College Life

Soon after joining the classes, I started hanging out with a few classmates. Not that I did not like it, but it was not what I exactly wanted. But it felt bad to turn them down every day. So we would spend some time together once in a few days.

There were around 10 people, including me, which were a lot, a lot more than I could tolerate. But they were fun, all sorts of people and all sorts of things and talks happened. Also, there was a love triangle within the group- two guys liking the same girl. It might be funny to hear but it was kind of heartbreaking to experience. Two friends are in love with the same girl, knowing well enough this will ruin their friendship. No matter how much you promise that no love can ever come in between you, it always does. Even as an outsider in this triangle, it broke my heart to see this, even worse that the girl liked one but could not tell the other guy about this. So I did what I could, tried to talk to the other guy out of this.

"Hey, just come over and sit here with me." I asked Saksham pointing out to the chair next to mine. He had been sitting alone, occasionally looking at the girl he likes, and I wonder how no one noticed the pain in his eyes.

He came over next to me,"Hey, what's up?"

"I'm good. What about you, why do you look so pale?" I asked.

"Oh, that's probably because of the college stress. How are you here with us today?"

"I was free. Today's work was over and staying inside is suffocating sometimes."

"You should be here more often." He said smiling.

"And you should smile more, the pain doesn't look good in those shiny eyes."

"I don't know what you are talking about. What pain?" He said after a moment of hesitation.

"Saksham, I can read people." I said turning my eyes towards the reason behind that pain.

I think he understood what I meant.

Since that day, I started staying with the group more often, and even more with Saksham, usually telling him more about self love and trying to talk him out of the triangle.

"I wish I had someone like that." He said one day while looking at his crush and his friend.

"Hey, I'm here for you. I'll tease you like that. Or call you cute names. Friends can do that, right?" I tried lifting his mood up.

That's when our friendship grew stronger. We would meet up with the entire group, chat with them, and sometimes I would tease him when it seemed he was feeling low. It felt good to see someone happy because of you.

And what felt better was sharing these little happiness with Anurag, telling him all tiny details of my day, all conversations, so he would know I miss him everyday, and meeting new people would never threaten his importance in my life.