aditto.

When she first came to our school, and I was assigned to make her comfortable, that had to be one of the best things the school ever gave me. Living near her was undoubtedly an advantage as her parents trusted me, and so did the teachers. The moment she came to class and I was assigned with her at once, that was a flaunty moment. I felt like a star and an important and responsible person. I accompanied her to our seat, and I was greeted with a wide smile as she recognised me. The room was filled with a spectrum of emotions, some were envious, some were pitiful and some were curious. She, if somehow compared to the others, was different from "the usual", though she was the most beautiful, marvelous and as enchanting a face can be. She was kind hearted, patient and calming. She was as perfect a human could be. All the pity that she received was because of her slight inability to read faces.

I got to know her quite well with time. Though she was one of the highest scorers in our class and also equal if not better than the others, she was always seen as inferior. As time went on, she became my strength, being someone with severe anxiety myself and a lack of sense of being grounded, she was my anchor, my life. She made it better, though she barely needed my help in doing things like writing and reading, she was pretty self-reliant herself, as for me, having her around made me feel calm and worthy. Every single time I was around her, she made me feel at peace, wanted and loved. And I would ever so often mouth "I Love You", I knew she would never see it but it felt really good and the right thing to say.

It felt like a story narrated at an open mic, when one fine day like usual we met up and went to school together. During recess, we were sitting together having our food and she signalled for me to come near her, she whispered “I love you”, I was stumped, unable to utter a word. I tried to form sentences but mere sounds came from my mouth, as she observed a lack of response, her face grew tense, “Could you please say something, just respond in some way? You know that I am not good with facial expressions," she said. I tried to respond to her and our entire friendship, the bond we shared flashed in front of my eyes. Something that I held so dearly, and never confessed my feelings at the fear of losing her. At that moment, I knew it would be the best moment of my life,  "I- I love you too Sania.” I sighed very loudly with relief. “My goodness, I have always dreamt of saying this to you, and today you made it happen. This is the best day of my life." I further blabbered. The fear and confusion she had on her face vanished and the widest grin broke on her beautiful face, "Why didn't you then?" "I- actually did, but only ever mouthed the word. You know me, I would never have the courage to say that to you." She started chuckling and that made my day so much better than it already was. "Well then, my fear of 'is this the right thing to do?' was worth pursuing." We both laughed as the school bell rang.