8 LOVE LETTER THAT KILLS
20th August, 2016;
Time was still hard to pass for the Shastri family, Ashwini was busy with her work now and Dhruv kept himself occupied with his studies and school. Dhruv and school, what a relation it was! Apart from his 3 friends, half of the class looked at him as a 'smarty-pants' and half after this incident would look at him as a 'pity face'! Dhruv got the sympathy he never wanted, everyone one at school gave him that "poor boy" image, and it really wasn't wrong completely. Dhruv had a completely different persona outside his home, he might have been a witty, sarcastic and full of life character for people close to him but to everyone outside this circle of parents, neighbors, relatives and friends he was a smart, shy, closed mouth introvert! He was constantly in radars of bullies; he would take everything and speak not a word against them. Mostly they just teased him; any physical harassment was out of question! He would do everything they asked and ask no questions, so teasing was all it took for the bullies to get their job done! There might have been many bullies but only four of them concerned Dhruv, but these four stood top in the list! After the news of his father's death, they did not bother him for some while, but a few weeks past they were back to their routine. They started bullying him again and that day was no exception!
Dhruv was sitting on his seat doing what he did best, writing! He had been very silent lately; his friends hardly got to talk to him. They thought as it was a recess and he was not really doing much of a work, they should talk to him.
Riya : Hey Dhruv! You up to something?
Dhruv : Oh you guys! No, I am not doing much! Just keeping myself occupied!
Abhiram : Occupied! Like really! We are here and you prefer THIS to keep yourself occupied!
Dhruv : No no it's not like that, I am just..
Raghav(cutting him in between) : You are just what! Are you ignoring us?
Abhiram : It's the worst Ragzz! He doesn't count us as friends anymore!
Raghav : Yeah you are right! He just wants to get rid of us!
Dhruv : What are you guys saying! I would never do anything like that!
Riya : Relax D! They are just messing around! (looking at the duo) Enough of your stupid pranks assholes! Look at him! He's freaked out!
Both, Abhiram and Raghav start laughing.
Raghav(laughing continuously) : Sorry bro! As she said, we are just messing around! You haven't talked to us for days, you deserved some punishment!
Abhiram : Exactly! You needed some spanking!
Dhruv : God! That's some hell of a spanking!
Riya : Whatever it maybe, at least you are talking now! (Chuckles)
As the group got along, they were enjoying themselves. Talking about submissions, calling out teachers, teasing each other and every other thing a group of teenagers would talk when in their group. Dhruv was laughing and smiling after a while now, but that's the problem with smiles, they don't last long! And as everyone was busy talking, Riya out of nowhere suddenly jumped from her place and what everyone saw apart from her jumping was a hand! It did not require any rocket science to understand what happened, that hand there, a second ago grabbed Riya's ass! In the world outside that campus the incident would have been called molestation, but that's the advantage of being in a high school. Here, it's called 'bullying'! And the person 'bullying' today was Yash Choudary!
Riya : WHAT THE FUCK YASH!
Yash(smiling) : Hey Riya!
Riya : What do you think you are doing!
Yash : Uhmm… I guess that's my way of asking you "how are you?"
Riya : YOU PIECE OF SHI…
Dhruv(Cutting her sentence) :RIYA! I'll take care of it!
Riya : BUT HE..
Dhruv : I said I'll take care of it! Abhi, take her away!
Abhiram : Yeah sure!
Raghav : I'll come with you!
As Riya was leaving with her head as hot as sun, she grabbed Dhruv with his arm and pulled him few steps behind,
Riya(whispering) : Dhruv, I'll fucking kill this shit!
Dhruv : Calm down Riya!
Riya (whispering): To fuck with the calm! I want to knock off his teeth now!
Dhruv : I understand your anger but believe me you don't want to mess with him!
Riya : Who says that, huh? YOU?Ask me once; I really want to mess with that motherfucker!
Dhruv : Abhi, take her away! She is just angry. She is in no mood to understand!
Riya : Why should I understa.. (Raghav closes her mouth with his hand)
Raghav : Don't worry, I'll take care that she keeps her mouth shut!
Dhruv : Thanks!
Abhiram and Raghav take Riya away,
Dhruv : That's not done Yash!
Yash : Take a breath Dummy D! It's not big of a deal!
Dhruv : IT IS! But you won't get it, you have to be a girl to understand that!
Yash : In that case, you and all of your friends seem to be a group of experts! Or should I call 'a group of girls '! (Chuckles)
Dhruv : Why are you here Yash? I am pretty sure it wasn't to grab her ass after all, is it the chemistry assignment? Just keep the book on the desk, I'll do the work and give it tomorrow.
