Hey there, readers!
I'm excited to share a sneak peek into one of my works-in-progress today. This excerpt delves into the complexities of friendship, the sting of betrayal, and the difficult choices we sometimes have to make. It's a raw and emotional scene that I hope will resonate with you.
Excerpt
Arjun, Armaan, and I walked up to the library to talk to Sameer and Parikshit. Kunal and Akash were also standing there.
"Okay, what did you do?" Kunal asked.
"Ask Sameer what he did," I said.
"That's not how you deal with your friends. If you wanted to beat up Sameer, at least you could have told him," Kunal said.
"This isn't the first time. During Rotary, I also told both of them not to tease her," I replied.
"Yeah, and we didn't do it that day," Parikshit said.
"Okay, even you used to stand with us under the tree when we used to tease everyone," Sameer interjected.
"Do you mean to say I tease girls?" I shouted.
"No, but if you had told us you had a problem with what happened yesterday, this fight wouldn't have taken place," Parikshit said.
"And she is our friend too," Akash said.
"This isn't the first time. You guys have been doing this for a long time; remember what you did in Riddhi's case," Arjun jumped into the conversation.
"Bro, it happened during 1st year. You want to bring that up now?" **Sameer** asked. "And was this about Riddhi, Arjun?"
Aviral and Dude also joined us.
"What happened, Parikshit? Why did they beat you up?" Aviral asked.
"Because Sahima is the college queen," Parikshit replied. We were abashed after hearing this.
"It's not about that, Parikshit. You know that very well," I said.
"Okay, if I wanted to talk to her, I would have done it myself. Why would I tell Sameer to do it?" Parikshit said.
"We don't know about that. If that's the case, why were you standing there when Sameer was talking to Sahima?" Armaan interrupted him.
"And anyway, we didn't know this would happen. I didn't tell anyone to beat you up; I called them just to talk to you," I said.
"If you wanted to talk, Kshitij, you could have done that without bringing those goons. You were anyway around eight guys; you could have easily beaten us," Sameer said.
"We didn't want to beat you up. If we wanted to, Kshitij was enough to do that; he doesn't need anyone," Arjun said.
In the meantime, Shambhu came there. He was the person who was nowhere related to this entire scene, but just to prove that he runs the streets, he started inquiring.
"You had a fight?" he asked me.
"Who told you?" I asked.
"No, we didn't have a fight; they just warned us," Sameer said, fearing that he would get beaten up again because I told him not to tell anyone about it.
Shambhu went away, and the argument resumed.
"Kshitij, I didn't know you had a crush on her, or else I wouldn't have said anything to her," Sameer said.
"Really? The entire college knew, but you didn't? And you used to spend most of your time with Kshitij. At least don't lie to our faces, Sameer," Abhinav said.
"But you guys did make a mistake. What if we had retaliated, and those guys would have hit us in the wrong place? What would you guys have done in that case?" Sameer said.
"You know what? I may have made a mistake, but what you did yesterday was completely wrong," I said.
"You did it for him, you say. But even I was your friend!!!!" I said.
Everyone became silent after hearing this. Sameer didn't have an answer for it; his eyes, which were filled with revenge, couldn't look at me now, and his head went down. He knew he had made a mistake, and so did everyone else. Sameer had chosen one friend over the other, and the consequences were in front of us. But the outcomes which were waiting for me, I was oblivious to them...
What are your thoughts on this tense scene? Have you ever experienced a similar situation with friends?
Good one ..
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