8. Wonderwall

“I’m surprised to see you here” he said. And I took an eternity to respond, since I was so lost in his gaze.

We spoke a little. We went to a café nearby since he insisted he get me a cup of coffee at least. And then we talked. We talked about random things, silly, old memories, the things we did together, amongst others. He then walked me home.

 

May 8, Saturday:

And I lay in bed, diary, like I am now, replaying those moments in my head, over and over, in slow-mo.

What am I supposed to make of that? All that’d happened? Does this mean anything at all? Although one thing did become clear. I was hopelessly, madly, completely in love with him. And if I don’t experience this with anyone, ever, it’s not love.

Well that was just day one.

May 9, Sunday:

After some days and a few lunches with Sameer, he called me. And this wasn’t our first conversation since that night. Did I mention the countless text messages we exchanged?

Well anyway, he called. He wanted to see me. And so did I. After the call ended and I put down the receiver, and the moment I did this, I felt a wash of emotions. Then I spent the next hour or so deciding what to wear.

So here’s where he wanted to meet me. Rita’s. And who the hell new that Rita’s would be an Ice Skating rink. I have no clue what made him think ice skating would be a good idea. And to make it worse, I’ve never been to an ice skating rink before, forget actually doing it. I was a nervous wreck as I put my shoes on. As for him, he’d reached before me and was already skating like a pro, like he were an Olympic figure skater or something.

I gingerly walked towards the rink, holding on to the sidebars for support. He smiled his gorgeous, heart-melting smile as he skated towards me. He smiled at me and then saw how nervous I was about this whole idea. He came closer and looked at me in the eyes. He took my palms in his, holding them firmly. He started skating backwards, still holding me. I lost my balance initially, but he didn’t let me fall. He held on. He kept skating, and me sort of skating along and we did this for, I can’t really remember how long, and throughout, he never took his eyes off me. Neither did I.

May 13, Thursday:

It’d been a week since we last met. I felt drawn towards him, if you know what I mean. It was like I was in love with him and this time, I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t want to move on. But I knew it had to be done.

We had met after that day at the rink for lunch. It was just lunch, nothing else. But then he was there with me, and he looked beyond gorgeous in his plaid shirt but as I walked in, he was on the one who said “You look beautiful as usual.”

It was a lunch. That’s all!

But no, that wasn’t all. There was so much more. With him, it was always more. More chatter, more laughter, more talking, more admiring, more adoring and eventually, more love. There was the lunch, then this movie which wasn’t bad, but we watched it because it was the only one playing. Then there was the book fair where he bought a cartload of books. After the book fair was coffee and he would have insisted on dinner and I would have said yes had it not been for what I said: “I need to leave before it’s too late. I have to meet this friend’s family tomorrow, quite early”. I mentioned Sameer. Yes. I did. And I smacked my head against the walls all night, later, regretting what I had done. He was upset, which wasn’t a surprise. But everything was going so well, I didn’t want to ruin it. But he had to know, how could I hide something like this? And anyway, what did I mean to him? It wasn’t like we were dating or anything. Sameer and I may not exactly be dating either, but then, he was a friend. And I chose to see him the next morning. There was a wedding in his family, and he’d invited me.