a lifetime's hate and three lifetimes' love

three

Bee was a happy person. There was always a smile on his face. He was always calm. He was always ready to accept others’ suggestions. There was always a smart comeback ready behind his lips. And there were so many ideas jumping around in his head. Most of all, though, he was never nervous. And even when he was, he wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

Bee was always around people. Laughing. Skipping class to go to the cinemas. Having ice cream in the afternoon. Snacking on street food during lunch. Always ready to pay.

That was the Bee El knew. Her Bee.

Something had changed though. It was as if she had altered the world in some way by her return and her choice and actions.

Bee didn’t change seats. He smiled when people addressed him, and was expressionless the rest of the time. He talked less. He skipped class less. He was a lot less interested in movies. And his appetite had shrunk. The change was big enough to be impossible to miss.

And it was Appie who questioned him. Appie was Appellonia. The name had always been too big and too complicated for her friends. And Appie was what it shrunk to.

Appie was like Bee too, only louder and having a lot more friends. Bee was much more selective and quieter, in comparison. The two of them were close.

“What’s wrong with you?” Appie asked.

It was after the end of classes. They were all sitting in the back, talking about nothing important, nothing that mattered.

El was there too. And she didn’t need to make any effort at hiding her interest in the conversation.

“What do you mean?” Bee asked, meeting Appie’s questioning eyes.

“You’ve been weird,” Appie said. “You don’t hang out with us as much. You don’t watch movies. You don’t skip classes. You’re all studious, like a good student. You’re like a different person entirely. What’s up with you?”

“Nothing’s up with me,” Bee said. He even gave a smile.

Appie wasn’t impressed. “What do you think?” She asked her girlfriends.

Appie, Nina and Sophie were the blazing trio. On the first day of college, while making the introductions, they realised that the three of them lived in the same neighbourhood. They had, in fact, lived in the same neighbourhood their whole lives. The fact that they hadn’t crossed paths until college was all the more reason for them to become BFFs now. And that was how it was. By the end of the first day, they were the thickest friends. By the end of the first week, they earned the nickname, the blazing trio, primarily owing to Appie’s exuberance. And they would remain so, at the very least, until the end of college. Who knew what would come after that?

“I agree,” Sophie said, with a grin. “Something’s definitely up.”

And Nina, the gregarious one, had the same opinion. She was a little wordier. “Tell me, Bee. What is it? Someone break your heart? You fell in love and that someone didn’t accept your love? And so, you feel compelled to change into a different person? A better person in her eyes? What is it, hoping for her to accept you?”

The rest were stunned. Nina and Bee burst out laughing.

“Yeah,” Bee admitted readily. “That’s exactly it. My heart is so broken, I don’t have any laughs in me.” He wore a pained expression as he clutched his chest.

“Don’t you worry,” Nina said, with the air of benevolence. “Heartbreak is a natural part of growing up. And now that you’ve experienced it, you can grow up. You can finally be one of us. And not a child.”

“What’s your heartbreak?” Bee asked.

“My heartbreak is that I feel no love,” Nina said exaggeratedly.

“That’s not heartbreak. That’s heartless. You’re heartless.”

“You’re just jealous. Envy won’t get you very far.”

“It’ll get me plenty far enough, I’m sure. At the very least, the same as you.”

“Then we can stick together.”

“Heartless and heartbroken?”

“Exactly. Heartless and heartbroken. We’ll just take care of each other.”

The two had no realisation that they had turned it into a conversation of two, leaving no place for anyone else. And they were so rapid with their comebacks and replies, there was no room for anyone to forcibly squeeze in. The best the others could do was stare helplessly. Until they stopped by themselves.

“You’re done?” Appie asked, when there was quiet, finally.

“Yeah,” Nina agreed, shamelessly.

Bee shrugged. That was as good as a yes.

“You’re definitely okay,” Appie said to Bee.

He smiled. And that was the end of that conversation.

Not for El though. She couldn’t get it out of her head. She couldn’t get him out of her head. Her eyes found him without her explicit instructions. Her ears searched for his voice. And the more she looked, the clearer it became that he truly was different. She almost couldn’t recognise him anymore. It was the same face, but an entirely different person.

He didn’t talk very much. He listened in class. He was serious about his academics. That became apparent after the midterms.

-

Bee was smart. There was no doubt about it. He understood things quickly and easily. But he just wouldn’t study. He didn’t care about classes. He wouldn’t attend, if there wasn’t the rule about minimum attendance requirement to be allowed to sit for the exams. And he didn’t listen in class. He was always talking to his neighbours, messaging on the phone, scrapping in his notebooks. There were subjects he didn’t have to put in any effort for. Programming. Writing code. He could just do it naturally. The more theoretical subjects were a different story. He was completely clueless. At the end of the semester, right before the exams, he wouldn’t know a word about the subject.

On the day of the exams, he would come early. The couple of hours before the exam, he would sit with his best friends, listen to them revising one final time. He would spit out onto the answer sheet whatever he got from the revisions. And, every time, every single exam, he passed. He never failed.

That was how he graduated from college.

-

That was the Bee El knew. The carefree boy who wasn’t really worried about his grades.

The Bee she was seeing now was very different. He didn’t arrive early. He was just in time. And he wasn’t running around his friends, listening in. He was by himself. And he was a very serious student in the exam hall. He still didn’t need the full time allotted for the exam. He averaged an hour and a half. Nearing two hours for most subjects. Still over an hour shy of the three hours of exam time.

The results were declared a week later. And the grades confirmed it. Bee was now different.

His grades took him up to the third place in class. That was a marked and shocking improvement.

Once again, Appie had the same question. This time, she didn’t voice it. She asked with her eyes. He answered with a smile and a shrug. That was all the explanation he had to offer.

El was no less shocked than anyone else. In fact, she was shocked the most. Bee was pretty much a stranger now. They weren’t talking. There were no messages. He didn’t acknowledge her, when their eyes accidentally met. He made sure to keep his distance from her. He made sure the occasion wouldn’t arise when she crossed paths with him. And that was almost too easy. He was busy taking notes during class, in the labs and the library after classes. He wasn’t even hanging around with others. He spoke with them. He smiled at them. But he didn’t give them any extra time.

But, fortunately, it wasn’t too late when El realised what was happening. She was following the same trajectory. She had eyes only for him. She was following his every move. She was turning into the same person from the last life. That couldn’t be allowed. She needed a strong distraction.

And she had just the thing.