All You Need is a Little Faith

by Vaanya Singh

‘No worries,’ I replied, shrugging.

  We quickly changed into our pajamas and talked about what was going on between Ron and Vanessa (at which she blushed furiously!) to what was the latest gossip in school.

  After some time, we put on the face masks and were lazing around. Vidya was flipping through a magazine, Vanessa was filing her nails and Cory was watching Suits. Even Theo had a face mask on when we heard a sudden commotion in the house.

  Loud stomping sounds were followed by a number of voices.

  Suddenly, the bedroom door banged open.

  Alex, Damon, Vaibhav and Ron came barging in, yelling, ‘Panty raid!’ before searching through our bags and drawers and taking all our underwear.

  A scared Theo screamed and climbed onto my lap. That caught their attention. Vaibhav said something and the other three nodded in understanding. They took all the underwear and left the room while Vaibhav stayed back.

  ‘Theo!’ he called out to him.

  Theo quickly scrambled off my lap and stood straight in front of Vaibhav.

  ‘What are you?’ he asked.

  ‘A boy?’ Theo replied unsurely.

  ‘Correct. You are a boy. Boys don’t go to an all-girls’ slumber party. They don’t put on face masks, nor do they file their nails. They party. REAL PARTY!’

  ‘I want to REAL PARTY! I’m a boy,’ Theo yelled with excitement.

  He wiped off the mask and started running around the room yelling ‘Panty Raid’.

  Vaibhav burst out laughing, holding the door for support.

  ‘I’m going to freakin’ kill you!’ I said, running after him. His eyes widened before he started to run.

  I chased him to the ground floor and then to the backyard and finally to the pool. I pushed him in before throwing in myself. When both of us emerged out of the water, we burst out laughing.

  ‘This is war!’ I declared, sputtering out water.

  ‘Okay, this is war. A prank war.’

  Today was the last day of school! Finally, summer break was starting. Who invented school?! If I had a time machine, I would go and kill Charlemagne!

  I entered the bathroom, turned the shower on and waited for hot water while stripping. I put my hand under the water to check the temperature and soon realised that the water was blue!

  That trickster Vaibhav Raina had put blue colour in my showerhead. I took a shower in the guest bathroom as I waited for my own prank to come into action.

  I quickly got dressed in a green jumper and combed through my hair. Slipping into my gladiator sandals, I skipped downstairs.

  ‘Mornin’!’ I chirped happily grabbing my plate. My entire family looked surprised by my chirpiness. ‘What’s up with you?’ Alex asked.

  ‘And why on earth is your hand blue?’ dad questioned me.

  Suddenly, the door bell started to ring.

  ‘Oh. Who could that be? Beth, why don’t you go and find out!’

  Beth got up from her chair and went to open the door. A minute later, a fuming Vaibhav came in, yelling my name, only in a pair of hot pink spandex and pink fluffy bunny slippers!

  ‘Faith! What the hell! Where are all my clothes?’ he yelled.

  I quickly clicked a picture and put my phone aside. Alex was doubling over in laughter. Beth and dad were trying to control their laughter, too.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about?’ I replied, acting bored and taking a bite of the bacon.

  ‘Don’t try and act smart with me! Where are all my clothes?’ he asked once again.

  The previous night, I had asked Aditya to pack Vaibhav’s entire wardrobe in exchange for the items he was wearing. He was more than happy to do it.

  ‘I seriously don’t know,’ I tried once again.

  ‘Alex, can I borrow some clothes?’ Vaibhav turned to look at him.

  ‘Sure, man,’ he grinned, getting up from his seat. What a traitor my brother was!

  Ten minutes later, Vaibhav came downstairs in a pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt. I thought he was looking quite hot!

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said, grabbing an apple.

  We reached school ten minutes early and met up with the rest of the gang. Everyone was very happy. After all, it was the last day of school. It was during lunch when Vaibhav played his next prank.

  I was sitting at the table with everyone when Vaibhav entered the cafeteria with a packet of Oreos! Simply speaking, Oreo is my weakest point.

