CHAPTER 13

The year that followed I returned to school as a fourth-year student happy and contented that I had pulled off my lower certificate examination. I was still basking in joy when I noticed that Nick had begun to take a little interest in me.

It started with a casual "Hello, how are you?" when I ran into him one night at the dining hall entrance. After dinner, he came over to my table and congratulated me for having passed my exams. We then walked back together to the dormitories, talking about inconsequential, silly things. I didn't really mind, in fact I was rather euphoric. Yes! Nick was walking and talking with me!

From that night, he would wait to walk with me after dinner, and I was deliriously ecstatic. Nicky, as I began to call him, seemed to have fallen for me. Oh joy, oh rapture!

Adrian now began to fade into the background.

One long weekend, the school was almost deserted as the majority of the students went home to their families. As usual, I had to forfeit the opportunity to reunite with my own family because of the distance between home and school.

To my delight, Nicky too decided to stay back as he had a lot of catching up to do, plus some assignments that he had to finish. He suggested that I move into his room, and we spent the entire four-day weekend within a carefully worked out routine. We played badminton or went jogging in the morning, and pored over books and school work in the afternoon and evening. Late night we cuddled up in bed, whispering sweet nothings to each other.

Our first time together that weekend was a dismal affair. I was a nervous wreck, and my performance was timid and guarded. Nicky was very understanding about it all. He told me that he loved me, and that he had waited for a year for that moment to happen. "Just relax, and everything would be all right," he assured me.

He was right. The rest of the weekend was absolutely perfect. We could not seem to get enough of each other, wallowing in sinful bliss, and I avoided thinking about Monday when things would return to normal.