't get into a fight with anyone. And I lied because I didn't want anyone to know. I'm not proud of what happened, and frankly, I don't want people to keep asking me questions about it."

Alankrita gulped. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she said, feeling very guilty all of a sudden. Ruhan inhaled with a hiss. "It's fine," he said, "Don't take it personally- nobody knows. I'd want to keep it that way."
"I'm just letting you know that you don't have to, okay? I mean, if you ever feel like it, you can talk to me. You can trust me, you know that, right?"

Ruhan laughed and said, "Yeah. And just so you know- I'm not into masochism or anything like that, understood?" Alankrita chuckled into the palm of her hand. "Lunch will be over in a few minutes," she said, glancing at her watch, "You think you can make it to the cafeteria without getting lost?

Ruhan inhaled loudly. "Where am I, again?"
"Very funny," Alankrita replied, smiling, and stuck her little finger through the small hole. "You promise you'll take better care of yourself if this ever happens again? Pinky swear?"

Ruhan laughed and said, "Yeah, okay pinky swear," and Alankrita felt something wet touch her finger. "EW RUHAN THAT WAS NOT A FINGER," She yelled, pulling her hand back into her chest. Ruhan started cackling on the other side of the wall. "Calm down it was just my cheek."
"WHAT CHEEK?" Alankrita asked, still grossed out. She heard Ruhan trying to catch his breath and he said, "The one on my face, idiot," before laughing again. Alankrita groaned and, putting the roll of toilet paper back in its place, walked out of the washroom.

Ruhan was still laughing when he heard Alankrita walk away. He sniffed and pulled out several sheets of toilet paper, dabbing his face and his hoodie, before eventually taking the stained hoodie off. He grinned, feeling much better than he had when he walked into the washroom.Was it just him or was Alankrita starting to become more and more likable?

*****