  ‘Give me!’ I yelled as soon he sat down. As he bit into one, he said ‘No.’

  ‘Please, Vaibhav,’ I said, making a puppy-dog face.

  ‘Ok!’ he said and handed me the packet.

  That was easy!

  I grabbed the packet from him and ate an entire biscuit in one go, only to spit it out. He’d replaced the cream with toothpaste! How did I not think of that? It was the oldest trick in the book. How naive could I be?!

  ‘Your expression,’ Vaibhav pointed out, doubling over in laughter.

  That was it. The boy needed a lesson. I was going to put my next prank into action.

  CHAPTER 18

  Love is like the wind;

  you can’t see it but you can

  feel it.

  VAIBHAV

  When I came home, mum was in the kitchen. I went and hugged her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Hey, honey! Summer break’s started?’ mum asked, wiping her hands on a hand towel.

  ‘Yup!’ I said, helping myself to some soda.

  ‘Before I forget, Malhaar is coming the day after. And he’s bringing someone along. He says he has something to tell us,’ she said, shrugging.

  Then she told me to hurry along and go to my room as Rohan was waiting there for me. I was good friends with him but we were not as close as I was to Ron or Alex.

  ‘Hey, man. What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ he said, getting up and taking a step towards me.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Look, man, it may come as a shock to you but I like you.

  Really, I like you,’ he said, taking another step.

  My eyes widened. ‘Look, Rohan...’ I started to talk but he held up a hand and cut me short.

  ‘I know you won’t return these feelings, that’s why I’m going to do this. But I hope that later in your life you can forgive me because I love you!’ he concluded.

  Now he had me trapped between the wall and himself. I was shocked beyond words.

  ‘Do what, Rohan?’ I asked cautiously, trying to free myself.

  ‘This,’ he said, before leaning in.

  No, no, no. This could not be happening for real! Not that I have anything against gay people. I closed my eyes wishing for this to quickly get over. But the kiss never happened.

  Rohan fell to the floor rolling over in laughter. Faith burst into the room, also laughing like a maniac.

  ‘Your face,’ he said, between laughs. ‘What’s happening?’ I asked confusedly.

  ‘It was a prank. You actually thought I was gay?’ Rohan said, still trying to control his laughter.

  I looked at Faith who was now taking out a camera from one of the shelves it was hidden in.

  ‘This is going on YouTube!’ she muttered before looking at me but started laughing again.

  I groaned. Gosh! How could I be so dumb? It was time to end this war. I smiled as I thought of my next prank.

  ‘What’s with the smile on your face?’ Faith asked cautiously. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. You can leave now,’ I said, literally pushing them both out of the room.

  FAITH

  The prank I played on Vaibhav was hilarious. He seriously thought Rohan was going to kiss him.

  I went to the bowling alley with Alex, Rohan and Samrat. We had dinner at a café after which I came back home late at night and decided to go to bed straightaway. But when I reached my bedroom door, it was covered in yellow post-its!

  ‘Alex, I’m going to kill you,’ I yelled. ‘What did I do now?’ he aske
d, coming upstairs.

  ‘This,’ I said, pointing at the door. ‘Holy shit,’ he said before laughing. I glared at him.

  ‘As much as I’d like to take credit for this, I didn’t do it,’ he said, composing himself.

  ‘Then who did? Oh, in the name of Mother Mary, I’m going to kill Vaibhav!’ I said, as I opened the door to my bedroom.

  My entire room was covered in post-its, including the ceiling. Even the bed was covered in yellow bed sheets. In the middle of the main wall, on top of the post-its, it said ‘Got you!’ in bold, black alphabets.

  I turned around to find Alex clicking pictures. I pushed him.

  ‘What? It is funny! And I’m putting it up on Instagram,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you dare, Alexander!’ I said, hitting his shoulder.

  ‘Too late! I already did,’ he said, running out of the room.

  I was going to end this prank war. Vaibhav Raina was going down.

  I called up Damon, asking him to keep an eye on Vaibhav, and if possible, take him away from his house. Once he told me Vaibhav was out of the house, I went over to his house with cardboard boxes and headed straight to his room.

