The week leading up to the test seemed like an eternity.
I worked each day harder than I ever had before — not because I had to, but because I couldn't risk doing anything wrong with the plan. The irony was not lost on me: I was cramming like crazy just to score lower.
Nonetheless, I never missed seeing Anjali.
Even when my eyes stung with sleep deprivation or my hands hurt from writing, I arrived. at the library promptly. She paid. attention, naturally. She wasn't blind.
"You've been looking tired lately," she said at one point, speaking. in softer tones than normal. "Are you studying too hard?"
I simply smiled and replied, "Maybe.
She didn't push the point. But I knew — she respected it. The quiet determination, the fact that I didn't complain. That, also, was part of the plan.
At last the day of the math test.
I recall sitting at my desk, pencil in hand, and the first question glaring at me like a familiar friend. All the answers came too easily — too easily.
In thirty-eight minutes, everything was finished. But I couldn't get a hundred. Not today. Not in this game I'd constructed for myself.
So I started to erase.
Erase, rewrite, correct. I computed errors — beautiful little pitfalls of incorrectness. Negative sign placed incorrectly there. Half-step omitted elsewhere. It was painting mistake with careful deliberateness.
Just forty-eight marks' worth of correct answers. No more, no less.
Then, for the next two hours, I sat going through the motions like it was hard. My hand fluttered uselessly across the paper, my eyes jumping between lines like I was working out the most difficult puzzle of my life.
In front of me, students dripped with sweat over their problems. Some were whispering, others were groaning. I was bored stiff — dying to get through the rest.
When the bell went, I passed over the paper serenely.
The teacher looked at me curiously, perhaps because I had completed early. I bestowed upon her the exhausted smile that I had rehearsed.
That night, I messaged Anjali.
"Can't come today. Feeling tired."
She responded immediately.
"Okay, take rest. You've been overdoing it anyway."
Her voice was sympathetic, and for an instant, a pang of guilt somewhere within me. But I suppressed it.
Later at night, I opened my scribbled notebook and re-solved the entire math paper again from beginning to end — every question, every equation, neat and flawless. I did it just to remind myself, and to my parents afterwards, that I could still score a hundred anytime I wanted.
A week went by, and the marks were announced.
For the first time that I could recall, my name wasn't on top of the topper's list. Not even in the top ten.
The whispers started right away.
"Krishanu didn't get in?"
"He actually lost?"
"Impossible."
Teachers were more worried than disappointed. My friends were half-horrified, half-satisfied.
My marks were 48/80 in maths, 68/100 total.
PK and Krrish approached me during break.
PK smiled. "So, the great topper finally falls. The world must be ending."
I giggled. "See? Even I can score low sometimes."
Then I continued, "But that does not mean I will remain there. I will just try harder the next time."
PK nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah, I understand… but don't intentionally score low again, okay?"
I stiffened. "How the hell do you know that?
Both PK and Krrish burst out laughing. "Come on, man," PK said between laughter. "You're going to show that mark sheet to her, right?"
I shook my head, smiling anyway. "You guys know me too well."
That night, I saw Anjali again at the library. She had her own results in her hand, folded neatly.
"So," she asked, "how did you do?
I handed her my report card. Her eyes ran over the figures hastily.
"You're a whiz at every subject… except maths." She glared at me, half-joking, half-serious. "You actually suck at it."
I smiled weakly — perfectly practiced. "Yeah, it's not my thing."
And then I inquired, off-handedly, "What about you?"
She hesitated before producing hers. Her scores ranged from eighty-five to ninety-five in the majority of subjects, but I noticed one grade that seemed unusual — science, seventy-two.
"Appears someone's got her own weak subject," I joked.
She rolled her eyes, smiling in spite of herself. "Yeah, maybe."
"Then let's exchange," I said. "You assist me in maths; I'll assist you in science."
She laughed, really laughed — not distant or forced like I'd heard before. "Deal," she whispered.
And for a moment, I'd forgotten all about equations and strategy.
Her line between us became blurred, a faint but visible one. I saw something real flash in her smile — warmth, perhaps trust. And it felt. odd.
Walking home from that night, I couldn't help but think about her smile, how real it was, how unlike every disguise I'd ever worn before. Not victory I felt this time. Not control. Something kinder, something indescribable.
Perhaps for the first time in years, I wasn't acting.
But perhaps I was still doing it.