From A To Z

By Udita Mukherjee

"Ash has a basketball playing, popular jock boyfriend who can be sweet as honey. Yet,

sometimes she feels she can glimpse a darkness lurking right underneath the surface, waiting

to take over. As long as he makes up for the general toxicity with sweeping romantic

gestures, her mental health should be fine, right?

Zara is

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Dec 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9789360498450

Book preview

From A To Z

Udita Mukherjee

Ukiyoto Publishing

All global publishing rights are held by

Ukiyoto Publishing

Published in 2022

Content Copyright © Udita Mukherjee

ISBN

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

www.ukiyoto.com

Dedication

    I would like to thank my mother (for constantly coming up with ideas like making one character a vampire and turning the book into a murder mystery after reading the first two chapters), sister (for always being my harshest critic), aunt, my best friend (pig said she’d proofread it for me, what a sweetheart! That’s exactly what I needed, put it down to BFF telepathy) and all my friends who have been invested in this novel since the very first page. Sometimes, just sometimes, they were more excited for it than I was. I would like to thank Emily Andras and the cast of Wynonna Earp for inspiring me and so many people to express themselves in all the right ways.

  Like many books, this one too would have been impossible without Google and the silence characteristic of late nights. A huge thank you to everyone who read this story, let me know what you thought on Instagram (@wilde_woolf).

    Last and definitely the least, I would like to be surprised by myself (as narcissistic as that might sound) for finally completing a story I started. All credits to my characters for that, they made me fall in love with them. Well, like, most of them did.

Dedicated to the light of my life.

CONTENTS

Prologue (I Guess?)

Double Sigh

Shitshitshit

Some Spinach

Hypnagogic Jerks

Hsm And Pms

Purple Fluff Hug

Abandoned Garden Soul

I Believe In Unicorns Too!

Déjà Vu

13 Unique Orns

Re-found

Cucumber Bffs

Conditional Love

Ed’s Joxx!

Glitter And Glue

Pride Parade

Guilty Chocolates

Pillow Play

Recipe For My State Of Mind

Breathless

Ed’s P.O.V.

Tammy’s P.O.V.

Broken

Vera’s P.O.V.

Emma’s P.O.V.

Third Time’s The Charm

Seeing Purple

Two Pendulum Bobs

In Denial

Bed Death

Laptop Battery Percentage

Two-Faced

Bottoms Up

Apartment Hunting

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue (I Guess?)

This is going to be a story about two very different people with seemingly unconnected lives that come together in an unexpected way towards the end. (No, I’m not trying to get this made into a movie. Ooo a TV series! Now that would be great.)

The similarities between their lives are almost uncanny but the differences are more.

One’s called Ash and the other, Zara. It’s funny because the contrast between their personalities is as great as the one between the first letters of their names. You’ll see.

Double Sigh

You think high school is tough? Well, sure it is, but like no one prepares you for what comes after. The watching, the waiting and the ‘trying to get your mind off of the watching and the waiting.’ I fire up my laptop so I don’t miss any mail from those top colleges I applied to. In case you’re wondering, no, I don’t have a cell because I don’t have anyone I’d contact even if I had a cell.

    I’m the kind of person no one can get along with. Maybe they’re just jealous of me or like, they want to be me. I don’t know. I find myself delightful. Hey, I guess that’s why I got a boyfriend but they don’t. Yeah even I was surprised when Ed asked me out but I guess someone finally saw what brilliance they were missing out on by not being with me.

    I’m not exactly tech-savvy but that laptop of mine sure has taught me some things. It can be such a drag to just keep an eye on my mails, nerve-racking too. So I open my chat window. No new messages.

    Hi I type and press send. When he doesn’t reply I start watching random videos online. I’ve come to know it’s a great way to kill time. I mean, can you really stop after you’ve seen a rat cooking ratatouille? Yeah okay it was part of some animated movie but that’s not the point. Once you start watching you lose any restraint you ever had. It is so hard. ‘They’ even suggest what you should watch next and even though you’ve never met ‘them’, ‘they’ seem to know exactly what kind of stuff you’re into. It’s creepy, really. Clickbait, that’s what I suppose people call it.

    I feel like I’m trapped in a vicious cycle which will end with my soul getting sucked out of my body, is what I think to myself before starting some video about people lacking souls.

    I hear the bell. No one’s at the door. Then again, no one ever is. My parents each have a key to the house. Which reminds me, I can’t remember the last time I saw my parents. Probably at the hospital you know, when my mother gave birth to me. They’re always on some business trip or other and even when they’re not, they hardly spend any time at home. Growing up I had a nanny but I was mostly left to my own devices.

    Anyway, I’ve digressed enough. This was a different kind of bell. It didn’t indicate I had visitors. It meant I had a notification. I paused the video.

Ed: hey Ash

Me: Do you lack a soul?

