The sound of the slap still echoed in her head as Kiya walked down the halls of her school. The boy she hated the most got what he deserved. Humiliation. In front of her. In front of his so-called-friends-buddies-whatever. She should have been happy. Smiling. Glad that he got slapped by his father. But she wasn't. For some reason, she felt like crying. Crying for him. Crying for him getting slapped. She wasn't weak. But whatever had happened to Keshav Desai wasn't fair. Agreed that she was mad at him for not speaking the truth and getting her into trouble. Agreed that she hated his guts. Agreed that she hated him. But he didn't deserve his father's anger.
She had always been ignored by her mother and father for her sister, Anya and Anya's popularity. Wherever she went, it was all 'Don't do anything to hurt Anya's image.' Anya, Anya, Anya. She had been going crazy standing up to her mother's expectations and she hated it. She hated every bit of hearing about how good Anya was and how bad she, Kiya was. All'all she wanted was love. Love from her mother, her father. Not hate. Not ignorance.
Kiya sat on the steps of an enclosed stairwell that led to the basement of the school and wrapped her hands around herself. She closed her eyes and replayed the moment in her head. KD's father, a police man came and slapped KD and yelled at him for dishonoring him. That's exactly how she felt. No one listened to her. No one. And KD too. Kiya had never thought that the guy she hated most, was so much alike. Even he had problems with his father like she had with her mother. The bell rang, and Kiya wiped away her tears. Kiya got up from the stairwell and walked up and into the main floor, still lost in thought about the mixed feelings she had started to feel for KD.
He was so different, yet so alike. Kiya wiped the last drop of tear from her eye and before she could react, she bumps into the one person she couldn't stop thinking about. Stoneface. Keshav Desai. KD.
She looks up and immediately, yet softly blurts out the 2 words she thought she'd never say, not to him at least. "Sorry."
KD looked down upon her and didn't react. As if on cue, Kiya shifted a bit to the left in order to get past him but he didn't let her through. Just has she moved, he glared at her, staring into her eyes and moved along with her.
"I don't think I heard you right. What did you say Chicklet?"
Kiya stared up at him and tried to hold onto her pride. "Sorry."
"Say that again Chicklet. I think my ears are ringing." His attitude still shone right through his voice but still, Kiya could feel KD's voice, certain unhappiness in it that was never there before.
"Sorry." Kiya replies, taking up all the courage she had left.
"For bumping into me?"
"No."
"Then?"
"For you. For the slap. You'you didn't deserve it." And there. She finally said it.
His facial expression suddenly changed, from curiosity to shock to silence. "What?"
"Whatever happened, whatever you did, you didn't deserve it." Kiya tried to smile.
KD gave her a fake smile. "And how would you know what I deserved and what I didn't?"
"Because, it doesn't matter how many pranks you play, you are not a bad person."
"Oh really? Why this sudden change?"
"Because I know how it feels."
"To be slapped?"
"No. I know how it feels to be thought about honor and prestige and have it rubbed into your face. Because I know how it feels like to be compared, to be ignored, to be unheard."
And with that said, and KD standing there like a statue, Kiya walked away from him. She told him how she felt. She told him how she knew it felt. It'the feeling of having to always try to be the good child. The ideal child'which she wasn't. And neither was he. And that was perfectly alright.
KD stood there trying to soak in every single word Kiya had said to him, trying to make a sense of what she must be going through to say such things. It was the first time she had actually felt sorry for him'sympathetic. And KD realized at that moment that Kiya was different. She wasn't what she showed herself to be. She wasn't a Queenbee. She wasn't mean. She wasn't heartless. She was a girl, looking for a place. In this world. In his world.
KD turned around and watched her walk away, only to have her turn around and look at him. She didn't smile but the pain was still evident in her face. She felt sorry for him. And for some reason, he didn't mind it.
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