Yash : This time it isn't for assignment, I want your help with something!
Dhruv : What is it?
Yash : I want you to write a letter, to be clear A LOVE LETTER!
Dhruv (in surprise) : A WHAT! YOU AND LOVE LETTER! AND FOR WHOM?
Yash : That's a lot of questions, but I guess none of them concerns you! JUST..WRITE...THE..FREAKING...LETTER!
Dhruv : Why me?
Yash : Aren't you the best when it comes to writing shit! I want you to write a letter as romantic as possible, I'll give you the context!
Dhruv never really had a choice, but he was wise enough to take advantage of the situation. He kept a condition before Yash of writing that letter, he made sure that he won't bother Riya anymore and neither will he try to get near her. Dhruv wrote the letter in less than 10 minutes, and Yash stood there in disbelief after reading it, it was really a good one! And in the next hour on the clock, the whole class knew how good it was!
The girl who received the letter took it to the class teacher. And the girl was Pooja Mahajan! She was well known in the school, not because she was a bitch but because she was the ex of Vikram Rathod, the biggest rowdy in the school. And when in relationship with a rowdy you tend to become a bitch and this time bitch brought hell on Dhruv. It did not take long for the teacher to find who wrote it, well it never takes time in such issues. For the first time, Dhruv had to go against a bully and he did. But everything was against him, Yash would have never accepted the truth and he never did! Instead he accused Dhruv for lying.
Everything that followed was obviously bad. Dhruv lost the trust of his teachers, his classmates looked at him as if he was a pervert, friends looked at him like a coward, and as the news reached home he mom looked at him with disgust! His mom's reaction didn't really surprise him as for brown parents, teenage relationships are kind of a taboo! But what surprised him was that his mom didn't believe him when he said the truth! And no one really bothered about the truth, the perspective of truth they saw satisfied them!
17th jan, 2017; 12.40 P.M.
Shiv may have been restless about completing the case but he heard Dhruv patiently, it was clear that he was quite a story teller! Only reason why Shiv didn't slapped Dhruv for his stupid reason behind killing Yash was Shiv's need for information. He sat on his seat scratching his head getting more and more irritated with the boy's lack of guilt at the whole thing.
Rathod : So you mean, you killed Yash because he blamed you for this 'love letter' incident?
Dhruv : Yeah! That's the reason! But as I said it's not the reason that makes someone..
Rathod : ITS MOTIVE! I know I know!
Dhruv : So what do you think?
Rathod : I think it's stupid! I mean, it's utterly ridiculous!
Dhruv : Hey don't say that! His actions did have some bad consequences!.... I might have been a very good student but no teacher would appreciate me for my brilliance, every other classmate started calling me names, my friends did believe me but they were ashamed of the fact that I didn't retaliate, my mom lost the trust in me! I tried.. I really did! No one heard me! Pooja, the girl whom the letter was given, literally spit on my face the other day! The embarrassment killed me inch by inch every fucking time; I walked through those school corridors! And I have to tell you, it's far more painful than it appears!
Rathod(hesitatingly) :I guess… we should take a.. a break now!
Dhruv : Is it necessary?
Rathod : Ahh.. YEAH…. IT IS!
As Shiv stepped out of the room, he sat down on the floor itself, holding his head with both his hands. His heartbeats and breathing both caught up some speed. He asked for some water to the first person he saw walking by him, he was stressed but it wasn't Dhruv! It was something else totally, and it looked as if apart from Dhruv everyone in that station knew what it was,
Subhash : Here's your water Sir!
Rathod : Oh it was you whom I asked for it, sorry I didn't even notice!
Subhash : Why are you doing this Sir? You should not be here now, we understand that you are committed to your work but is it really that more important than your..
Rathod : I know what you want to know! But I am not here just because of this kid here; I am also here because I feel he is connected to it in some way!
Subhash : How can you say that Sir? This doesn't look like his work!
Rathod : I AGREE! It doesn't look like he did it, but I feel that he could have at least something for us!
Subhash : You are being desperate Sir! Hours ago when you entered inside the station, I noticed you trying to hide yourself behind that cool attitude of yours! Just give it to Patil Saheb, he will handle the kid! I know he is a bit.. out of sorts but I'll make sure that he doesn't mess up anything!
Rathod : The problem here is that Dhruv won't talk to anyone else rather than me!
Subhash : FINE! I won't argue, do as you please!
Rathod : Yeah! I'll talk to him; give me a bottle of water for him! And before I get that, I wanted to ask what happened about the results?
Subhash : You know, fingerprint analysis takes at least some hours at our station, but I'll make sure that it will be ready ASAP!!
