Chapter- 1

My life was what people would call normal. My life was nothing sort of those movies we see; the characters that people adore are nothing similar to me.

And maybe that was why we adored them. We adore people who are brave and can stay true to themselves even amidst trouble. We adore the people that we would love to become one day.

I rolled the pen in between my fingers and let out a sigh. The classes, these days, were pretty boring to me. My desire to come to school was zero, probably, even a negative number, but just like everyone, I was forced to come.

I yawned. My one hand was on my mouth, covering my nose and my open mouth and with the other hand I was rubbing my eyes. All I had been doing was to yawn the whole damn day. Yes, my life was too boring. It was not like I could blame anyone for it. It was partly my fault. I never found the things interesting that our generation found. I scratched my head. Maybe I’m secretly a thirty year old lady.

That would probably explain my weird behavior, but honestly, living in a fake world like ours was never my dream. I didn’t want to act like I had fun only on social media. I don’t want to have fun because I had to make someone jealous.

All I wanted was genuine happiness.

It was not like I was sad or anything. I was pretty content with my life as it was now, but if I ever get a chance to grab an option of doing something greater, I’d definitely grab it.

I could hear the sighs of relief that everyone let out as soon as the bell rang. Our teacher cleared her throat, “Everyone, please remember to submit your essay by the end of this week.” But everyone was too busy to listen to our teacher. I could hear chairs being pushed and the laughter of the students.

I rested my head on the desk and closed my eyes, “Finally!” I whispered to myself. I wanted to sleep for a little time but I knew that it was impossible.

When I opened my eyes, I found my best friend giving her signature grin, “Stayed up all night?” she asked even though she already knew my answer.

The dark circles under my eyes were the answer, “How do I change, Ash?”

The weird thing about me was that even though I wanted to do great things and achieve happiness, I was too lazy to do it. I really want to do something great but that’s it. It’s just want. A need. I don’t push myself to work hard. I’d busy myself with YouTube videos; there was nothing that I did to benefit myself.

And, at the end of day, I would scroll through social media and just see pictures of people having fun. I would read inspiring quotes to motivate myself but…..

“I have told you what to do to be productive like a thousand times.” Ashely snorted, and shook her head. Ashley, my best friend, was not like me at all. She was fiery, loud and would beat someone’s ass if they overstep their boundaries. And she was also very hardworking and strategic. I had never seen her not achieve something she wanted. She was scary when she had a goal to achieve.

“Get up, we have to go to our next class.” Ashley reminded me as she grabbed my hand and tried to pull me. I let out a loud groan but stood up anyway.

“Let’s burn this place someday, shall we?” I joked as a yawn left my mouth.

“Hell yeah! I am in. You just decide the date for me, shortie!” I rolled my eyes at her nickname. It was funny considering we both were short. I was just shorter.

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“Did you complete the essay yet?” I asked Ashley as we made our way to the cafeteria tables. But I already knew her answer. Yes.

But to my surprise, she shook her head, “I’ll probably write it the day before I need to submit.” She told me. I narrowed my eyes at her, “What do you mean?” It was very surprising to me that Ashley had not done her work on the day it was given. One thing I knew about Ashley was that she didn’t procrastinate. In fact, she loathed procrastinating.

She grinned and I knew that grin. It always meant she had something important to say. I took a seat and then raised an eyebrow, “Spill.”

“I went on a date.”

I was a little surprised, “What?”

She giggled, “It was bad. But I did it to prove a point,” And I groaned at her response. I could guess what had happened.

“Your sister again?”

“Yeah, that donkey said no one found me attractive so I went on a date, took a picture and ran off.”

I sighed but the next second, I was chucking as an image of Ashley making various excuses to run away from her date came to my mind.

“You and your sister, both of you are crazy.” I joked. I loved both Ashley, and her older sister, Barbara. She was also the sister I never had. I envied their relationship a lot, though most of it was just them bickering. They also made a lot of bets. I had my fair share of experiences

I bet Barbara used this bet as a guise to actually make Ashley go on a date.

“How is she? Settled down yet?”

“She keeps on grumbling about how everyone is so tall.” Ashley laughed, with a fond expression on her face.

“Well, it is the Netherlands.” I chuckled thinking about her short figure.

We both were engulfed in a comforting silence after that, but the silence didn’t last that long.

“Hey.”

We both turned to look at the intruder and both of our lively moods dampened.

It was Ashley who opened her mouth first, “What the fuck do you want?” Ashley knew how to be intimidating without cussing. She didn’t like to swear so if a swear word ever came out of her mouth, it was because someone had really pissed her off, and it was, indeed, true as her eyes were smoldering with anger.

Chris took a step back in fear and held his hands up, “Whoa! Relax; I just want to talk with both of you.” He smiled as if to calm her down. It would have worked a few months ago. But not now. Never now.

Ashley rolled her eyes, “It’s such a shame that we don’t.” A glare was sent his way, “Vi, Let’s go and eat somewhere else. This place stinks.” She waved her hand in front of her nose to emphasize her sentence.

I simply nodded my head, stood up and followed Ashley. I avoided eye contact with him, knowing very well that I would feel pity if my eyes met his. He had been our best friend, after all.

“That bastard!” She was uttering all sorts of swear words and I couldn’t help but agree with every word that came out of her mouth.

Chris made us realise that people change and they would not hesitate to hurt the people that were once close to them. Humans are really a peculiar species.

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Chris didn’t disturb us for the next few days and we both were more than happy with that. Right now, I was texting Ashley about random things.

I was chuckling when I saw her reply and that was when I got a new message. It was from an unknown number.

All hell broke loose when I decided to open it, “What the fuck is this?” It was me who shouted.

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