Teri Meri Chemistry. 📚 ✔

Chapter 15

Down the memory lane.

Faara Malik was crushing on Zackariya Khan and there was no denying of it anymore. It wasn't exactly a crush. I liked him, way more than as a friend. I really did. But I was scared because Zack was like the casanova of our school. He would never feel the same way about me ever. Still, I wanted to give it a shot. Because in the end, we only regret the chances we didn't take. What's the worst that could happen? He could say that he didn't feel the same. Right? And then we'd go separate ways anyway. I needed to take this chance because honestly, I was a changed person because of him. I smiled a little more. I laughed more than usual. I started falling in love with my life. I started living a little more. I started enjoying human interaction. I started hanging out. I started making friends. I started cherishing the moments. I complained a little less and it was all because of this one boy. The boy who taught me how to laugh, who found my lost smile. The only boy who protected me and helped me overcome my fears. The one who never judged me or made fun of my insecurities. He was the one who taught me to be comfortable in my own skin and the one who made me feel beautiful for the first time. He gave me space when I wanted to be alone and stood by me at every step when I needed him by my side. He supported me in every possible way and made this final year of highschool a ride that I was going to remember for the rest of my life. Four years ago, we didn't even want to spend a second together and today, I don't want to spend a second apart from him. What did he really do to me? Did he create someone else or found the lost girl only? Whatever he did, I was glad. I never knew I would fall in love with this place and look forward to it everyday.

I woke up happier than usual. I had decided. I was going to confess. Whatever his response may be, I was going to do my part. There was no turning back now. I freshened up and wore my favourite black knee-length dress. Pairing it with a denim jacket and sneakers and pinning my straightened hair neatly to the side, I hopped down the stairs and grabbed my breakfast. I was smiling wide and I didn't know what was wrong with me. My serotonin had overshot, not that I was complaining. I jumped in the bus and settled on my usual window seat. Zack wasn't taking the bus today which meant he was with his squad. We reached school in fifteen and my eyes looked for him everywhere but couldn't find him.

"Hey, have you seen Zack?" I asked Tom as I passed him in the main corridor.

"No. I saw him going towards the washroom last."

"Oh. Alrighty! Thankyou!" I smiled at him and went to AP Physics.

I settled on my bench and the class was about to start when Zack entered. He walked past me.

"Hey?" I called him out. He was acting weird. He didn't even see me.

"Oh hi!" He smiled awkwardly.

"Where have you been? I was looking for you."

"Nowhere." He replied casually.

"Something wrong?"

"Nah. All perfect!" He waved it off as the professor entered the class.

Why was he avoiding me?

After the class, he went straight out. I had to talk to him. I had to tell him. I went to the locker and placed my stuff in there. I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers.

Here we go amigos!

I went straight to the hallway downstairs but the next sight definitely wasn't what I was expecting. Not even in my dreams. My eyes started tearing up. There he was.

Standing in front of the same girl who bullied me for my colour for four years and kissing her as if his life depended on it. Unwillingly, tears had blinded my vision and silently, I walked back with the same steps through the same corridor.

Flashback: 4 Years Earlier.

A scared and confused girl entered the college. It was her first time in a foreign land with foreign people. She didn't know what to do or where to go. Holding a notebook to her chest, she walked towards the main corridor.

A group of boys laughing their asses off sitting there and making the school a hell for freshers.

"I dare you to kiss the next person who enters the cafe." The brooding one told the most enthusiastic one.

"Alright yo!" He gave a thumbs up and went towards the door and there she entered the cafe mistakenly and he went full on her, taking her face in his hands and giving her a deep full kiss. Her eyes grew wide as she tried pushing him away but he was so strong. After finishing his job, he left her as the whole cafeteria burst into laughter and hoots making fun of the new brown girl. He was provoking the crowd more and more. But then there was pin drop silence as the new brown girl slapped that guy hard across his face. He seethed at her in rage as if he was about to kill her anytime. He moved forward towards her ready to pounce on her like a hungry tiger. Had it not been the other guys pulling him back, he would have hit her surely. How dare she slap him for just kissing her?

But to her, it wasn't the kiss but the humiliation and the cat-calling that followed in the years to come. The impression that she was someone you could use and throw away. The way that guy never bothered about it or cared about her feelings. The way he wasn't ever guilty of his act and felt no shame still. He ruined a girl's image on the first day itself and made her life miserable in the years to come. And hence started the enmity.

He was always a playboy! Wasn't he? Why was I foolish enough to think he had changed? Why was I stupid enough to fall for his acts?

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Disclosed.