The Other Me

Chapter Ten

Chapter 10

“I cannot believe I let you talk me into this,” grumbled Rosaline, in her usual whine. We were marching to Rafi’s house the following day as planned. She was dressed up in her lovely Ronny costume again, as we had gathered from experience that this disguise was quite successful. No wonder she was so pissed off now.

It took a lot of persuading to convince Rosaline that it was a good idea to include Rafi on this. For some reason, she was extremely against my suggestion. She kept making up excuses; claiming that Rafi wouldn’t believe us and that he wouldn’t be able to handle the truth.

I regrettably reminded her that she had indeed; manage to convince me and I that was able to handle it (eventually), but I was sure that Rafi was more open minded, so that meant that telling him should be a doddle.

After a while, Rosaline did seem to warm up to the idea, but she still wasn’t comfortable with it. Or maybe she just wasn’t happy because for once; we were doing things my way. Knowing Rosaline, it was probably the latter. But by the way she was acting; anyone would have thought that she didn’t really give a toss about being stuck in the wrong place in time. Surely she would be willing to try anything to get back? 

“Think about it,” I told her patiently. “He is your only chance! He made the damn thing, he can fix it. Even though he hasn’t made it yet and he probably knows nothing about it, he will work it out I’m sure. Anyway he’s a smart guy.” I can feel my cheeks go red slightly. What was wrong with me lately? Since the day before, anytime Rafi’s name was ever mentioned, I could feel myself blush crazily. Unfortunately, this time Rosaline noticed.

“Oooooh someone has a crush!”

“Oooooh someone has a fiancé!” I shot back.

“Shut up.” Rosaline punched me playfully.

It was good thing that Rafi and I were pretty muchfriends now. The afternoon before, I struck up conversation quickly, much to Rafi’s satisfaction I must admit. Soon we were chatting happily and I had learnt a lot about him. His parents are Indian, he was born in India and had lived there for two years until he moved to Great Britain. He was seventeen like me, turning eighteen next month and for as long as he could remember, he had been interested in science. For the past ten years, he had invented many many things. He had won numerous prizes in competitions and apparently his mother had even tried to nominate him for a Nobel prize; but he never really liked to show off his work.

“I don’t really like attention,” Rafi had admitted to me. “And I don’t want money; well only to buy tools and things really. I just… love staying in my room inventing. I’m not interested in anything else. One day, I will sell my machines. But for now I like things the way they are,” Rafi shrugged happily.

I had nodded in agreement, secretly feeling sorry for him, because I was about to unload a bombshell on him, which will no doubt completely obliterate his normal, happy life as it did to mine. Whether he would be happy about it or not, I wasn’t sure.

We carried on talking for hours. I found that he really was a nice, funny, interesting guy and even though I was supposedly doing this to get on his good side, I actually really liked spending time with him. I could see exactly why we will still be friends in the future.

Between talking, for a small periods of time, both Rafi and I sat in silence. But it wasn’t an unpleasant silence. On the contrary, it felt very good.  Especially when Rafi’s eyes kept sweeping softly onto mine and when he smiled at me; revealing all his perfect and even teeth. Every time this happened, my heart flipped and I could feel my blood pressure soaring. I had to keep reminding myself not to get too carried away. Remember, there are a lot more important things to be worrying about right now. And anyway, you are going to love someone else and they’ll be your fiancé, I had thought rather sadly.