You Were My Crush: Till You Said You Love Me! by Durjoy Datta, Orvana Ghai

snapped her fingers. ‘It’s so unfair. Benoy, I have not dropped out of the top five in any grade. In ANY grade, and I didn’t study hard all these years to be a housewife at twenty-one. It’s just not fair.’
    I nodded, not knowing what to say.
    ‘Best of luck,’ I said. A little later, we left the coffee shop and walked to my car.
    ‘Diya,’ I said, as we huddled inside the car. ‘There is something I wanted to give you.’
    ‘
Me?
What?’ she asked.
    ‘Aw! Benoy, you didn’t have to do this,’ she said, as I gave her the bag I had bought for her. ‘This is too small for carrying the heads of the little children I kill every day!’
    ‘Can you stop being disgusting for a minute?’ I grumbled.
    ‘But I do not need this. You need this. You don’t have a bag.’
    ‘I don’t have a bag because I don’t need one! I don’t want my best friend to look like the Hunchback of Notredame with that bag,’ I said.
    ‘Don’t push it. I am NOT your best friend,’ she retorted. Seeing me make a puppy face, she cupped it in her hands and said, ‘You’re, like, my only friend!’
    ‘That’s better!’
    ‘You are sweet, Benoy.’
    ‘Thank you. You aren’t bad either,’ I said.
    We smiled and though she was happy, I could not ask about Shaina, something I thought I would. I thought she would pick up the conversation because I had liked
every
picture in which she was with her sister, but she did not mention anything.



Chapter Eleven
    ‘Where the hell are you?’ Deb asked.
    ‘I was in college. Why?’ I said.
    ‘College? Just when I need you, you are in college? Come home, I am outside. And why college, man? Is everything all right?’
    I wanted to tell him that I enjoyed attending classes with Diya, but I couldn’t mouth the words; I couldn’t even believe the words.
    ‘Why? What’s the problem?’ I asked because I had never seen Deb so flustered.
    ‘I need to do something special for Avantika and I thought I would decorate your house and get her here. What say?’
    ‘Deb? Haven’t you already done that before, like, a million times?’
    ‘But that’s all I can think of. I have done almost everything else. I don’t know what else to do, Benoy.’
    ‘But it’s not her birthday, right?’
    ‘Will you just stop attending your stupid classes and come home?’ he asked.
    I excused myself and hurried back home; Diya told me she would photocopy the notes for me.
    ‘What’s the matter? Why the big surprise?’ I asked as I let him in and he sat on the couch, his head in his palms.
    ‘I am tired of the cat-and-mouse game, Benoy. The pursuit and everything have lost their charm and I want to get it over with.’
    ‘Get it over with?’
    ‘Yes, Benoy, get
engaged
!’ he said. ‘Do you even have any idea when was the last time I made out?’
    ‘Umm … a year ago? Is that why you want to get married? That’s the stupidest reason ever!’
    ‘Well, not really, but that could have been playing in my subconscious, now that I think. Anyway, I really need her, man. The break-up is killing me now. She used to be everything to me. She was the person whom I could fall back on. Now it just sucks. Don’t you wish for someone like that in your life?’
    ‘I already have that someone in my life.
More
than one.’
    ‘Benoy, I am really not interested in listening about your flings right now,’ he said. I was talking about Diya and Eshaan, and I would never make out with either of the two!
    ‘Whatever,’ I said.
    ‘Anyway, I will do it with a big diamond ring, and I will get it soon,’ he said.
    ‘Umm, okay. I am not sure if it’s a good idea,’ I murmured.
    ‘What? You think I shouldn’t do it?’
    ‘No,’ I said. He looked at me and wanted me to explain my apprehension. ‘Look, Deb, you have cheated on her.
Twice
. That’s not by accident. You’re an asshole.’
    ‘So? I won’t do it ever again, Benoy. I love her,’ he protested. ‘And there is no one else I could ever get married