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‘I can’t believe we are meeting after 6 years,’ her face broke into a large grin as she spoke.

He nodded his head, smiling, and continued staring at her glowing face.

‘I always imagined meeting you, and every time, I thought about it, I felt it would be the way it is now,’ he replied softly and nervously, his eyes afraid to gaze at her face and finally settled on her smooth hair.

The damp monsoon wind tried blowing away everything, and her flowing hair resembled the dark clouds floating above her head.  Her hair too was flying around, but she did not pull them back.

He now stared at the ground, but her eyes remained fixed on his face. She probably wanted to hear more.

‘I don’t understand,’ she finally broke the awkward silence.  His face and eyes, smiling nervously, now gazed at her feet.

The request forced him to look up. The smile on his face disappeared for a fleeting moment, as their eyes now stared at each other; every memory suddenly came rushing back during that quick gaze, the face reflecting every emotion in a flicker, and she also felt a little overwhelmed with emotions, he tried to hide his feeling, but the eyes expressed them as clearly as they could.

‘I am still waiting,’ she spoke again, the tone turning a little serious this time.

His puzzled eyes looked at her slim fingers; bright colour adorned the long, beautiful nails.  Suddenly, realizing he was asked something, he quickly recollected the question in his mind, but instead of answering it, continued staring blankly behind her for a moment as if in a trance before his lips finally moved.

‘Since the day we first met in 9th standard.’ 

‘Even though you left the school in the middle, there has not been a single day when I didn’t think and imagined meeting you again,’ he spoke, with a sudden burst of assertiveness.

Her face broke into a smile, the slow steps moved closer towards him, the hand extended to hold on to his, which he now slowly retrieved from his pocket, Even the relatively cold environment of a windy, rainy day, couldn’t take away the warmth of her touch as he suddenly felt current passing through him.

He shrieked and trembled as the daydream suddenly got over.

She was still waiting for the answer. 

He was speaking, but in his mind, not a single word escaped his mouth in reality.

‘We will meet again,’ she suddenly replied in a hurry, as he resolved to tell her everything the next time.

‘I now study at KIM,’ she shouted while boarding the college bus, which got delayed by a few minutes as she waited for him to speak, while he was in a temporary stupor.

His face suddenly regained the ever-permanent nervous smile again.

‘Maybe I will get another chance to speak my heart out,’ he thought.  She looked back at him, from the bus window, puzzled, on why he was still standing on the busy main road, and smiling like a maniac.

The thought on his mind was to go to her college the same evening while the smile on his face brought about an even larger grin on hers, as she too looked forward to meeting him again.