General POV
The results were posted at 4:17 p.m.
A single sheet.
Pinned to the notice board with a rusted thumbtack and too much finality.
No ceremony.
No speech.
Just names.
And numbers.
Rank
Name
Marks
1. Vedant Kapoor - 487
2.Arohi Mehta - 482
3.Nihal Singh - 471
4.Meher Sharma - 463
5.Aryan Sharma - 456
6.Mudit Agrawal - 449
7.Isha Verma - 437
8.Riya Malhotra - 436
The corridor buzzed with reactions.
Some loud.
Some quiet.
Some pretending not to care.
Vedant stood near the board, surrounded by half-smiles and back pats.
He didn't gloat.
He didn't need to.
Arohi saw it from a distance.
She didn't move closer.
She didn't congratulate him.
She just stared at the number beside her name.
Two.
It wasn't failure.
It wasn't shame.
But it wasn't one.
And that mattered.
Nihal passed by, offering her a quiet nod.
Meher squeezed her shoulder.
Isha whispered something about how rankings don't define brilliance.
But Arohi didn't respond.
She walked back to her room slowly, the corridor stretching longer than usual.
Room 306 felt colder.
Quieter.
She sat at her desk, opened her notebook, and stared at the blank page.
Not to write.
Not yet.
Just to remind herself that she still could.
Because second place wasn't the end.
It was fuel.
It was fire.
And if Vedant thought this was victory—
He hadn't read her next chapter yet.