I’m Wrong, You’Re Right, I’m Sorry…

Pulkit

Description

Girl meets boy.
Girl falls in love.
They separate.
Years later, from halfway across the world, boy comes back in girl’s life.
They text.
They talk.
They are in love.
They are very happy.
Then one day … he stops texting.
This may sound like your story, but it isn't.
It will leave you gasping for breath

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Partridge Publishing India
• Date de parution: 03 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781543709049
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

I’M WRONG, YOU’RE RIGHT, I’M SORRY…
Pulkit


Copyright © 2023 by Dr Pulkit Gupta.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-5437-0905-6

eBook
978-1-5437-0904-9
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
 
 
 
 
 
www.partridgepublishing.com/india
CONTENTS
1.Is It Actually Him?
2.That’s Better, Much Better
3.Let Him Stew
4.He Is My Devil
5.So Unfair
6.Just Perfect
7.Obviously, He’s Lying
About the Author
1
IS IT ACTUALLY HIM?
Christmas Day
London
“I’m done. Going to my room,” Kritika declared and stomped rather than walked to her bedroom.
Slamming the door behind her, she slumped on her bed, crumpling the pink satin sheets, and pulled the laptop towards her. The tiny sensor on the keyboard scanned her fingerprint and confirming the identity of its user, sprang to life. The blue and white panel of the social networking website greeted Kritika, and her eyes darted towards the right corner of the screen. The icon was highlighted in red with a tiny number over it, 9.
The wisp of a grin played on Kritika’s lips. She had been away from the website for barely five hours, and already, the number of boys wanting to be her friends had more than doubled.
Of course, they must all be guys, she thought, her grey eyes admiring her alabaster skin and crimson lips in the mirror opposite her bed. Her finger danced on the trackpad and hung over the red icon in an almost tantalising fashion, as if teasing the souls of the nine poor guys trapped within the cramped confines of the dropdown list. Then she clicked and with the gusto of a police detective flipping through the mugshots of suspects, scrutinised the profile pictures of her new admirers. While still internally eviscerating the facial features of the second boy, her eyes swept towards the name of the next candidate on the list, and she gasped, “My god!”
Kritika’s entire frame stiffened, and she sat bolt upright.
Could it be possible? Is it actually him?
With her vanity evaporated, the innocent young girl from within the depths of Kritika’s being resurfaced, and her eyes shone. The tiny circular picture beside the name of the third boy on the list looked very promising. Though she had not seen him for a decade, she seemed sure this is exactly how he must look like at present. Trembling, her finger shot over the trackpad again, and the cursor jumped to life. Taking a deep breath, she clicked on his name. In the infinitesimal pause that took the high-speed broadband connection to reach the boy’s profile page, Kritika’s heart raced like the engine of a racing car. Once the profile opened up, the picture got slightly bigger, and she clicked on it.
Taking in the boy’s tousled hair, lustrous dark brown eyes, and relatively scrawny frame wrapped in a black shirt, Kritika stared for a full minute. Then she gently shut the lid of her laptop, collapsed into her bed, and exhaled heavily. A few seconds later, her heart exploded with excitement, and a wide smile lit her face.
It IS him. The jerk made me wait for ten years.
Kritika was happy. Happy with such happiness that fills the heart and drives every other emotion out of it. Happiness that everyone craves but few achieve. Happiness that emerges and makes one realise that what they believed to be true happiness in the past was just a mere sliver of the original.
Her phone buzzed with a text message from one of her many admirers, but she did not care. Even her obsessive reflex of grabbing the smartphone and feverishly tapping on its screen got crushed under the enormous weight of her gaiety, and her hand stay put. She was thinking about him. She didn’t want to be disturbed.
He has aged well, she thought. I can recognise that he is the same boy, but his features have sharpened a bit. He’s turned a little sexy too. Of course, he is still cute, but you know . . .
