My First Love Changed Me
“Tell us, or we will beat you and drag you with your hair to the class!” I said, clutching a fellow student’s neck and towering over her with two other students. She whimpered and pleaded for us to leave her. I let go of her when our class in-charge barged in, throwing a disgusted look at us, mainly me.
It happened when we were in class 1, and our class teacher considered me one of the best-behaved students. It changed after she saw me as a goon, torturing our class girl for not talking with a straight face with me.
The time passed, I turned out to be a good student, sharp and curious. I paid attention to what the teachers said. Since I didn’t have many friends, I would hole up in one corner during recess and eat my lunch alone, or I had to sit with a student assigned to sit with me.
It was the summer of 2004, in grade 7, when I started to make friends. I would laugh with others, engage with students, answer in the class. Even though I sucked at Math and got barely passing marks in Math tests, I was doing good at languages and Science. I became politer and stopped ‘gooning’ around. Because the kids I used to do it with grew up to become bigger douchebags than I was taught to be.
By 2006, I had made some good friends. The ones who would speak with me in school, share lunch with me, invite me to their house, etc. We were a group of 3–4girls. Yes, I was born a girl.
All of them did well at school, in sports, or in curricular activities. And then, a year later, I met her. She wasn’t new. We were always in the same class. She was always this shy, introverted girl who was low-key smart. She didn’t interact much, spoke softly, and barely raised her hand in class.
We NEVER interacted with each other. I mean, we had been in the same class since kindergarten, and we NEVER once spoke to each other before!
I had fallen sick; typhoid had attacked me, my younger sister and my younger brother. My sister had been ill for over a month, my brother, for over two weeks, and I went down for a week. My sister would stay almost lifelessly, curled up in Ma’s lap, my brother would whimper a little and then sleep again, I would crave fast food and draw pictures of pizzas and burgers.
All this while, studying was least on our minds. But we had to catch up with everything that was taught in school. So, my mother went to school to talk to our ‘friends’ for notes. Nobody came forward because, just like me, my younger siblings, too, were a little socially awkward. I don’t know much about who lent them the class notes, but she stepped forward for me.
She gave Ma her Math and Science notebooks to be returned by Saturday. But as Saturday came, my fever returned, and I couldn’t attend school. On Sunday, I felt a wee bit better and started copying the notes in my notebooks. After I was done, I thought of where she might be writing the school work if her notebooks were with me.
I called the number she had left on her Math notebook to thank her for not fussing about the two-day hold.
“Hello,” she said.
I blinked and looked into space. Life stopped. For a moment, I got lost in that voice. I closed my eyes, drew in a long breath, and attempted to pay attention to the present.
“Wow.” was all I could muster.
“Who’s this?” she said.
“Uh, hi, It’s Preiksha. I called to thank you for the notebooks. And I am so sorry I couldn’t return them in time. I promise to bring them tomorrow.”
“That’s all right, Preiksha. How are you feeling? How is your health now?” She asked.
I wondered why I never spoke with this fantastic person before! No-one had called me to ask me how I was. And this girl, whom I barely knew and who had lent her notes to me, was asking me how I was feeling!
“I am fine now, thank you for asking,” I answered, pleasantly surprised.
Before she said anything any further, I blurted out, “Your voice is so beautiful. I could hear it all day!”
And then I heard her giggle. My entire body felt like to be in a trance. My senses were put under a spell and I, for a second, stopped functioning.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Do take care of yourself.” She said and hung up.
I stayed there, unmoving, with the receiver in my hand, the annoying beep ringing in my ear.
That day, something came alive in me. From supposedly a goon to an entirely different person, a new life began to surge inside me. All because of that one ‘hello’.
Not only was I falling for a girl in my class, but I was also beginning to see everything with a fresher, better perspective. She transformed me. She brought back the light in my eyes and senses. She became the force, and I was driven.
From that day on, a negative grey aura around me started to take a Rainbow colour.
