It was a fact very evident that Raima Roy was hot. Well, as hot as a girl of fifteen could be. And whom else would allegedly hot fifteen year old girls date other than the popular boys of their resident rock band? So blame the naive and narcissistic minds of the teenage realm, not his conscience. It isn't as if she genuinely loves him.
Strawberry. How cliche, he thought. He liked strawberries, didn't he? Not really, to be honest. But then, perhaps one could learn to like them. He could make do with strawberries, yeah. So he tried to mute his thoughts as their lips gracelessly danced together, much like the two drunken teenagers they were. Her slightly steadier lips spoke about the little experience she had, the same, unfortunately, couldn't be said about him. Like it mattered to any of them. His arm around her waist? Check. Hand in her hair, yes. He pulled away a minute later, charming the girl with one of his standard smirks coupled with a diverting quip about her choice of lip gloss. She coyly blushed and with a teasing glance, bade him a good night and walked away from the secluded section of the library. As he walked towards his dorms with dread, Cabir reflected how he felt about all of it. It wasn't specifically bad, but he had listened to enough retellings of first kisses to pretend to be oblivious to the obvious disparity. Then, there was the question of his morality. Sure, the girl was nice-looking as evidenced by the trail of gifted roses she walked upon, but he was convinced that was all there was to it. As long as he gave her the status, she would give him a mask. And well, Cabir Dhawan didn't do guilt. Even so, as he stood before the doors, he searched his pockets for any spare crumbs of courage. Breathe in, breathe out. He hadn't even crossed the threshold when he heard the smug question from the familiar bed, 'sooo how was it?' Breathe in. His friend. Breathe out. His best friend. Breathe in. And so he turned, still in the dark about his answer, as he mechanically mirrored the smug smirk and spoke, 'f**king amazing'.