Not Tomorrow

by Archana Nair

‘Today is the day,’ Cheryl repeated for the ninth time since waking up.

She donned her uniform for the last time as a tenth grader. Senior school will not have uniforms. It was their farewell day, and despite a lot of convincing, Holy Grace Secondary School will not let the students come in casuals on their last day of school.

She always wore her shirt two sizes bigger to create the illusion that her breasts hadn’t grown twice the size of Ambili, or Divya, or even Sakshi for that matter. But she was thankful for Sakshi. At least they could discuss the stores selling plus-size bras.

Cheryl ran her hand over her tummy. Her perfectly ironed skirt lost its pleats when spread over her stomach. But it was just baby fat, she told herself, she would lose it the moment she starts living in a hostel. She had her plans drawn.

She had chosen the senior school in Trivandrum, which was not Catholic, so she could dress like she wished, and no one would measure the length of her skirt.

She looked one last time in the mirror and after much debate, settled on a light pink colour gloss that could pass as natural lip colour and not invite much attention. They didn’t need to carry books, but she took an empty bag anyway. It hid her butt and helped her look thin from behind.

‘Eat something, Cherry,’ her mother shouted.

She hopped downstairs, feeling squeamish and cheerful at the same time.

‘Vivek, I really like you.’
‘Vivek, you know, we are perfect for each other!’
‘Vivek, how about a date?’
‘Vivek, I know you are going to Delhi for further studies, but let’s just give this a try, okay?’

She kept repeating lines in her head, giving her brain no excuse to fall blank at the last moment.

‘Should I get dressed, Cherry? I can drop you,’ her father asked.
‘No, I will take an auto,’ she replied breathlessly and scanning the table, asked, ‘Can I have an apple?’
Her mother looked stunned and her father put down his newspaper.
‘But I made doshas.’
‘Ma, you are the reason we are all fat,’ Cheryl replied disapprovingly.
‘If you want, I have a guava in the fridge.’
‘Oh yeah, like that’s gonna help.’

She put on her shoes and walked out.

When she entered her school auditorium, she felt nostalgic looking around. The day to bid adieu to her painful school years was finally here. She parked herself with the girls of her class in the last row of seats. Ambili, Divya and Sakshi moved and gave her the seat they were saving.  Nobody was interested in the event, everybody was just excited to write in scrapbooks and once the teachers were gone, draw goodbye messages on each other’s uniform.

They sat through the function like rowdies, no one scared of getting thrown out. Every class applauded when their class teachers made speeches. After the formalities, the teachers left with two juniors in charge, who at once climbed onto the dais and began hosting.

There were games and dance performances, none of which interested Cheryl. She kept a watch on Vivek who was sitting three rows ahead of her. When he got up and left the room, she turned to her friends.

‘Wish me luck,’ She told her gang.
‘Are you sure about this?’ Divya asked. Cheryl smiled and taking a deep breath, got up to follow him.

She had no idea where he had gone, but she stood in the corridor that led to the auditorium, hoping he would come back that way.

It took him ten minutes to come, while Cheryl nervously shook her leg, leaning on the wall.

‘Hey…umm..’
‘Cheryl. My name is Cheryl,’ she stuttered, biting her tongue in the process. Her eyes filled up while she tried to maintain a smile.
‘Cheryl, yes, yes I know. Are you okay?’
He looked seriously concerned and she tried her best to not tumble over her next words.
‘I like you, Vivek. I really do. I never had the guts to tell you but right now, I am doing it. I don’t wanna be a coward who goes home with regrets, I am not that.’

She ended her speech which was not even close to what she had prepared the day before. She closed her eyes, seriously upset with her performance.

‘Hey… I like you too.’

Suddenly she felt like she knew his answer all along –  even before he had opened his mouth.

Vivek touched her cheek and slid his fingers along her arm to her hand.

She knew it was something from the very beginning. Whenever he came to her class during recess, he gave her a look over and smiled at her, which made her suck in her tummy and feel pretty. All the memories came back to her now and she opened her eyes to him staring at her lips. They had hardly spoken to each other before, but what she felt was indescribable. It’s like she had known it all along.

‘I have always wanted to kiss you,’ she blurted out and he gave a loud laugh in return. Being a Saturday, their school corridors were empty, and the only noises coming were the hoots and laughs from the auditorium. Vivek pulled her to into an empty classroom nearby and crashed his lips to hers.

She wished it were a little slow yet asked her heart to cherish these moments. This was her first fairytale kiss and it felt beautiful. She now imagined them lying on a sofa, middle-aged, talking about world affairs. The word P-E-R-F-E-C-T hung in the background.