  I started packing everything—from his clothes to lamps, posters, books and everything else. The idea was to tape up the boxes and leave them there so that Vaibhav would have to spend hours resettling into his own room. I was almost done, except for taping up a few boxes, when Vaibhav’s voice stopped me dead in my tracks.

  ‘I’m home,’ I heard him yell at no one in particular.

  ‘Shit!’ I muttered before jumping into one of the big boxes myself, in an attempt to hide.

  He opened his bedroom door and starting cursing as soon as he saw the boxes.

  ‘Vaibhav, we’re going out. Aditya is spending the night at his friend’s place. Please, for the love of God, don’t burn the kitchen like last time,’ his mum yelled from downstairs. Since I had sneaked into Vaibhav’s room to play this prank, she did not know I was in the house.

  I silently snickered. I heard him shut the door as he started to rip open the boxes. It took him a while to reach the box in which I was hiding. As soon as he lifted the flap, he screamed in surprise.

  ‘What the hell, Faith! You scared the living daylights out of me,’ he said, jumping back with his hand on his heart.

  I simply stared at him, not knowing what to say or do. ‘You packed all my stuff?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘What were you going to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing. I was simply going to leave it this way to annoy you,’ I replied.

  ‘Seriously? Who does that?!’ he exclaimed.

  I had nothing to say. He stared at me before doing the most unexpected thing. He started laughing hard. He was laughing so much that tears started rolling down his cheeks.

  At that moment, thinking about what I was about to do sounded so ridiculous. So, even I started to laugh along with him.

  We were both laughing for a good five minutes before managing to compose ourselves. He tried to help me out of the box but tripped as a result of which both of us landed on the bed.

  I was straddling him and as he lay beneath me, this realisation dawned up on me. I was alone with Vaibhav in an empty house. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening until his lips met mine.

  It started off as soft kisses as he sat up and I climbed onto his lap, not breaking the kiss. Then it became heated. He started kissing my jaw and nibbled on the skin just below my ear, earning a moan from me.

  He went back to kissing my lips, this time teasing me with his tongue and eventually slipping it into my mouth. Somewhere between the kissing, his shirt came off.

  His hands slowly trailed up on my back to my bra clasp before he flicked it open and took my shirt off. I consciously tried to cover myself when I realised that Vaibhav was staring at me. A deep blush took over my cheeks.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered before kissing me again.

  I ran my hands up and down his broad shoulders and chest. I didn’t know what I was doing; neither did he. We were simply lost in the moment with the passion burning within us.

  It was just him and me and that burning desire. That night we got lost in each other and I fell asleep in his arms.

  CHAPTER 19

  Love never dies a natural

  death. It dies because

  we don’t know how to

  replenish its source. It dies

  of blindness and errors and

  betrayals. It dies of illness

  and wounds. It dies of

  weariness, of withering,

  of tarnishing …

  FAITH

  The following morning I woke up with a smile on my face— only to find the space next to me empty.

  I got up and wrapped the blanket around me to hide my nakedness. Vaibhav wasn’t there, though his room was back to normal.

  He stepped out of the bathroom, shirtless, using a towel to dry his hair. I blushed when I saw the hickey on his collarbone.

  I looked up and saw a frown on his face. ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, concerned.

  ‘What we did was wrong; it was a mistake ... all of it,’ he whispered.

  I was controlling the tears that were threatening to fall down my face.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ I asked, already knowing his answer.

  ‘I want us to forget about it.’

  I took a deep breath, not wanting to show him the pain he was causing me.

  I nodded before speaking. ‘I should leave.’

  ‘I think you should,’ he replied.

  I quickly got dressed in the previous day’s clothes and dashed out of his room. As soon as I was out of the house, I let the tears fall freely.

  I ran inside my own house. As I was crossing the living room to get to my own bedroom, Beth saw me. Before she could say anything, I dashed across and locked myself in my room before breaking down.

