Becoming presidents came with responsibilities, endless work, and more importantly, it gave me time with Siri.
A lot of time.
Those days became the most cherished of my life. Working with Siri was nothing like I had imagined. It was fulfilling in a way I had never experienced before. Every meeting, every argument, every plan made together made me feel alive, sharply present, as if my blood finally remembered how to flow.
We started visiting each other's homes. I introduced her to Maa and Sis. Maa fell in love with her instantly, no hesitation, no caution. Siri slipped into our home as if she had always belonged there.
There was something strange about her that I could never quite define. Siri felt like three different people to me.
The Siri who was always with me was cheerful, relaxed, smiling easily. The Siri at work was entirely different, strict, disciplined, commanding, a perfectionist who tolerated no mistakes. And the Siri with my family was someone else altogether. She was chatty, playful, smiling constantly, behaving almost like my sister, who was only five then. When I visited her home, I realized that this version of Siri was the same one she showed around her mother.
That realization made me happy.
The three people I treasured the most, Maa, Siri, and Sis, getting along so effortlessly filled me with a warmth I had never known.
As weeks passed, I started believing I was human too.
Smiles came naturally when I was with them. I perfected emotional responses so well that no one in class suspected anything. People who had known me since childhood began to believe I was cured. Everyone except my dad stopped seeing me as a misfit.
Peace followed for the next two years.
Both years, Siri and I won the elections without resistance.
Then came tenth grade.
We went on a three day school field trip, and that trip showed me why I could never be normal. It showed me what my dad still saw in me.
The trip itself was ordinary. A simple excursion. All students stayed at a resort for three nights. As presidents, Siri and I handled everything. Bookings, itineraries, discipline, making sure no student faced trouble.
The first day passed without incident.
The second day did not.
That evening, the faculty instructed us to keep boys and girls separated at night. We arranged rooms accordingly, boys and girls in different buildings. The student council, including us, stayed in another building with the faculty.
That evening, we heard few students whispering.
There were plans about boys sneaking into girls' rooms. Couples meeting in secret. It seemed that, except for Siri and me, everyone already knew. It was an unspoken tradition. Tenth graders losing their virginity on the final night of the trip.
I didn't mind it, but Siri did.
Being the rigid person she was, she refused to let her rules break. She ordered the student council to patrol the corridors all night. We took turns sleeping and walking guard.
Most of the council barely put in efforts so Siri and I needed to work extra hours.
Under Siri's strict instructions, I patrolled the entire night. Every corridor. Every corner. I caught a few early cheaters who were impatient enough to rush it on the second day.
While I was punishing them, Siri came running toward me.
She did not explain. She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the forest beside the resort. We stopped in front of a small cottage.
At first glance, nothing seemed wrong. It looked like a quiet retirement house, peaceful and untouched.
Siri pulled me around to the back wall and told me to press my ear against it.
At first, I heard nothing.
Knowing Siri, I focused harder. I sharpened my senses. And then I heard it.
A baby's wail.
No, multiple babies.
She told me the house was empty. No one had answered the door. When she tried to enter, it was locked. But the cries had gone on for a while.
She was scared.
That night, I learned something new about Siri.
She loved babies.
The faint wail alone had brought her to the edge of tears. Seeing her like that shattered something inside me. I tried to break into the house immediately.
A shout stopped us.
An elderly couple, both in their late 60s, yelled at us. I was seconds away from hitting them and forcing my way in when Siri grabbed me and stopped me. As I calmed, the man shoved me aside and the woman rushed inside.
Moments later, she appeared on the balcony holding two babies, one in each hand.
They were still crying.
The moment Siri saw them, she ran to the woman and took one baby despite her protests. The baby stopped crying instantly. Seeing that, the man stopped the woman and allowed me to take the other baby.
I did not know what to do.
So I copied Siri.
I put on the best human smile I could manage and touched the baby as gently as possible. It took longer than it did for Siri, but eventually the second baby stopped crying too.
The couple looked pleased.
They invited us inside and introduced themselves as the resort owners. The cottage was their retirement home. The babies were their grandchildren, identical twins. Their mother was sleeping inside.
When Siri heard that the mother was inside and had let the babies cry, she exploded. She was moments away from tearing the house apart. The couple quickly calmed her down, explaining that the mother was a first time parent, weak from birth complications. She had cared for the babies all night and had collapsed from exhaustion.
That explanation softened her instantly.
She apologized repeatedly and even tried to go inside to apologize to the mother. The couple stopped us, saying the woman had finally slept after nearly a week.
Eventually, Siri let it go.
She stayed with the babies for hours, even taking turns with the one in my arms. We spent the night there and returned to our rooms the next morning.
The day continued normally.
But something felt wrong.
A quiet, crawling unease sat at the back of my mind. I could not explain it, but my instincts screamed that the couple had lied.
That afternoon, I went back toward the cottage.
Siri had the same thought.
We ran into each other in the forest on the way.
We approached quietly and peeked from a distance. The couple sat on the balcony, each holding a baby, smiling peacefully.
That image erased the unease.
We turned back without a word.
Later that evening, while we were still at the dinner table after most students had returned to their rooms, we noticed a little girl playing alone in the kitchen. Siri changed instantly. Her posture softened, her voice lifted, and she dropped into that childlike version of herself without hesitation. She knelt down and started playing with the girl as if nothing else in the world mattered.
Eventually, we met the girl's mother.
She was delighted to see us with her daughter. As Siri talked with her, she opened up naturally, words spilling out as if she had been waiting for someone to listen. She spoke about how the girl's father had abandoned them. How she struggled for years to raise her child alone. How working at the resort finally gave her stability.
Then she mentioned something else.
She said she had been a surrogate for a while. She had delivered twins just a few weeks ago.
We did not fully understand the concept of surrogacy, but Siri smiled warmly when she heard that the babies had been born healthy. Immediately, she asked about them.
The woman explained that the babies were not hers. She had only carried them for someone else, for money. She added that many workers at the resort did the same. Even guests stayed there during their surrogate pregnancies. The resort owners, she said proudly, provided jobs, care, and shelter for the surrogates and helped families who could not have children.
Then she said something that felt wrong.
She mentioned that the resort owners had lost their daughter while she was giving birth to twins, and that they did not want others to suffer the same fate.
That stunned us.
The couple had told us their daughter was alive. Sleeping inside the cottage.
The contradiction lingered like a wound.
We decided to confirm the truth. Siri and I split up, casually questioning staff and guests. By the end of it, two facts were undeniable.
Every surrogate mother connected to the resort carried twins.
And the owners' daughter had died five years ago.
They had lied to us.
Siri felt it deeply. Her unease turned sharp, almost violent. She wanted to storm the cottage and drag the couple out, even though she knew she was responsible for enforcing discipline at the resort that night.
Eventually, she restrained herself.
She called a student council meeting, assigned strict patrol roles, and announced harsh punishments. For over an hour, we patrolled, catching several students sneaking around. But Siri grew more restless with every passing minute.
I suggested I go alone to the cottage. She refused.
Later, she appointed the vice president as the patrol lead. We told the team we were taking a break and slipped away into the forest.
The cottage was dark.
Locked from the inside. No lights. No sound.
Siri was convinced something was wrong. She broke in without hesitation.
Inside, the house was empty. Every room. Silent. Clean. Untouched.
We reached the room the couple had forbidden us from entering.
It was empty too.
Just a bed and photographs. In several of them, the old couple stood with a woman in her mid twenties. Their daughter.