4
They managed to reach college with just a minute to spare, and rushed off towards their auditorium.
“You are early, darling!”
“Early? What? Sean! Wow! You look hot…that tux…wow!”
He kissed her cheek before replying, “And you stop my heart!”
“Ahem…ahem! I am still here people! Sean, could you please explain, what the fuck is going on? Why is no one here? Have we got our date wrong or is my watch running fast?”
He laughed and added, “Neither Yang! Don’t you guys know, the event has been postponed by an hour because the guest of honor has some other arrangements to attend to!?”
Sean called Chloe, ‘Yang’ because he liked very much the character Chloe Yang of Grey’s Anatomy and found them similar in many ways.
“Seriously?”
“Shit Chloe, we should have checked our messages! Huh!”
“Hmm…yeah! So is it just the three of us then?”
“Nope! Not really, I saw some of your friends; they were at your block!”
“Alright then am heading off there, you coming Hazel?”
“Umm…”
“Go ahead darling, I have a couple of things to take care of, I’ll see you at 6 then?”
“Yeah…alright!”
She rose to her toes to give him a quick peck and then joined Chloe. As they neared the CSE block, they heard the whirring sound of a bike.
“He’s here!”
“Who?”
“Who owns the bullet around here Chloe?”
Before she could answer, the bike zoomed into view and stopped a millimeter from Chloe’s foot.
“Shit!” she muttered under her breath.
“Chloe!” Arjun said with a smile.
As fate would have it, her phone started ringing at the very moment, and she walked off without a word.
“You look pretty Hazel.”
“Thank you! You don’t look that bad yourself!”
“Was that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Kinda!” she said laughing.
When he responded with a mirthless laugh, she asked “What’s going on Tiger?”
“Am I invisible to her?”
“Hmm…well she has had a bad day…easy Tiger…you are gonna ask her, aren’t you?”
“Woa! How did you…”
“It is pretty apparent! Good luck buddy!”
“You think…”
“I think nothing” she said cutting him off.
Before he could say anything more, Chloe walked in.
“You look better than you usually do!”
“You look like a princess…”
“But this isn’t a fairy tale Arjun. We better go up and find our friends.”
Hazel wondered why Chloe didn’t reply in kind. She could smell trouble boiling, but decided not to comment lest everything turned messy.
Their walk to their classroom was short. In spite of it being a Sunday evening, the place was noisy and filled with people.
Even before Chloe and Hazel could enter the classroom, they were greeted by Divya, Anam and Sebina. Arjun had to again remove himself and walk off to talk to the guys.
“You all look so pretty people!”
“And you look the prettiest Chloe. White suits you!” said Sebina.
“Jeez! Any of you tell that one more time and I swear to God that am gonna pour something over this dress so that it changes its color!”
“Is something wrong?”
“Don’t worry Sebina; Chloe is on a dropping spree since morning!”
“You needn’t tell everything now Hazel. Let it rest in peace.”
“Hmm...”
“So Hazel, we need to be there near the stage, we have to look after a couple of things.”
“OK Anam, let’s go then. Later people!”
As Anam and Hazel walked off, the other three walked over to meet the guys.
As the time neared 6, people started vacating the room. Arjun waited patiently so that he could get Chloe alone. He thought and re thought his proposal, he was tensed, yet excited. He realized he hadn’t felt that before, he thought with grim satisfaction the surprise that he would inflict on her. He knew, despite everything, she would accept him. They had become very close after his breakup. She had helped him cope, and he was grateful, and realized, there couldn’t be anything better than pure unadulterated love that he could give her in return.
“Arjun?”
Snapping back to reality, he saw he was surrounded by Divya and Sebina and they had completely blocked his view of Chloe.
“Yeah”, he said warily.
“You need to come with us.” said Sebina.
“Now?”
“Yep! We don’t have time to waste.” said Divya
“But, I am a little busy right now. I’ll join you guys in sometime.”
“Dude! It is almost 6 by now. We need to be there. No arguments! Let’s leave!”
Arjun knew it was pointless arguing with Sebina. So he got up resignedly, and peeked a look at Chloe. She was merrily chatting away with Sameer. He sighed and followed Sebina and Divya.