But… I Don’t Believe in Love – Chapter 1 – by Awestruck

I stared out the window noisily munching on some chips. The sight in front of me was of a couple holding hands and laughing their hearts out and I could not help but be a bit jealous. It was true that whenever my friends would bring out the topic of love, I would simply roll my eyes and tell them that I didn’t believe in love. But, somewhere deep down inside, even I wished for a prince charming that would love me more than anyone else in this world. However, being the realistic and practical person I was, I knew I would never find my so called prince charming.

Just then, bringing me out of my fantasy world, I heard the most irritating, yet my favorite sound – that of my incredibly insane best friend, Rudra. “How many chips will you eat fatso?”

I instinctively threw a pillow at his face and said in a sarcastically sweet tone, “You know you aren’t supposed to enter a girl’s room without her permission!”

“Exaaaactly! A GIRL’S room! But you obviously aren’t one as all girls fall in love with Rudra Singh Oberoi and you haven’t.” he replied while trying to show off his *well-structured body*.

“Rudraaa you forgot to add Stupid! All STUPID girls fall for you, not smart and intelligent ones like me.” It was my turn to show off so I flipped my hair gently and put my smart look on.

“Shup up! You are just jealous they announced ‘Rudra Singh Oberoi’ as the winner instead of ‘Anika’.”

“Hahaha, me? Jealous of you? Rudra, my sweet best friend, even you know that the only reason you won was because that arrogant brother of yours, Shivaay Singh Oberoi, was also the judge.” I replied while trying to control my laughter.

To avoid embarrassing himself, he tried changing the topic. “You know I think you and Om will get along well.”
Even though I wanted to tease him more, I decided to let it go and play along. He was my best friend after all. “Why? Is he smart and intelligent like me?”

“No, its just that, like Om is interested in Chulbul, I was thinking you too were, you know…”

In a few minutes, the whole room had turned upside down with me sitting on Rudra’s back threatening him to say sorry and take his words back. That was how my Maasi found us when she entered the room, with her eyes wide open and mouth open even wider.

I hesitantly moved away from Rudra and watched him run up to Maasi and start complaining about me like a little kid. “… and see! Look at my back! I can’t even walk properly now! I have told her a million times to come to the gym with me, even offered her the love of my life, my protein shake, just so that she could lose weight but no!”

“Maasi you have absolutely no idea what he called me! He called me a… a…” I had cut Rudra off but what would I tell Maasi?

Rudra smirked and asked me to continue. All I could do was glare at him while he hid behind Maasi calling me a monster. My sweet Maasi just laughed while ordering us to clean up the mess we made.

We silently started cleaning my room for the 876th time, as whenever Rudra and I met, we created a huge mess. Breaking the silence Rudra said, “You know, all you have to do is tell me you secretly loved me since the first time you saw me three years ago and I will believe that you are a normal girl. But I’m sorry I won’t be able to date you, I’m busy with Alisha these days.”

“Ohhhh please, I’d rather love that egoistic brother of yours.” I regretted saying the words the second they came out.

“Oh My Mata! You love Shivaay Bhaiya?” Rudra asked with a surprised look on his face. Well, yea, even though I found Shivaay very arrogant and egoistic, I was strangely attracted to him and would desperately try to get a glimpse of him whenever I visited Rudra at his house. Even though he acted arrogantly with everyone else, his behavior with his family was adorably sweet. The way he could do anything just to make Rudra smile, which included coming as a judge in our college competition to make him win, simply touched my heart. The best part was, he behaved very sweetly and gently with me too, but I knew it was just because I was Rudra’s best friend. Well, love and I have a very bitter relation, so I would always push his thoughts out of my mind and start pointing out his flaws. I had promised never to fall in love and I wasn’t going to break it.

“Anikkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” Rudra yelled in my ears.

“I’m not deaf! Stop yelling!” I yelled back.

“It wasn’t my fault. You always start dreaming suddenly and you never tell me anything while I even tell you what I eat 3 times a day.” He said with a gloomy voice. The sad thing was, I couldn’t deny what Rudra said. While Rudra had shared every moment of his life with me, I hadn’t told Rudra anything about my past and why I hated and feared the word ‘Love’ so much. I decided that it was high time I tell Rudra everything.

“I’m sorry Rudra.” I apologized as sincerely as I could and said with a sigh, “Lets sit on the terrace while I tell you ‘My Story’. But first, let my grab another packet of chips.”

As I turned back to look at Rudra, I saw him flexing his muscles in front of the mirror and saying something like “Oh I’m so hot!” I sighed and nodded my head, being the complete opposite, I really don’t know how we get along so well.

Author’s Note:
…And then I published my writing in front of the world for the very first time. This chapter was through Anika’s perspective and the next one will be through Shivaay’s. I will keep on alternating between the two.
I have read the work of many writers here and many of you might even know me. Well, even though I had planned on publishing my writing after my exams, since shivika22kapoor had *ordered* me to make an account immediately, I decided to write an article and submit it as well. Waiting to see how people respond. Well I must also mention the people who have inspired me to publish my writing – Diyaa *author of Serendipity* and Shubhadra *author of Annika… ya… Paanika*. Since there are too many to name, I’ll just mention these two now, but I have commented on all those that I loved, so you all know who you are :p!