Miles Apart

Meeting him

Saira's POV:

Everything was going well although I was still stalking Nigel sometimes but I was trying to not let him affect me much and I was quite successful. 6 months passed like that but I couldn't forget him yet but I learnt to live happily with his thoughts sometimes lingering in my head a little too much. In the meantime, I had my Semester 1 exam of ICSE, I hung out with my friends a little, I enjoyed Durga puja, celebrated my birthday, finally I was sweet 16. More or less life was going well, the pandemic was also at bay so our family decided to meet and go for vacation to Goa.

 It was 26th December morn, we're getting ready to meet all my extended family at ITC Royal Bengal. A huge chaos was going in the house because finally we're going on a vacation in 2021. We were getting paranoid whether we packed everything or not and then we had our breakfast and left for Royal Bengal. 

We reached there and saw that one of my cousins, Arman and his mom, dad and Mamu and Mani were there. We greeted them and hugged each other. Our relatives from Noida and Gurgaon were yet to arrive. We're sitting together and chatting when we saw that some howling sounds were coming and someone was calling us and it didn't take us a little time to understand that of course it was our overhyped family. They came to us and we greeted and hugged each other, we were laughing and just doing crazy shits because we met after a year if you don't count the virtual zoom call meetings. 

Suddenly my uncle who is from Gurgaon said that two other families are joining us too, we were a little shocked because that was completely out of notice. Then he called them and I saw it was Himesh Uncle and his wife, I knew them because I've met them in my uncle auntie's anniversary, I waved at them and they also asked me How was I, I replied that yeah, I was fine. I met his daughter, Divya and son, Akash for the first time, they also greeted me and I greeted them back and then something happened which I didn't expect to happen in my wildest dreams. 

They moved aside and I saw him standing there all handsome in a Navy-blue V necked t-shirt and a pair of white and black striped knee length shorts. I was dumbstruck, my uncle said" Well guys meet the D'Souza family. This is John, his wife Kiran and his sons Nigel and Nik and you all already know most of them and this is my youngest brother and his family and you all know him and his daughter, Crystal and this is Antara, his wife and Titli her daughter, the youngest and the sweetest in the family. They are the new members of this family" I was still processing the fact that I just met him after 6 months of having a crush on him. When my uncle was introducing us all and he introduced me and said 'Titli', he looked at me and smiled. I was having butterflies in my stomach just from that look. For anyone else it was a normal acknowledging look but for me I was feeling all giddy. They told since we'll be leaving at 6 in the evening so we should go and enjoy a bit since we've some time. I was standing there without moving an inch as if I were rooted there. All the elders went away leaving us.

Once they were out of sight, Nigel, his brother Nik and his cousins Divya and Akash walked towards us. My sister came to my side and whispered in my ear "Finally, you met him and you are lucky that you got a whole vacation with him so don't waste the opportunity" and winked at me. 

He came and stood in front of my sister and me and said" Hi Crystal! Long-time no see huh? And say, how are you?" 

Crystal said "Yeah, I'm good, what about you? And by the way you haven't met her before so this is my little sister, Saira" 

He said" I'm all good and yeah I'm Nigel nice to meet you" he extended his hands for a shake and I accepted it with all my heart, I knew I was blushing for sure and his hands were a little bigger than mine so of course it engulfed my hand completely and it was soft and basically I was feeling very happy.

 I replied "nice to meet you too" 

He asked me "Is your name Saira or Titli?" and he was having a beautiful, mellifluous voice with an Indo-British accent. I loved the way he said my name. Never in my life, I liked the pronunciation of my name so much.

 I told "Yeah both are my names, Saira is my official name and Titli is my nickname" He asked then what he should call me. I asked him to call me Saira and he said cool.

 We went to that lounge area in the garden and sat there, it was beautiful and the day was perfect too, neither too hot and sunny nor too dull and cold. It was very pleasant which was very weird considering the fact that it was the last week of December. I went and sat beside Crystal and he came and sat exactly beside me and my brother was going to sit in the same place but he came first. I was praying that please don't say to my brother 'it's ok you can sit here' and thankfully he didn't because my brother already plopped himself beside Divya. 

We're sitting side by side so, of course our hands were touching and I was feeling butterflies in my stomach. Everyone was chatting with each other with full excitement both for meeting after so long and for the trip. He was speaking too and was looking at me when I was at him and giving me a cute, warm smile. I was feeling as if I were dreaming. I was a little quiet than usual as I was busy taking hidden glances at him.

Soon we were called for having lunch. We were walking there and he and my sister were on my either side. My sister was nudging me and giving me a smirkish grin. Suddenly my brother came from behind and messed my hair, ruining the beautiful moment I was having. I gave him a death glare and ran behind him, finally I caught him and messed his hair too, he huffed and I gave a victory smile. 

We reached the dining hall; I was about to sit in the chair when my brother pulled the chair and I literally fell on my arse. He said" This is what happens if you mess with me" and smirked. I was angry but I felt more embarrassed as Nigel was there. I stood up on my legs and I told him "Who told you Arman that I'll leave you if you mess with me?" and soon we made the dining hall a WWE ring. 

My eldest cousin, Sana, she got so irritated that she shouted and said" Enough both of you, what are you 5 years old? Why do you guys love to fight so much? I don't wanna hear a single thing now, go and sit in your chairs" we both became silent. Although she was so sweet and we love her a lot, she can get quite scary at times. Arman and me both put our hands on the same chair and gave a leave-this-chair-it's-mine look to each other and right at that time, Sana said "Nigel sit between them, be the barrier for now". I went and sat in the left side which was the last chair of the row, Nigel sat beside me at least I was happy for that. After Nigel, there was Arman and then Crystal. On the head chairs that was at my side, there sat Nik and on the opposite head chair that is the one beside Crystal's sat Sana. On our opposite sides were Divya followed by Rehan and Akash.

It was time for ordering food, I told them I'm gonna have Mutton Biryani, Nigel and Rehan said they want that too. In starters Nigel and me shared the chilli prawn and crispy chilli baby corn. It tasted heaven; I was so full after eating the starters that I couldn't complete the Biryani but it was Biryani after all I couldn't waste it too. I was in a dilemma that what to do with it when Nigel said to me" What happened? Couldn't finish the biryani?" I just nodded and he said "It's ok give it to me. See that's the reason I didn't eat much in the starters" I just gave him a please-take it look and he chuckled. A mouthed a 'thank you' and he smiled and nodded. Then it was dessert time, I told them that I was too full so I couldn't eat anything but after seeing the Eton Mess I couldn't stop myself. You know, I always wanted to taste it and finally I got it but I was too full so I just took 2 spoons from Nigel as he ordered that, lucky me. I guess I was the happiest to have it as we were sharing the spoon and as much cliché as it sounds but for me it tasted even better not that I've tasted it earlier. 

At last we're done eating and we were going upstairs to bring our luggage. We came downstairs and booked our Uber cabs and were waiting for it to arrive. Finally, it came and Nigel being the epitome of perfect gentleman he carried my luggage and put it in the trunk of the car. Crystal and my mom already got into the car and I was standing beside him and he said "So finally we are going to Goa huh? I'm so excited for this trip. See you in the airport then" I nodded and said yeah me too. I got inside the car, and wondered is this really happening? It all feels so surreal. I hope everything will be fine because that's all I want for everyone, for me...