She tried to kiss him back enthusiastically, but he pushed her further onto the closed door and she couldn’t move. Her brain tried to contemplate about her position, but she asked it to shut up.

‘I know… you are… Delhi… But…’ She tried to talk when he paused to breathe. His hands slid inside her baggy shirt and groped her left breast.

‘Oucchhh…’ she cried out, biting his lips.
‘Shhh.. you don’t want the nuns to walk in on us right now, do you?’

He laughed and held both her breasts tightly under the shirt.

She tried to laugh with him but felt totally confused.

‘You know it’s my birthday this week. Do you want to give me something special?’ he asked, unzipping his pants.

His birthday was December 4th, she knew that. He was lying. Why would she mutter an okay then? She felt scared now. The door was closed and Vivek was way stronger than her. She began to sweat, confused where this was heading.

‘God, I knew you were a slut,’ he said, pushing her head down so she would come down on her knees but instead, she fell. She found the opportunity to crawl away from him and stood up shouting.

‘Get away from me… Please.’
‘What?’

His face scared her, but the penis half out of his pants scared her even more.

‘Open the door,’ she shouted in a confident voice.

He looked at her like he wanted to kill her, but slowly he zipped his pants up. Without thinking, Cheryl ran right into him, trying to hurt him. She didn’t know why, but she had to hurt him right then. Not complain to someone tomorrow. It had to be today. But Vivek was quick and got hold of her wrist. He twisted it and put his other hand inside her shirt again, this time groping her breasts harder.

‘Fucking bitch, don’t pretend like I dragged your fat ass here.’

She wasn’t sure what made him leave, but after she started shrieking out of pain, he opened the door and left.

‘You stupid, stupid, stupid piece of shit!’ she yelled at herself and got up, dusting her skirt.

Ignoring the pain in her wrist, she walked back into the auditorium with her dishevelled hair and tucked-out shirt. She refused to fix herself. She wanted everyone to look at her. But more than anything, she wanted to hurt him. She knew she didn’t stand a chance at that, he was way stronger than her, physically. He was sitting with his classmates, acting cool and fixing his hair. This further infuriated her.
‘What on earth…’ Divya shouted when Cheryl returned to her seat.
There were many heads turning Cheryl’s way now. Wow, she had always wanted that. To walk into a room and turn heads.
She couldn’t open her mouth and talk about what happened, but her friends were already throwing dirty looks at Vivek. Feeling restless, she tiptoed to the back of his seat, with Ambili, Divya and Sakshi following behind. There was a parody song on, and everybody’s attention was back on the stage.

Not knowing what would hurt him the most, Cheryl threw a punch right at his left ear from behind. He fell sideways onto the guy sitting next to him and she threw herself on him, pulling his hair and scratching his face. Shocked at first, it took Sakshi two seconds to follow her, but then the whole gang was on top of him.

‘You broke the wrong wrist, you fucker!’ Cheryl screamed and gnawed at his face harder.
‘Don’t… Ever… Call… Me… A… Fatass…’ she shouted between punches. He was blocking all her blows, but she didn’t back down. It helped that three more girls had landed on top of him.

Vivek was trying hard to get up, but Ambili was sitting on his knees. Some of their classmates had taken out their phone in excitement and started recording the incident, while others were trying to break the party up. It was easy to break apart boys fighting, but everyone was confused about this situation.

After some struggling, Vivek was finally able to throw off the girls and stood up.
‘You pack of whores!’ he screamed, coming at them now with his arm raised, but his friends held him back, trying to knock sense into him.
‘Are you crazy? Let them go man!’
That a bunch of girls were beating him up was not surprising, since the students were aware of Vivek’s notorious character.
‘You will regret this,’ he said, looking straight at Cheryl. His face was bleeding, and Cheryl felt better. Her knees didn’t feel weak anymore, in fact she felt she had three more pairs of knees to support her weight.
‘You will regret this,’ he repeated, his voice shallow.
Cheryl laughed this time. ‘Hope you liked your birthday gift.’
Knowing that everybody would side with her, Vivek walked out in anger and Cheryl turned to her friends.
‘I was wrong about him, I should have listened…’
‘Guys, it took her like forever to realise we were right,’ Divya replied in mock anger.
‘At least we won’t forget this Farewell,’ Ambili added, combing her hair with her fingers.
‘Oh, nobody in this school is forgetting this one!’ Sakshi corrected.

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