Let's Fall in Love (Short Stories)

Touch and timing(2)

HIM

She was different. Not strawberries like most of the girls, but smelt different...The good different...no; the best different. The smell of after rain soil, which are liked by many but you always refer to it as the smell of the soil and the smell is uncomparable, you won't find it anywhere else. She smelt something different. A smell which can make me addicted to it and is unique. Definitely it was her smell and not some body bath.

She looked so cute when she was all red. Her lips....were just indescribable.

No girl has ever stayed in my mind for so long but this stranger, has been haunting me the entire day and night. The feelings replay in my head again and again and each time I remember her standing all alone in lift with a short smile on her face. 

Although I was instantly shoved inside I clearly remember her lock of hair falling on her left cheek when I was pushed. I remember how she stared at me when I tucked the lock behind her ear. The confusion and innocence in her eyes....

I want this day to happen everyday, over and over again I won't mind a bit reliving it once again every time. Now I will be damned if I don't know the name of the stranger I accidently kissed.

The next day I am in college at the entrance but hidden behind a pillar waiting for the mysterious girl to show herself. The clock struck 10 and there she was, looking here and there. Probably trying to escape me, but she won't.

I see her standing before the lift of yesterday and when it opened she quickly got in. Trapped!

I follow her inside and the look on her face is priceless. She frowns and instantly her cheeks turn red. Gotcha!

"Hey!" I give my charming smile.

No reply.

Well this is what I had expected. She looks different than any other girl. Any other girl would coyly smile at me and be charmed. She isn't charmed but she is a charmer. She has long eyelashes, beautiful lips,reaches upto my shoulders and she dresses simply. No skirts or fancy bags but a simple side purse and a white top and jeans.

More people enter the elevator and I stand beside her. She hesitates slightly but her expression remains blank as usual.

Some people get out of the lift and taking the advantage of the hustel I lean into her ear and whisper, "You know you were there in my dream." I felt her shoulders rise a bit but she didn't even look at me.

I was expecting a glare at least.

The lift stops at 6th floor and more people get out.

"You know, you were doing the same thing at yesterd...."

"Uncle 7th floor ..please." She interrupted me and I smiled. Finally she atleast heard me.

On the 7th floor she got out and didn't even spare a glance back at me when I bid her farewell. It will be fun hanging around the lift more often.

The next day I was there once again. I greeted her once again and she didn't seem too agitated about my presence. Just the light hearted teasing to which she pretended not to get affected took place. The same routine for the next few days too.

Well after a week I think its become a routine, when we enter the lift at the same time and stand at the end side by side. Every time I am the one to greet her first and remind her of our accidental kiss in a subtle way just to be amused by the fact that she tenses up at the mention of the incident each time.

However something has actually changed after one week. She no more tenses around the mention of the matter, instead looks at the floor and smiles. Initially I was speechless, I panicked of what smart move to take next? But when I saw her smile, I think I was really left speechless then. I think that was the time panic actually hit me, when I realized that I was rendered speechless by a mere smile.

I think I had lost my mind at that moment because I clearly remember my actions to her smile. I looked at her smile and like a creep actually stared at her until her eyes met mine. Then I looked straight ahead. I was having a mental war with myself. 

One side of me wanted to grab her and kiss that angel like smile off her face for it played devilish ideas in my mind and the other side of me was utterly confused of my thoughts.

I took the weekend off from her thoughts. Only thinking of her while in shower, while having meals , before sleeping and in my dreams, that's all.

I was late on the Monday. Surprisingly I saw her letting go the lift even when she could adjust herself in there.

"I see you missed your lift?" I mocked, at least I tried but I don't know how much successful I was, because I was temporarily distracted by her exposed neckline.

"You are late today." Her words weren't like chiding me, not like how girlfriends do, she wasn't pissed off. There wasn't any disappointment in them like my father, No complain in them. Surprisingly there wasn't any worry in them too, like a friend. They were just words. Honest and simply stating the fact. But I could feel something lingering in the words, the way she said it,looking directly into my eyes in a soft tone.

"The lift is her, lets go." She said and then it hit me. She didn't enter the lift because I was late. She was waiting for me. Somehow this thought had this weird affect on me. My heart was beating faster and my eyes trailed after as we entered the lift.

So we have come to some ambiguous kind of relationship where in we only meet everyday in the same lift and talk there. In the evening when I see her in one of the class I wait around the lift her friends always use. She comes there with her friends and bidding them goodbye she walks towards 'our' lift. Then we talk there.

With time our general talks also seem important to me, even the silence is important. The day I don't meet her in the morning, my day is the worst. One day I didn't meet her and some girl was all over me the entire day. When I told her this thing the next day she just laughed and asked me that shouldn't have I been happy about it?

Honestly I would have been, but somehow I wasn't. Instead I was pissed off by the girl and the fact that I didn't see her in the morning and more pissed off when I heard what she had expected of me. But I could answer her that time because I myself didn't know why suddenly I was pissed off my a girl crazy after me.

Something had changed. Time had changed things, changed her who was warming upto me, changed me who was always dotingly waiting for noon when she came to college and for 5 pm in the evening.