LOVE OR FRIENDSHIP?

Back To School

Salman's POV

The next day

This was the last day we are going to spend at Nuwara Eliya. I woke up early in the morning and had breakfast at the cafeteria in the hotel which we stayed and started loading our baggage back to my dad's car with the help of a staff at the hotel. Just after I was done with it I turned to head back to the room to inform my family that I've finished loading the luggage, my eyes met with the hijabi (a Muslim girl who covers her head with a hijab) whom I've met last night. I took a step back in surprise to meet Aliza again to which she giggled.

"You little woman! What are you doing here?" I asked smiling.

"I just came to my vehicle and sighted you" she said pointing to a grey car which is parked next to ours.

"Which means you too were in this hotel?"

"Yep. We were in a room in the last building"

"Great! but I'm disappointed that I didn't know about this before and we had met when it's time to depart"

"Neither did I know you were here"

Just as she finished her sentence, the rest of my trip mates came down heading towards the car. I quickly bid my farewell to Aliza before my cousins see me talking to her all alone as she went back to her car, but my snoopy cousins caught me red handed and gave me uncanny glares. I was thankful that our parents were there which made them shut their mouths without teasing me.

We got into our vehicles bidding farewell to the hotel we stayed and to the town as well, as we went to a dairy farm a little away from the town. We observed different types of animals like cattle, hens etc., how they produce milk and manufacture curd, yogurt and so on.  Later we had fresh milk and yogurt in the factory there.

On our way, we visited so many other beautiful places and halted in a calm area to have the lunch. After lunch we headed to my dad's elder sister's place which was at Kandy. She had invited us to have dinner. By the time we reached there after visiting a lot of places, it was almost night, so we had dinner. She offered her house for us to spend the night and pleaded us to stay at her place tonight.

I happily spent the night here because I had cousin brothers of my age and elder. My aunt has three sons and a daughter. I met them after quite a long time and we have a lot to speak. The parents took the rooms at the house to sleep and the young crowd did not like being separated. Since all of us wanted to sleep together, we chose the hall and laid mattresses there for us to sleep. But most of the time we spent speaking, cracking jokes and playing which made us sleep only after dawn. It's a huge hall, so we moved the sofas forming a small partition in the middle wherein the girls slept in one side and we guys took the other side. We moved all the kids to a corner and they slept immediately because they were tired. Myself, three of the cousin brothers and five of the cousin sisters enjoyed the night staying awake.

Waking up in the morning was one of the difficult things to do after staying up all night. We wanted to sleep more but we weren't allowed because we had to go back home which was a long journey for around eight hours. So many times our parents woke us but we turned away and slept again. Finally my younger aunt came with a jar of water and splashed on our faces which made us jolt up sitting.

I hate when someone does that and I hate to sleep afterwards so I went to the washroom, brushed my teeth, had bath and came out when I found some of the cousins still sleeping as if though water didn't splash on then, but when I went close to them I found them sleeping on wet pillows. I wonder how can they do that. I shook them hardly hoping they would wake up and went downstairs to have breakfast.