Aarohi Vyas

I stayed cooped up in the tent for the rest of the day, only stepping out for the campfire around six. helped with the preparation of the dinner as much as I could, but they didn’t really let me do much. To my relief, Ritu has an outgoing and extroverted personality, she talks enough for both of us, I just have to respond appropriately at moments, and the conversation keeps flowing.

The air started to turn cold, a wave of wind made me shiver visibly, goosebumps arising along my arms.

“Here”, I look up, Ritu stands there with a shawl in her hand, “it’s getting cold, don’t catch a cold, I don’t want you to die so early ”, she chuckles, “we barely know each other.

I’m determined to make you one of my closest friends before one of us is dead.” That makes me chuckle, too. I shake my head.

“Why? You don’t wanna be my friend? Am I that bad?” She makes a sad face.

I laugh, she goes back to the task of cutting vegetables in her hand. My eyes drift to the river–

It’s calm, not much activity going on inside of her, the surface shines with the orange hue of the setting sun, suddenly the water flashes, ruining the reflection of the sun.

A figure dives into the water. After a few moments, the person comes up floating with their head above the surface– Kabir.

A sigh leaves my body, my body tenses, and some part of my brain itches when I look at this guy.

I’m starting to hate this guy without having to have any real-time interaction with him.

I take a deep breath, and I turn my attention back to Ritu talking about how Ankit and she met in college, and that he had a crush on her for two years, but since he was her junior, he never shared his feelings with her despite being in a common circle, until his friend read his poetry during the game of truth and dare, and it was written so obviously about her. Everybody, including her, connected the dots pretty easily, because apparently none of the other girls had a mole on the centre of their nose, and half of the poem was about that mole only.

Everybody starts laughing when Ankit avoids looking at any of us. “Ritu yaar?” Ankit looks at Ritu as if she has revealed his deepest and darkest secret ever. The poor guy scurries away from the spot like his tail caught on fire. One of the men goes after him, laughing like it’s the funniest thing he has ever witnessed.

After a while, Ritu decides to go after her fiancé. I’m left alone with the silent night. I stare at the sky, it’s clear, and there are infinite numbers of stars twinkling in the sky. After a while, I feel

someone standing close to me.

“Looking for shooting stars?”

“No, why would I?”

“I don’t know, some believe in them to make your wishes come true.” He says while settling himself into a chair next to me.

“I don’t, do you?” His head tilts slightly toward me, his eyes angled to the right as he looks at me, gauging my reaction.

“No. I used to when I was a child. My mother believed in all sorts of these things... prayers, fairy tales, whatever. Or maybe she just pretended to, to make me faithful.”

Silence prevails over us.

Do I have faith? I would say I do, I survived through my life hoping for a better future, and believing I can achieve what I want forever. But recently I have lost some of the faith, that's why I'm where I am today.

There are many ways to fail in life. Failing to die might be the worst and most humbling one. It makes you realise how little control you have over life. Concepts like free will seem like a joke, if it were real, there’s no way I’d be here among strangers, preparing dinner by the campfire. I wanna leave his place asap. I have zero interest in this little picnic with people I barely know. These people aren’t the issue. It’s me and my situation. There’s no point in wasting my time here.

“You sure have to be an entitled person to think there’s no need to be thankful for your saviour.” That takes me out of my thoughts. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, if it were somebody else in your place, they would have been grateful to me their whole life.” He meets my eyes. “You, on the other hand, didn’t even say a simple thank you.”

“Thank you.” I flash him an ear-to-ear smile. “Thank you, Kabir, for saving my life. I owe it to you.” He gives a cocky smile, “better.” Anything to get you off my back.

"Hey!." A voice catches our attention from behind, Ritu comes running looking like she's being chased by a wolf or something, then Ankit comes running behind her not looking less dangerous than a wolf himself. She starts running in a circle around us, and finally shields herself behind Kabir, who's watching this scene unfold with a bored look. He's probably used to it now.

"Come here on your own, otherwise—" the hives. "Otherwise what huh?" Ritu challenges him. "Otherwise you don't get to choose which drink you wanna have from now on."

She flicks a bird at him. "Not happening." He reaches forward to catch her, she flicks back.

Kabir removes her hand from his shoulder, and moves out of the way.

She takes of as Ankit runs after her again. "You'll pay for it!" She shouts at Kabir. "You first come here!" Ankit almost caught her. "Thanks man." He says to Kabir. He laughs at the exchange. I stand there, abandoned by words.

"Get used to it." He winks at me and walks back inside the camp.

Weird family.