  Ten minutes later, Alex came in, opening the door with a spare key he had got made after the previous incident. He came and sat next to me on the floor.

  ‘What happened, kitten? Why are you crying?’ he asked, wiping away my tears.

  ‘I gave him a second chance, Alex. I tried; I thought we could be friends again. But ... but we can’t. We never could. I let him in and he shattered me all over again,’ I whispered, bringing my knees to my chest.

  ‘What did he do? Do I need to bring my rifle?’ he tried to joke but failed miserably.

  ‘I’m going to go and visit mum. I just need to sit quietly beside her. I’ll be back before you head to the airport for your flight to Pune tonight,’ I said to him.

  Alex didn’t look convinced and did not want to leave me alone, but he did eventually. And that was what I needed. To be left alone.

  VAIBHAV

  I was sitting in the garden when Alex came and punched me hard on my cheek. I clutched it and turned to look at him.

  ‘What the hell, man?’ I yelled at him.

  ‘I don’t know what you did this time but you better fix it. It took me five whole years to get Faith to finally learn to believe in herself but you broke her once again and that too when I convinced her to give you a second chance. You broke her all over again!’ he yelled.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked in confusion.

  ‘You broke her heart once and drove her to do things I can’t even talk about. You destroyed her. And when the families met again, I thought you had changed over the years. So, I asked Faith to give you a second chance, but you definitely proved me wrong. You broke her yet again.’

  I stayed silent and tried to make sense of his words. How could I break Faith? It was true she hated me when we met again recently after the three-year gap but sometime in the middle, she had stopped avoiding me. She tried to be sweet to me and behaved with me like she did with everyone else.

  ‘I’m leaving tonight for Pune and won’t be back the entire summer. I’ve never been away from her for so long bef
ore and I definitely can’t leave her like this. Fix whatever you did. What did you do anyway?’ he asked at the end of his rant.

  ‘We slept together,’ I blurted out. His eyes widened in shock. ‘We had already made out twice before this. She ran away, rejecting me both times. I was tired of being rejected; it broke my heart. So this time, before she could reject me again, I rejected her,’ I concluded.

  Alex stayed silent for a moment before speaking up.

  ‘I don’t think she meant to reject you, Vaibhav. I think both of you should talk about this. She’s at the cemetery right now,’ he said before walking away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  The drive to the cemetery was the longest drive ever. I didn’t know what I was going to do or what was I going to say when I’d see her.

  I opened the big gates and saw her sitting crossed-legged near her mother’s grave. Silent tears were rolling down her cheeks. I went and sat next to her.

  ‘You must hate me now,’ I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  ‘I don’t hate you, Vaibhav. I’m just disappointed that you turned into everything you said you’d never be,’ she whispered after what felt like a century.

  I looked shamefully at the ground.

  ‘What wrong did I do to deserve what you did to me?’ she asked with a very sad expression.

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.

  ‘Remember, after my mother’s death, I blocked everyone out...?’

  I nodded. How could I forget?

  ‘I needed my best friend then. I was so young and my mother had just passed away. I needed someone to pull me out of the dark place I was slipping into. I needed you. So I waited and waited but you never came. Why didn’t you come, Vaibhav?’ she asked.

  I finally looked up at her and the minute I did, I wished I hadn’t.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I finally answered. It was the truth; I hadn’t known what to do back then. Faith’s grief was so enormous and I didn’t have the courage to face her. So I stayed away because I couldn’t see her sadness. However, neither was this possible for me to explain to her nor was it for her to understand my pain for her.

  ‘One day I finally decided that I had mourned enough. So I pulled myself together for you. Not for my dad who had been worried sick, but for you. But when I came to school that day, it was like I had entered hell and you were Satan himself. You had changed. You had become a bully, a mean person who treated people as if they were your servants and you were the king himself,’ she laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh but one of disappointment. ‘I thought you would be happy to see me. I remember the day perfectly. I came to hug you but you pushed me to the ground. I was shocked. You called me a fat, pathetic loser. I demanded to know what had gotten into you but you just shrugged and walked away, leaving me on the ground.’