Escape : When Love is Stronger Than War

Chapter 2 - The first date

Saturday morning, my alarm clock woke me up at 7:30. We had planned to meet at my place for 8:30, I had to make sure to be ready before Nithiin arrived. I quickly showered, dried and braided my hair. As I was getting ready, I received a morning text from him.

Good morning. :) Do you want to meet earlier? Don't eat if you do!

I texted him right away that I was ready, and he could come anytime. I decided to wait before eating, wondering what Nithiin had in mind. About 15 minutes later, I heard him knock on my front door. I went to greet him, happily noticing that he was carrying a big brown paper bag and two coffees. I was curious as to what he brought for us to eat.

We sat at the kitchen table and Nithiin took out donuts, bagels, Nutella and some bananas. "Bananas?" I asked, a little surprised to see the fruits in this unhealthy breakfast.

"Wait, let chef Nithiin Mohan show you his specialty."

I laughed as I saw him cut slices of the bananas and put them over the Nutella on the bagels. "Are you trying to turn this healthy?" I giggled, pointing to the bagel.

"Hey, don't make fun of me. Now dig in, you'll love it."

We first ate our bagels and then drank our coffees while having the donuts. We talked actively about the activities that we were going to do throughout the day. Nithiin had so many ideas of activities that I was starting to consider packing clothes for an extra day. He assured me that we had time to do everything. After our breakfast, we headed to the jeep to start our adventure.

I was pretending to be guiding Nithiin through the roads towards the Falls, which made him laugh a lot. He obviously knew where he was going while I had to check for every street on Google map.

"You missed a turn," I would say giggling and pointing in random directions.

"I did not!" he would answer, waving my arm off.

Our first stop was obviously the Falls, but I did not expect Nithiin to have bought tickets for the cruise ship that goes right next to them. We headed towards the ship and then, to my confusion, we put on raincoats and admired the falls as we got closer and closer to it. It took me a while to realize that it did not start raining but it was actually the Falls giving us this impression. I felt a little ridiculous and finally understood the need of the raincoats. It wasn't because of the weather.

Afterwards we went window shopping on the main street and chocolate tasting at a Hersey store. I was thrilled to discover this place. I kept going back in line to taste more chocolates. At one point, Nithiin started to give me out his pieces of chocolate too. It was a little past noon, so we decided to grab lunch somewhere and eat. Nithiin suggested that we eat at Burger King, which I agreed because he seemed to really want a burger. Once inside, he asked me what I was ordering.

"A salad."

His face was shocked. "You are eating a salad at a burger restaurant?" He asked. Then, realization kicked in. "Oh, you are a vegetarian! I didn't notice, I'm so sorry. You know they have veggie burgers now, right? But we can also go eat somewhere else."

I laughed and shook my head, "Trust me, I'm not much of a burger fan, but I am fine with their salad."

Nithiin disagreed, shaking his head. "No, milady. I took you to Niagara Falls so we can both enjoy. Let's go somewhere else more appealing to you." He grabbed my hand and half dragged me out of Burger King, as I tried to convince him to stay.

Once outside, Nithiin took out his phone and googled for an Indian restaurant. I felt truly thankful. He found one a few streets away. We decided to walk there. Once we reached the restaurant, I ordered myself a samosa and a vegetarian biryani. Nithiin, the meat eater apparently, got himself fish pakora with lamb seekh kebab. I must admit that his plate smelled delicious, however I would not want to taste it. On the other hand, Nithiin took a spoonful of my biryani. "Delicious!" he said. "I missed Indian food."