I looked at her, amazed as she pulled out a packet of crackers and handed it to me. How had she known that I wouldn’t have eaten anything and that this might be the best thing for me right now?

‘Thanks,’ I said as I ripped it open and pulled out one of the square dry crackers. My thoughts briefly went to the paratha lying at the bottom of my bag.

‘Listen, it’s just an exam. We’ll do our best and see what happens,’ she said nervously. It was like she was trying to convince herself.

I hated organic chemistry from the bottom of my heart. I suppose I could clear my confusion about what I wanted from my life by process of elimination and that would remove all the irritants like chemistry, physics and maths. I didn’t mind biology, but I could hardly see a future in it.

‘Yeah,’ I told her, chewing the cracker and swallowing it with water. Some of the churning in my stomach settled.

‘Don’t drink too much water or you’ll want to use the restroom in the middle of the exam. They might make a fuss about that,’ she warned.

She was right. I picked up my textbook when my phone pinged. I knew we had to leave our phones with our bags outside the classroom. The bell would ring soon, but I had to see the message.

It was from Raghu. I stared at it in surprise. It wasn’t a personal message though, as he had sent a gif of Spongebob Squarepants giving a thumbs-up sign with a ‘good luck’ banner on top.

I smiled and my heart raced a little. I put the phone away and went on to the room where I had to write my exam.

Three hours later, Anirudh and I emerged after the exam. I was feeling drained, my fingers cramping from all the writing we had to do.

‘One down, five more to go,’ I groaned.

‘It will be over soon,’ Anirudh said absently.

He spotted Nisha coming out of her room, eyes trained on him and the two of them met and hugged like they hadn’t seen each other in days. I didn’t roll my eyes at them but stood back a little, suddenly wanting what they had with each other.

The two of them broke apart quickly, Anirudh looking around a little self-consciously. People around us were busy discussing the question paper, something I didn’t want to do at all.

‘I’ll see you two at the next exam,’ I told them and walked away.

‘Ananya, wait!’ Nisha called out and ran up to me.

‘Hey, it’s cool. I have to go home anyway.’ We hugged and then she smiled.

I realized I didn’t resent her or Anirudh at all. I’d probably be doing the same if Raghu was studying here and . . . and if we were together.

28