Still at Mia’s school
Majority of the students present in the hallway began to curse Mia, throwing all sorts of accusations at her but Mia didn’t even respond in the slightest way. She wasn’t moved by any of it as she remained in her kneeling position and kept on observing the boy.
She was watching him very closely and then she tangled her fingers together before she pressed on his chest two times.
The boy whom everyone thought was dead coughed out, he was still finding it difficult to breath,
He slowly opened his eyes .
“What’s happening?” He said very slowly, he was struggling to talk and it was then that the ambulance the principal called arrived. Mia stood up from the floor and went to return the instruments she took from the laboratory.
“Mia you were great out there, I have never been so proud of you. You are a heroine” I hugged Mia as I helped her point out the spot she took the acid from.
“Thank you but he isn’t well yet” Mia had a faint smile.
“Yes but he isn’t dead all thanks to you” I was smiling foolishly as if I was the one that just saved someone’s life.
“Lakshmi you are a very dramatic person” Mia scoffed.
Flyers were everywhere again and this time Mia was interested in what was written on them.
“Speed debate” Mia read out loud.
“Sounds boring” Lakshmi took the paper from her and folded it before she threw it in the trash can.
“You didn’t let me finish reading it, that was rude” Mia was plain.
“But..” Lakshmi tried to protest but her sentence was cut short.
“Here you go Mia” a boy putting on the school’s football team jacket handed Mia another flyer.
“Thank you” Mia looked at him and the moment she recognized who she was she attempted to walk away with Lakshmi.
“I’m really sorry for how I behaved towards you earlier. It was very wrong of me, will you forgive me?” Daniel, the guy who accused Mia earlier the previous day of making his colleague lose his life, was apologizing to her.
“Well you should be more than sorry” Lakshmi was the one who answered for Mia and Mia didn’t like it.
“Lakshmi stop” Mia scolded her at once and threw the flyer on the floor. Daniel picked up the flyer and rolled it in his hands while he walked away in disappointment.
“Mia what is it? Why don’t you want to talk to me all of a sudden!” Lakshmi was very sad. After she had shunned Daniel, Mia refused to talk to her, she had been avoiding her all day and school was already over.
“Stop please, say something” Lakshmi ran after Mia who was walking as fast as her legs could carry her. She wanted to be as far away from Lakshmi as she could, even her voice sounded irritating but Lakshmi was not going to have any of Mia’s behavior.
She always knew what to do to get whatever she wanted. While Mia was backing her she threw herself on the floor and winced in pain.
“Are you okay?” Mia ran back to her , bending down and trying to help her get back on her feet again.
” Where does it hurt?” Mia was checking Lakshmi for any kind of bruises.
“I’m okay Mia, I didn’t fall” Lakshmi dusted herself and stood up from the floor.
” So you deceived me?” Mia was getting more upset with her.
“What could I do Mia? You just refused to answer me, you kept on walking away and you are making me feel bad” Lakshmi was crying bitterly.
“Just tell me what I did to make you this upset” Lakshmi wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
“Please stop crying. I think you should go home now” Mia’s eyes moved randomly. Mia was trying her best to avoid the topic, she wasn’t sure that what was in her mind was the right thing to say to Lakshmi.
“Tell me what I did wrong?” Lakshmi didn’t want to drag the issue any further. It was making her sad and she didn’t like the feeling at all.
” I just didn’t like the way you took the flyer from me and trashed it earlier. When you wanted to enter the dance competition you asked me to support you even when I told you clearly that I didn’t like music and dance even in the slightest, you insisted and I had to agree.
I respected your choices and did everything I could for you to be successful. I even went as far as going on stage myself just to prevent your efforts from going to waste and now I wanted to do something I like you just threw in the trash. It was so unfair” Mia directed her gaze to the ground as she was trying to be as honest as she could though she didn’t want to hurt Lakshmi’s feelings.
Shedidn’t want to look at Lakshmi’s face. She didn’t want to see her upset.
“But you should have told me Mia, rather than avoiding me all day. If you really want to go for the speed debate then of course I will support you and I’m sorry for what I did earlier. It will never happen again” Lakshmi promised Mia as she finally had a smile on her face.
” I didn’t say I wanted to enter the competition, I just meant that you’d have let me finish reading the flyer” Mia corrected Lakshmi immediately.
“Okay ma’am but what the heck is speed debate anyways?” Lakshmi scratched her head in confusion as she wore a funny look on her face.
“I don’t know but I hope we will find out soon” Mia simply said with no emotions.
“We should get ice cream on the way back home,” Lakshmi suggested.
“I..” Mia wanted to say
“Don’t tell me you don’t have any money. I’ll pay for the ice cream so hurry up, the driver is here already, let’s get into the car so we can go” but Lakshmi beat her to it.
“Lakshmi I don’t like the way you spend money. It is really not healthy and what if you ask me for it one day” Mia was being very sensitive as they both made their way towards the car.
“I will never ask you for the money back so don’t worry about that and when your parents are filthy rich like mine then you have to spend the money as much as you can for as long as you can” Lakshmi showed a very careless behavior that Mia was starting to get worried about her.
“My parents were also rich but I didn’t get a chance to spend their money this way” Mia said in a very low tone but Lakshmi heard her and she just chose to remain quiet, hoping that she didn’t hurt Mia’s feelings in any way.
The icecream truck passed by them and Lakshmi ordered the driver to stop the car. She was so indecisive of which flavor to get that she ended up ordering three different flavors while Mia just ordered strawberry.
“Why do you always have to have one type of icecream all the time?” Lakshmi handed the money to the vendor and was asking Mia at the same time.
“Nothing. I just like it that way” Mia said plainly and that was when Lakshmi remembered that autistic people were affected by the slightest change. She just smiled and watched Mia have her ice cream.