AS YOU MELT THIS HEART OF STONE

A WOMAN I USED TO KNOW

"Once we were lovers, just lovers we were
Oh, what a life.
Once we were dreamers, just dreamers we were
Oh, you and I.

Now I see you're just somebody
Who wastes all my time and money

What a lie, you and I..."

                                     ~ Backstreet Boys
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"Ummm.... Hello, Ellington, may I talk to you for a moment?"

A soft female voice stopped me as I was leaving at the end of the class.

Looking at the source of the voice, I found a black haired petite girl with a very shy smile and hesitant look.

She was in the same class with me..... Rihanna or Ravina or...... well, something like that.

Let me make something clear here. I was never a very friendly person or someone well versed in small talk, especially with nonsense people. And while I'm not a misogynist, in my experience I've seen that most of the time a pretty woman asks to talk for a moment, it is because she'll simper and try to get her hands all over me the very next moment.

Hang on a second!

Did I just admit that she was pretty?!

"Yeah, lad, you did. She is very pretty indeed."

Yes, you guessed right. It was my ever present inner voice.

I frowned slightly at the observation which made the girl hesitate even more. She clutched the books and files across her chest more tightly and mumbled, "Sorry... Ummm... maybe it's not a good time to talk to you. I'll go then... Umm... Bye."

As she turned to leave, I heard my voice saying, "Wait. Why did you want to talk?"

She turned back towards me, a bit surprised and said, "Well, I couldn't attend classes for last two weeks. My mother was ill. I took the class notes from Terri, but, well, she couldn't help me understand the concepts clearly. So.... I was thinking that... well, I know you don't talk to girls much... actually you don't talk to anyone much...but....I was thinking..."

"Cut it short. I don't have all the day."

"Oh... Sorry... I-I was blabbering again... I just wanted to ask that if you would help me understand those classes."

I was taken by surprise for a fraction of second before I recovered myself from that.

Was this the new tactics for girls to try to get close to me?

Was she doing this with some ulterior motive or was she actually asking for help to understand the subject?

I looked at her properly at that.

Her face was downcast and there were faint red patches on the tips of her ears... She was blushing...

Was she actually that shy and innocent as she looked?

I don't know what took hold of me, maybe it was the fact that she was different from any other women I've ever met or she kept her hands to herself, wasn't flirting with me or just because somewhere deep down in my brain some strange chemical reaction called "attraction" was going on for the first time in my life...

I honestly don't know.

It could be any one or combination of above mentioned reasons that I simply said,