The Fateful Midnight Call

...Sanvi's POV...

I groaned at the continuous noise, that was violating my right to drown into a good deep slumber after all those hours of hard studying.

It flashed 12:20 a.m. on my bedside digital clock.

For good heavens!

"Who the hell wants to get thrashed at this point of night?" I squinted my heavy eyes and searched for my ringing cellphone on the bed.

I only had a few hours to sleep before starting off early for school the next day and no one had tried to call me all the time I had stayed awake—which was a hell lot of time in the day.

Emergency? Hospital? Mom? Father? All the ideas swirled around my head, draining all the weariness out of me. I sprang up on the bed in the pitch dark room.

I had no idea where the heck I was scrounging for my phone. I had no idea if I was sleeping upside down. The only thing I cared for was to keep my eyes closed and sleep peacefully for the next few hours which seemed impossible with that thing blaring on in some corner of my bed.

Once in my grasp, I flipped the phone and without even glancing at the number, I answered the call. A loud scream shook the bed beneath me thereby draining the sleep off of me immediately.

I had a phone for my mother to check-in and sometimes for my namesake best friend to call and discuss about studies. All these years in St. Louis, no one had bothered to take notice of me, let alone ask for my number. So, midnight calls were pretty much rare for me and I was honestly glad it was that way until that night.

"Vee Vee.. Sannviiii... Vee Vee!" A girl slurred out loud against the loud thumping of the bass in the background.

Oh! Of course it had to be the nerd's crazy 'Miss-I-will-definitely-become-popular-in-highschool-oneday' best friend.

Typical? Try telling that to the thousands of rich Romance novelists.

She and I were weird kind of best friends. I was even kind of surprised that she managed to stay by my side all these years. The teacher made us bench mates in sixth standard when Veronica transferred from another state. Since I was the monitor of the class, she thought it better to make the new girl stay by my side since I was the only one in the class who actually preferred education over anything else.

Veronica was this clueless and lost little girl and I helped her with her studies. From then on, quite surprisingly, she stuck by my side. Although over the years, she did manage to make few more friends.

I didn't have any problem with her mingling with other students so long she didn't push me into joining her on 'friend hunting'. She respected my boundaries and I couldn't complain about her being sweet to me. I, at times, felt bad for her because somehow I felt like I was restraining her from socializing.

Moreover, me being the school nobody, I often wondered if that didn't affect her reputation in school. But the girl still stayed friends with me after all these years despite my very appalling idiosyncrasies. I had to give her that for her endurance. She was the closest I had to any friend, other than any fictional character (Sad, I know) so involuntarily, she became my 'best' friend.

Plus, she was absolutely crazy.

"What the effing heck is wrong with you Veronica? It's one in the morning for crying out loud!" I stood up on my bed with a jolt, hearing my best friend slurring out nonsense and the loud music in the background.

"Vee Vee! My bestieee!! You knoww.. Whatt?... I am so freaking happy!" Her overjoyed voice made me smack myself on the face, cursing myself for not stopping her from going to that party she mentioned on Friday in school. She was certainly having the best time of her life, judging by her voice.

"This is soooo awesome! The house is humongous! They have shrimp, bro. Shrimpppsss! But I miss you soooo much! You love shrimps right?" I cursed out loud and immediately clasped my mouth shut.

"You would've loved them. They were so tastyyy! Wait let me get you some, where's my shrimp purse? Why didn't you comeeee? Bad Vee Vee!" She was indeed badly drunk.

She had previously tried to convince me on joining her but a nerd's gotta do what a nerd's gotta do right? Remain antisocial and stay away from parties? I was doing my part in the narrative.

Honestly, I was least interested in mingling with anyone in that school, neither in any party outside and if I could, not even during the school hours. Heck I could have let myself homeschool in order to stay away from those people. All Veronica got from me was a stern look and she instantly backed off while rebuking me for being a 'party-pooper'.

St. Louis was filled with snobby little rich brats who threw parties every now and then. Veronica was a total people's person and loved to attend those parties even though she didn't know half of the students in our senior year. We had a minimum of a hundred students in each section, for crying out loud!

I heavily doubted if she herself was aware of where she had gone to and gotten mindlessly drunk like that. Which idiotic student even held a party on the last day of the weekend?

"Veronica! Stop this nonsense! Just tell me where in the hell are you? Is there anyone with you or did you go alone? Do you even know how late it is? How are you going to return home? What about your curfew? Uncle and Aunty are gonna be so mad at you! Tell me?" I barked the questions one after another not noticing that the line had already gone dead.

"Hello! Hello? Veronica? You there? Hellllooooo!"

The constant beeps of the cut line seemed to have induced a sudden worry in me. It didn't take me two seconds after that to realise that I was freaking out. Her highly strict parents probably had no idea that their precious little girl had snuck out of the house at night to visit some random party.

Veronica did make her share of troubles for me but she had never done that. I had managed to tolerate her visiting a few parties and then blabbering about how they went, all day long, quite a few times. But she hadn't gotten drunk in any of the previous ones and pulled any stunt like that. I had absolutely no idea of what I should have done right then. Obviously, she knew other people but I highly doubted they'd care enough to take her home in one piece.

Distressing situations started popping up in my head one by one, making me bite my nails in nervousness.

What if she got into some kind of trouble? What if she did something stupid? What if someone took advantage of her drunk self?

What should I do? Whom should I call to check on her? Why did she even switch her goddamned phone off? What bad deed did I do to be bothered by such a trouble?

I was pacing across the entire room in serious tension.

"Where even is this goddamned party?" I groaned, running my fingers through my dark brown hair.

I was trying really hard to think of someone I could call at that point.

If only I was a bit more sociable. I barely had fifteen contacts on my phone. I was the one to blame for my ineptness.

Suddenly something clicked in my mind.

Veronica did mention that she was going with a guy from the other section. A guy, I might have had actually known.

I hurriedly took my cellphone, tried searching his number. I might have saved or rather HAD to save for the combined physics project the year before. I just hoped that I didn't delete it afterwards.

I awkwardly whimpered at the short list contact list I had.

Sad? I didn't care.

After pushing the call button, I furiously paced around my room, careful enough not to wake Mom and that man sleeping downstairs.

Somehow, I knew what was coming for me and it made the adrenaline coarse violently through my veins. I would most definitely curse the decision of receiving her call in the coming days.

***********

To Be Continued.

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