Forty days in bed with typhoid, followed by the much-anticipated board exam results, had left me sleepless. Insomnia took over, and I spent the entire night watching Jurassic Park and playing Spider Solitaire. The results were scheduled to be released online at 9:00 AM. But thanks to heavy web traffic, the page wouldn’t load on my PC. Just then, my phone rang.
It was Avni—one of my closest friends, and unofficially, my fiercest rival. We had a long history of competing in everything we did, all while pretending to be best childhood friends. That façade cracked the moment our parents got involved in our friendship. Somewhere in our early teens, the innocence of it all quietly vanished.
"Hey Rads! You got 92.2%. Congrats, babes!" she said brightly.
"Thanks, Avu. How did you do?"
"Me? Eh, not great. I got 86%."
"That’s not bad at all, yaar. You’ll definitely get PCM."
"Yeah, I know. Still, would’ve been nice to beat you for a change. Just kidding... hehehe."
"Haha, I wouldn’t mind—even if you meant it. Oh, by the way, did you check on Ruchi?"
"Yeah, I called her this morning. She got 84%."
"Not bad at all."
"Yeah, she’s happy with it. Honestly, she didn’t even expect that much."
Ruchi was the third vertex of our love triangle. Every time one of us messed up, the other would try to win her over. We literally vied for her loyalty—like a prize to be claimed—each time a conflict arose.
One of our more ridiculous spats had been over a chocolate. Avni had received it from a girl who annoyingly considered herself Avni’s best friend, even though Avni couldn’t stand her. Still, it was her favorite chocolate, and she didn’t want to share it.
Avni also had this habit of forgetting her spectacles everywhere she went. That day, we bunked class to watch the inter-house basketball matches. When we returned, she couldn’t find her specs. She ran all the way back to the ground to look for them. Meanwhile, I suggested to Ruchi that we check her blazer. We didn’t find the glasses—but we did find the chocolate. The rest of our group immediately mobbed it.
That incident turned into a disaster. The so-called "fair-weather friends" got mad at Avni for being selfish, and she lashed out at us for not having her back. The cold war lasted two days until I finally set my ego aside and called her to apologize. That was usually how it went—I was the peacemaker.
Despite my decent board results, I was reluctant to return to my old convent school for higher secondary. I’d had a tough time there, especially with the senior teachers. Going back felt like returning to a lion’s den—I knew I wouldn’t survive it. Avni and Ruchi, meanwhile, had decided to join an integrated school program run by one of the top IIT-JEE coaching institutes. Like a lost puppy, I decided to follow their scent.