Ed: what

Me: That’s the name of the video I was watching.

Ed: oh ryt so what did u learn from it

Me:  Contrary to popular belief, I don’t always do things that will teach me something I don’t know already.

Ed: oh

Me: Yeah Mr. Monosyllabic, what took you so long to reply?

Ed: was sleeping jus woke up

Me: Guess I’ll talk to you later then. Go brush your teeth and eat something.

Ed: ttyl

Me: XOXOXO

Ed: xo

    I closed that tab. I was feeling hungry myself. I went to the refrigerator and opened it. A can of soda stared back at me. I slammed the door in its face. Sigh. I walked up to the microwave, took out yesterday’s leftovers and started munching on them. I decided I’d go grocery shopping after that but I feel so lazy all the time. I’d rather starve to death than walk down aisles pushing a cart. Too much exercise. Double sigh.

Shitshitshit

IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! HELL YEAH! NO MORE SCHOOL FOR THIS B*TCH! I can kick back and relax till I get accepted into some college and go back to being oppressed by the system. Maybe I’ll drop one year. That would be so cool. I’ll figure it out when I have to. Right now though, I’m gonna devour all those storybooks I’ve been meaning to for as long as I can remember.

    Here’s a fun fact about me. I’m probably the most socially awkward person on this planet. Oh, and here’s a shocker- I’m an introvert. Yep. I’m that person who will watch the phone ring, wait till it stops doing that and then text ‘Ssup?’ to the person calling me. I know this despite never having owned a cellphone. It’s one of those things you just know. In fact that might be the reason behind me not having a phone. I have a laptop though. It’s the best thing that can happen to people like me. For starters, it doesn’t ring. For desserts, I can remain anonymous while using it.

    I smile at my laptop. I’m weird I know and I don’t care. Time to log in and hope I have no new mails. It is just too early to start stressing about college. Leave me alone, I just finished school! *groans internally*

Username- [e-mail]

Password- shitshitshit

    My password is basically me stumbling through life, trying to survive.

    It’s my lucky day it seems. No freaking new mails for me. I’m out. That’s code for me signing out. I open another tab.

WARNING!

YOUR BATTERY IS AT 10%

Gosh darn it! I don’t understand how my battery is never at the percentage I leave it at. Do spirits use my laptop? I don’t see any other way to explain it. I LEFT YOU AT 43% WHO BLOODY USED YOU AFTER THAT?! If this doesn’t explain why I have trust issues, I don’t know what will. Seeing the being you love the most betray you this way, it’s just too much for my fragile heart.

    In case you didn’t notice, I talk to myself a lot. A lot. A LOT. Seems to me like I have two options. I could either get out of bed and fetch the charger or I could watch the life slowly drain out of my love. I go with the second one. Serves it right, being disloyal to me like that. You could say I’m lazy and petty…and melodramatic. Social media, here I come.

    After browsing the web for a little while, I notice Tab No. 11 lighting up. Ooh that means I have a new direct message on Punstagram. I love that place. It suits me.

BATTERY CRITICALLY LOW!

    I ignore the warning yet again. As I’m about to go to Tab 11 my heart suddenly starts to beat a little faster. I don’t even know why.

Tis a text from Cookie. I was right. There was very little scope of me being wrong, considering the fact that I talk to one person at a time. What that means is at any point of time, I will have in my life exactly one person I talk to more than anyone else until one day we just stop texting each other. Do I miss them? Sometimes, but there’s nothing I can do about it. It happens. I don’t have a best friend, never did. I hope someday I do but every time I think I’ve made one they Just. Stop. Texting. There’s no reason or explanation. It’s always out of the blue. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the real reason behind my trust issues.

    So where was I? Right.

Cookie: How’s life Zee?

Me: You can just type Z you know? I’ll read it as Zee ;)

Cookie: Well in that case, you can call me Kooky ;D

Me: Hahaha why?

Cookie: Oh let’s just say because that name I can live up to. I am strange IRL. How the fuck can I be like a cookie?

Me: You’re sweet, isn’t that enough?

Cookie: I’m not. You are because you just said that.

Me: Nah man, I’m just weird.

Cookie: We can be quirky together.

Me: I’d like that <3

Cookie: Of course you will, honey. After all it is ME you’re being quirky with xD

Me: Hehehehe

    And just like that I was already in too deep. Nothing new. I always do this. I keep saying I have trust issues. What my issue with trust though is that I trust every friggin person after talking to them once. That’s who I am. I don’t love it but I can’t change it. Trust me I’ve tried. Here I am doing it again, a tiny part of me hoping I’ve found a best friend but the rest of me screaming When the hell will you learn your lesson? They all leave in the end. The only person who will stick with you is you. Can I be my own best friend? Is that a thing?

    Here’s something you can chew on. I’ve never actually met Cookie in real life. Sorry, I meant