A Dark Love ✓

Chapter One

It's 8:30 p.m. Where are you? Were you simply fooling around when you asked me to come? I hope 'no' because if that is the case then I'm telling you, I won't be able to resist it, no matter what! So better show up right now, mister!

I've got on my best dress and my best footwear that I was so thoughtful to bring along with me for this trip, back from home and you are acting like you don't care?

I know, I know, I simply know that you are somewhere here and there, hiding to give me a surprise the next moment because isn't that what you said you would do?

"Shree, be right there, at the hotel gate. Sharp at 8:15. I have a surprise for you."

Oh, how mesmerizing you were at that moment. But where are you now? Don't you wish to hypnotize me once again, huh?

Standing there at the hotel gate, I look around once again for any sign of him. But none. The only human being as far as my eyes can see is the security guard, who, by the way, is lost in his own dreamland. So much for being the night guard, eh?

I glance at my watch for what feels like the hundredth time during the night.

8:35 p.m. Alright, so if he doesn't arrive in the next ten minutes, I am marching straight off this point.

8:40 p.m. This is ridiculous! What guy takes so long to arrive?

8:45 p.m. Where are you?

8:50 p.m. Alright, it's been more than half an hour, I am leaving. Leaving you to f***, you Mr. Know It All! The line crosses my mind before I can un-cross it. My anger obviously, taking the better of me.

I glance around one last time hoping to see him somewhere around. But hard luck, Shree!

Finally, with nothing else to do and with no better option as to how to spend the night, I decide to go to the canteen, then. Just to catch up with the others and well, to let go of this sadness that I'm feeling.

Akshat will be so pissed off, I silently sighed. He had already asked me not to go, or to at least accept his company until I was in safe hands. But foolish me declined. And here I am, all alone now.

Hearing this incident will definitely infuriate him. But oh, I so need him right now. How I wish he was here!

A moment later, though, another voice speaks in my head. Should I even go to the canteen?What will I answer when they'll ask me why am I not with my "date" (mind the double-quotes) ? Won't they laugh at me if I tell them the truth? Won't Shitika stare at me with those big brown eyes of hers? And what if Vikara is there, too? Won't I become the biggest joke ever, then?

After the passing of many such debates through my mind, I finally decline the idea of going to the canteen and go for my room, or probably our room--the one that I share with five other girls, instead.

In order to be in the room as quickly as I can, I rummage through my purse for its key as I walk back into the hotel gates. However, only a second later does another realization occur. I don't have the key to my room! I probably must have left it on the table itself, then. The other keys are with their respective owners -- Vikara, Shitika, Divya, Rishika and Coleen.

Why, oh why, do I always have to be so careless? Why? Why, Shree, why? Now I am restrained to go to the canteen and probably make a big joke out of myself in front of everyone. Not to forget that I would have to spend another night in a one mile radius of Vikara and her own personal flatterers, because isn't everyone hanging out at the same place. Perfect! Just the thing that I "wanted" at the moment!