Letting the thought hang, she grinned into her pillow. Normally, she wouldn’t have dreamed of accepting anyone’s friend-request so quickly. Usually, boys had to wait for weeks for the MDC (most desirable chick), Kritika, to accept their friend-request; and these were those precious few who managed to ace her stringent screening processes. It went without saying that not every Tom, Dick, and Harry could receive the honour of finding themselves on Kritika’s list of friends. In fact, if the applicant was deemed too undesirable, she did not hesitate in opening the floodgates of her wrath. More than thrice, she had reported the accounts of some clueless ugly ducklings to the website administrator for the petty crime of daring to send her a friend-request without possessing some necessary physical and mental attributes.
Today, however, the college queen decided to break her rule. Humming to herself in a nonchalant fashion, Kritika rose and opened her laptop again. Finding the blue button on his profile, she clicked.
ACCEPT FRIEND REQUEST
Almost immediately, she rushed back to her list of friends and made sure his cautiously grinning face was sitting on the top left corner. Rolling her tongue, she whispered his name out loud and closed her eyes.
Once again, she could see the high ceilings, the starkly lit hall, and the crudely polished mosaic floor. A little girl spiralled in a small gap in the centre, surveying the sea of blurry faces, all staring at her, all alike. Her heart swelling with pride at her incredible skill, the girl prepares to break into her legendary dance move, when a pair of dark brown eyes catch her attention. Eyes staring from over the shoulder of someone else, attached to a face half hidden from view. Eyes like no other eyes in the entire world.
For about ten years now, during her joyful hours of solitude, the same scene had featured in the eye of Kritika’s mind. And though her sharp logical brain had often berated her for clinging on to this hopeless fantasy, she had never been able to shrug it off. Despite having been a tender eight-year-old during that fateful decade-old Christmas school pageant, she had never felt an emotion as strong ever again. Over the years and multitudes of experiences, that memory had sometimes gotten buried under the comings and goings of life but never completely forgotten. If anything, it’s glow had grown stronger and more passionate with every passing year.
Funny, that it should happen today . . . on Christmas of all days. And to think that just recently, I was grumbling about this website to Tina, thought Kritika, and her mind cast back to the argument she had had with her best friend yesterday.
“It’s bullshit, Ti,” moaned Kritika, pulling the Santa cap off her head. “I don’t even know why I am on this stupid Blue-White website anymore? Seems like every loser is on it now . . . I mean, where is the gentry? I swear, I’ll delete my account tonight.”
“What?!” Tina yelped. Pushing her transparent spectacle frame further up her button mushroom nose, she argued back, “What are you saying? You gonna leave the social network?”
“No, I’m not leaving the social network. I am just leaving this stupid website, this valley of nerds. In case you forgot, I am still on the other one, you know, the cooler one. The one with the pictures, stories, and reels. I just can’t take this ‘fraand me’ headache from pathetic losers anymore.”
Though Tina smirked, she decided not to give up without a fight. “You’re not leaving the Blue-White, K. There are still many who are on it . . . guys especially.”
“Yeah, many guys are on it, and so is my salsa teacher, the supermarket clerk, and my grandmother. I mean, I love Granny, but I don’t want her in my social space, tagging me in embarrassing pictures.”
“Come on, K. You know very well that guys are still kinda scared of that other website, the one with the pictures and reels. They don’t get on it as often as we do.”
“And this should bother me, why?”
Kritika’s conceited reply piqued Tina. She hated the fact that all the cute boys in her class found her best friend more desirable and that she never had to work for anyone’s attention. Chewing her lower lip in envy, she retorted, “Do whatever you want, K. In fact, I think you are right. You should definitely delete your account on the Blue-White.”
The two girls separated in a more stony fashion than usual, and Kritika walked up the steps to her front door. Having won the argument, she smugly ran her fingers through her artificially coloured auburn hair and was about to congratulate herself when Tina’s sudden surrender stopped her in her tracks.
Why did Ti give up so easily? Generally, she argues ’til my toes turn blue. Hell, I have stood outside this very door, bickering with her for hours.
As Kritika stood mulling, an annoying epiphany crept into her mind.
My god! Was she again trying her reverse-psychology stuff on me? Was she arguing because she actually wanted me to delete my Blue-White account, knowing very well that I would do the exact opposite? What the hell! This is so annoyi