Segment # 3
“Remind me why you still have this eyesore in your room?” Aryan grimaced at the pic on Chahat’s wall.
“To remind me to never make bad choices again!” she quipped, sticking her tongue out at him. Aryan shuddered and raised his hand in a hi-five to Chahat that she returned.
“Dude! What if your brother hadn’t intervened in time? We would be married instead of just rooming together!”
“Yup! And our parents would be in jail!”
“We were minors! What were your parents smoking?”
“Same thing your dad was!”
Aryan fell silent, not willing to admit to her that his dad’s decision to get them married was a knee-jerk reaction to his coming out. His dad had thought he would get magically ‘fixed’ after marriage. That disaster had been successfully averted 4 years ago and he and Chahat were now roomies while they went to Business school together.
After having lost his mom and not having any siblings of his own, his dad had been the person he had trusted most and he had let Aryan down badly. He had lost his nerve then and hadn’t come out to anyone, including Chahat. Despite the fact that she was his best friend in the whole world.
Aryan ran a tired hand through this hair and turned to his laptop.
“Bansal is worse than Umbridge, man! She’s really got something against me!”
Chahat let out a huff and slammed her text book.
“Stop being dramatic! You’re gonna ace that assignment and you know it! Tell me, how does it feel to be good at everything, dude? GS, academic ace, college heartthrob, feeder of street dogs! Is there anything you can’t do?”
She rolled her eyes, flipping him off and he gave her a wry grin. He loved riling up Chahat, but she couldn't be more wrong.
“Look who’s talking.. Nerd! And some heartthrob! You’re looking at a guy who got blocked by the hottest girl in college!” he said self-mockingly as Chahat’s eyes rounded in disbelief.
“I only sit on the front bench cause I find it hard to read the board from the back and you know it!” she said pointing at her thick frames and then clicked her tongue.
“Rhea really blocked you? Wow, you must have pissed her off! She’s had her eye on you this whole sem! Sheesh! I set you up on Tindr, get you hooked up with Rhea, and you spend your date gatekeeping me and Vikram! Not done, bro!”
She shook her head at him in mock disapproval. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous!”
He disguised his guilt with a sniff. “Jealous! Of you and Vikram! Hah! Not likely. I was just looking out for you, didn’t want you to lose your V-card to that scumbag!”
“You’re not my dad, Aryan! I’ll decide whom to lose my V-card to! Stop blocking me, dude!”
Aryan grinned. He could tell she wasn’t that annoyed.
“You can do better than him and you know it!”
She screwed up her nose.
“I’m jealous though.”
His brows shot up and disappeared into his hairline.
“This whole semester I’ve been trying to get this guy’s attention, and have probably made a fool of myself before him a dozen times and yet you and he are so comfortable together without even trying!”
Aryan felt his stomach drop. She couldn’t be referring to….
“If only Saheel would look at me!”
She looked wistful for a moment and then opened her text book with a heavy sigh.
“You… you like Saheel?” Aryan’s voice was choked.
She nodded emphatically. “He’s kind and not a jerk like most other guys in our class. He really listens to you when you talk, you know. You know how sexy that is? And have you seen him play? No wonder he’s been winning all those football games for our college! He even takes the time to coach those street kids on the weekends! Not to mention how good-looking he is!”
Chahat got a dreamy look on her face that made Aryan’s stomach plummet further.
“Now if only you would set me up with him, I’d know you were truly my best friend,” she pouted.
Shit. What was he to do? How was he supposed to set up his best friend with the guy he had a crush on? Did Saheel even like girls? He had never had a serious girlfriend as far as Aryan could tell and he had confessed to liking Vicky Kaushal, but then he had also told Aryan to back off from teasing Chahat. Did he like her then? Or was he just being kind? How could he be sure? And how could he open up to Chahat when he hadn’t even mustered up the courage to tell her about his secret Grindr profile?
He was pondering over the same matter when he walked into college the next day and saw a group of people huddled around the cafeteria entrance. When they spotted him approaching, they began giving him strange, intense looks. Aryan hurriedly looked down. Phew! He had remembered to put on pants. His shirt seemed alright. Was there something stuck on his face? He swiped a hand across his cheeks. Then the crowd parted slowly and his eyes shot wide open in horror as he took in his name spray painted in neon green across the cafeteria wall. But that wasn’t the worst. It was the rest of the message the vicious vandal had scribed..
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