I wake up as my phone rings. Momma is calling.
"Hey, Mum", I yawn.
"Hi sweetie, were you sleeping?"
"Yeah, though I planned to take a short nap. I think I'm gonna stay at Siyas today."
"Okay, call me if you need anything. Bye"
"Bye, Mum. Love you". I hang up.
" Look, who woke up? The Sleeping Beauty of Boston!" Siya laughs as she says it.
"I don't agree with that beauty part though," I say while fixing my hair.
"But I agree, ma'am", Nolan says as he enters the room. He's smiling, which reached up to his eyes and wrinkled them. I feel like he stole whatever beauty I had left in me.
"I didn't know you were coming though".
" Well, yeah I took my time off from the job. Heard you had quite a drama at the hospital?"
I shoot Siya a glance.
"Come on. You gotta spill the tea now, Tari", says Siya holding my both hands.
"I used to love him."
"W-who?" Nolan asks.
"The boy from the library. Also from the rehab, Siya. His name's Parth."
"Oh my God-" Siya gasps.
"Yes. I was fascinated at his kindness. He was always so humble to me that I could not think of any negative side of him. We weren't friends, but we talked every now and then.
I thought he liked me too. So I eventually opened up to him without even thinking of the consequences. I got rejected. My heart broke and I cried for days. But still, I respected him. I believed he was a good man. And then, one day, his friend Alex assaulted my best friend Ellen and spread a video online. Every single student along with the people of that town saw it. I came to know that Parth and his friends were behind all of it.
When I asked Parth for an explanation, he totally rejected it and blamed it on his friends only. I requested him to take that video down but he said he was helpless in that case. Because he had no one there for him without his friends. He lost his father long ago and his mother was a junkie. He needed his friends support. So he couldn't do anything about that video.
I accepted it and let him go. I could never get rid of that soft corner I had for him. I couldn't just take in the fact that he supported the assault silently. People even said that he was the mastermind behind all of this. I couldn't believe it.
Alexs father is a corrupt police officer, so he got away with it very easily. My friend Ellen was devastated. She claimed that I didn't raise my voice against those guys cause I was jealous of her and cut all ties from me. Then again, one day I saw Parth beating some kid at a playground. He was literally bullying the kid and I overlooked it too. I was already going though a lot as my little sister Tamaya had just gone missing and Momma almost turned the world upside down to look for her. Meanwhile, Ellen started spreading rumours about me. She slutshamed me and tried to get revenge.
I couldn't understand how it was all my fault and how Parth got into all of this? How couldn't I get to know him? And how could Ellen do this to me?
Then I attempted suicide. And of all people, it was Parth who saved me from the brink of death. It was him who got me to the hospital that day."