See the thing was, there wasn't anything 'wrong' with Aruna in the societal sense of the word. She wasn't the girl who trampled over the rest with her high heeled boots, neither was she the one everyone could walk over. She was just another student in a sea of children and she preferred it that way. Unfortunately for her, her preferences weren't very cautious of their repercussions.

It was a rainy Friday afternoon when Aruna's father laughingly called the other children in her class 'trouble'. She just raised the side of her lips, settled his unspoken need for an agreement with a dimple and continued to pull at the strands of her red sweater. Aruna caught the downward slope of her father's lips through the corner of her eye and while she knew he wasn't too happy with her reply—or lack thereof—she also knew she couldn't bring herself to agree with him when she knew what he had said wasn't true. She knew they weren't trouble. They were just students like her who wanted to do things she never had the courage to do and she really didn't understand why a piercing or coloured hair had the power to put the 'trouble' label on them.

That was of course, the second time her thoughts had flown outside the norm—fallen outside the box of what was considered acceptable by the world.

The thirteen years Aruna had spent bartering with life had definitely managed to instill some edge in the once naive nine year old's mind. She didn't dare mention the 'rainbow', the queer people or the rebellious ones, for one. The older Aruna knew there were certain things that lay beyond the norm and that they were meant to stay there. But she hoped that didn't mean she couldn't even wonder about them, because the box wasn't a barrier when it came to her thoughts.

The day hadn't been pleasant in itself and really didn't need the extra dash of her father being her father to be labelled the worst one yet. The battery of her phone was dead when she awoke, so the last minute study plan she'd spent all night planning had managed to go up in flames. Her toothbrush had miraculously found itself at the bottom of the toilet bowl and it had taken everything inside her not to scream at the childlike giggles coming from the other side of the door. Having a younger brother had been cute at first; when all he did was sleep and eat, but it  had soon grown old. The little devil was nothing short of a catastrophe now and since he had her parents wrapped around his chubby-little, five-year-old fingers, she was powerless.

Thirteen was an unlucky number and Aruna knew that. She also knew blaming her age for everything that was wrong with her day wasn't fair to the number, but hey! The number had never been fair to her, had it? This was exactly why she found herself cursing her age as she sat with her back pressed against the hard wooden seat, hurriedly trying to pen down all her wayward thoughts on her English test paper. The partially chewed end of the pen scratched against her cheek and she found herself wincing; not just at the momentary pain but also at the realization that the test was her worst one yet.

The thing was, there wasn't anything wrong with Aruna. And that's why everything should've been right with her life. But thirteen was an unlucky number and Aruna knew that just as well, so all she could do was curse at her age for knocking down all the expectations she'd taken from the world, so carefully folded and laid upon her on her shoulder. She just knew the test had managed to soil those perfect A's she had spent all her time perfecting.

She remembered how a soft tap had brought her out of her cursing spree and Aruna had found herself looking at the girl with blonde highlights sitting diagonally opposite her.

Oh, they weren't friends, Aruna would answer whenever she was posed with the question. Dia was a mere acquaintance who would wave at her in passing or slip in the occasional 'hey' and a 'hi' on social media. Their 'acquaint-ship' as Aruna put it, had begun the day she'd uncomfortably walked to the group of boys and girls standing on the white line of the basketball court and asked in her soft, barely audible voice, if she could play. A dribble later, the girl closest to her had smiled and beckoned her into the game.

It was simple, the girl who Aruna later found was named Dia, had said. You join the game if you wanted to play. There wasn't any need to hesitate .

She'd quickly learned that people weren't everything that the whispers floating around them made them to be. That's why Aruna looked up from her test paper and raised a questioning brow at Dia. The latter sent a quick look at the teacher and lifted a ringed index finger.

First question.

Aruna couldn't help let out a giggle as she glanced at the question Dia wanted the answer to.

'How can you break a stereotype?' read the paper.

Aruna had looked up at the girl with the tightly fitted uniform, looked into the eyes of the girl with blonde strands framing her face and remembered the time Dia had taught her that the 'troublemakers' were really just students who wanted to have fun. And all Aruna did in reply to her question, was raise an index finger and point it back at Dia.You, Dia. You are the answer to how one can break a stereotype.

So now do you see? This was the reason Aruna couldn't agree with her father when he called them trouble. Now, if you asked anyone else, they would probably say that there wasn't anything wrong with Aruna however, she would confess that it had all been her fault. No one had asked the naive thirteen year old Aruna to meddle with things that were out of her reach. All she had to do was go with the flow, act like the dead fish she would become inevitably become and stay in the box.

But she couldn't even do that much.

It was her beliefs, her thoughts and all the words she kept bottled inside her head that put the second strike on the strike board of her life. It was her fault you see? It had always been. Why couldn't she just stick to the rules?