She Called Me a Joke Pt. 01

I Don't Think She Knows My Name No -- I'm almost sure of it. Maybe she heard it once during attendance, in the first semester. Maybe she read it on a group project list and skipped past it, the way people scroll past ads for toothpaste. I don't blame her. I'd forget me too. She's the kind of girl who knows her angles in selfies, wears jhumkas with jeans, and never eats a full samosa but always licks the chutney. Her name is Sandhya -- and I've loved her since the first week of college. I haven't said that out loud, obviously. I don't even say it in my head most days. But it sits there anyway, like background noise. Like the ceiling fan in my PG room. Like the smell of fried oil from the canteen window.

She sits in the second row. Always second -- never front. Confident, but not desperate. Her handwriting is neat, but her bag is a mess. She uses too much perfume, and somehow it works. I once saw her laugh so hard during a class that her hair clip flew off. It hit someone. Everyone laughed. Even the professor. That laugh -- it shook something in me. That was two years ago. I still remember the sound.

We've never had a real conversation. One time, I handed her a paper she dropped. She said "thanks" without looking. Another time, I think we both reached for the same chair during an elective exam. She let me take it, then sat behind me and kicked my chair accidentally for 90 minutes. I didn't mind. Once, I made a meme about our professor -- stupid, low-effort -- and sent it to the class group. She reacted with a laughing emoji. My heart exploded for ten straight minutes. I saved the screenshot.

She doesn't look at me. Not really. But I look at her all the time. Not in a creepy way -- I hope. More like... I let myself watch her the way you watch a monsoon from the window: with quiet awe, knowing full well you're not stepping outside. She's loud. She dances during fests. She once slapped a senior for trying to touch her during Garba. Her confidence burns. And I -- I'm just a shadow on the back wall. I think that's why she never sees me. I blend into the spaces between people.

She hangs out with the ones who don't. The guys with loud bikes and louder laughs. The ones who once called me "chikna PowerPoint boy" because I didn't know how to change my Zoom background. The ones who cheat off each other and then high-five when they get caught. And I watch her hop on their bikes like she belongs there. Like I don't. Like I never will.

I tried texting her once. Just "Hey." I waited six hours. She didn't reply. Then, during lunch, I saw her phone screen light up while she was sitting at the bench with two of them -- Varun and Aditya. My message on the screen. She tilted the phone toward them. They laughed. She did too.

That night, I deleted the message. Deleted the chat. Deleted the idea of trying again. But the way she tilted the phone stayed in my head.

I know what this looks like. Some loser pining over a girl who doesn't care. And you're not wrong. But it's not just lust. It's longing. Not for her body -- for her world. The noise. The easy smiles. The casual way she walks into a room like it was built for her. I don't want to own her. I just want to be seen by her. Once.

Anyway. Today she wore that yellow top again. The one that makes her earrings swing when she laughs. She laughed a lot. Not because of me, of course. Because of something Aditya whispered in her ear during lab. I watched her walk away, and thought: "She'll never even remember I was here." But I was. And one day -- she'll know.

She Laughed When I Texted Her

It wasn't supposed to go like that. I didn't expect a miracle. I didn't expect her to write back, or call me cute, or say she'd been secretly watching me during Applied Algorithms. I just... thought maybe, maybe, she'd smile. Instead, she laughed.

It was Tuesday. Second half. I sent the message during a break after Data Structures. Everyone had scattered across the lawns like they always do -- some toward chai, some toward gossip, most toward nothing in particular. She was sitting under the neem tree near the parking lot with two of them: Varun (who once lit a cracker inside the hostel toilet) and Harsh (whose only skill is making a cricket bat sound dirty in every sentence). She was scrolling through her phone. Laughing at reels. Tapping fast. And I-- I was standing just inside the computer lab, staring at the empty hallway, feeling more ghost than guy. So I sent: "Hi. I know this is random, but I think you're amazing. :)" Typed. Paused. Deleted the emoji. Re-added it. Sent.

I walked slowly back to my seat. Pretended to open a PDF. Didn't blink for five minutes.

Ten minutes later, I checked. No reply. Fine. Twenty minutes. Still nothing. At thirty-two minutes, I told myself: "Maybe she's just busy." At thirty-three, I looked up -- and saw it.

Her phone screen. Lit up. My name. My message. She read it. Paused. Then tilted her phone sideways -- toward Varun. He read it. His eyes widened. He grinned. He showed Harsh. Harsh laughed. Too loudly. Said something with "desperate" in it. Then she laughed. Not cruelly. Not kindly. Just... like it was funny. Like I was funny.

And then -- she kept scrolling. Like it meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.

I went home early that day. Told everyone I had a headache. Which wasn't a lie. Just not the full truth.

I sat on my floor, back against the wall, laptop untouched, headphones off. And kept replaying that moment: The tilt of her phone. The angle of Varun's grin. The shape of her laugh.

She didn't block me. Didn't reply either. Just left it hanging. Like trash on a hook.

That night, I opened the chat again. Typed: "Forget it. Sorry." Deleted it. Typed: "Didn't mean to bother you." Deleted that too. Typed nothing for ten minutes. Then just archived the chat. And stared at the blue light until it burned behind my eyes.

I don't hate her. That's the worst part. I don't hate her for laughing. I hate myself for hoping she wouldn't.

People like her -- they exist in sunlight. Loud rooms. WhatsApp groups with names like "The Real Ones" and "SquadGoals????." I exist in bookmarks and unsent messages. In background tabs and late-night playlists. In the space between jokes -- not in them. But today, I was the joke. And she laughed.

I'll remember that sound. Not out of revenge. Out of clarity. Because now I know exactly where I stand.

And how far I have to rise to be able to walk past her -- without looking back.

[to be continued...]