Black and White

Chapter 8

There is this one particular night that I remember the most. It ranks right up with the happiest days of my life and I look back at it with the fondness that I ascribe to few days, places and people. We had gone out for a date and on our way back home, we were sitting in an embrace where my head was on his chest. I did not realize but while he continued talking, I fell asleep. It is very easy for me to fall asleep in a moving car, especially if there is some music playing so I am not even surprised when I look back to this.

Do you know that feeling that you have when you have entered into home territory and even though you are asleep, you have a sense of your surroundings? I think I was in that state where I was slightly conscious of where we were, but I had my eyes closed as I snuggled in closer feeling very comfortable.

I remember him holding my head between his palms and pressing it tightly to his chest for a few seconds and then letting me go. He did that more than once and I could not understand why was he doing it but I let him do it without any complaints or maybe I was just not fully awake.

When he did it for the third time, I finally understood that wherever there were speed bumps, he would hold my head close to his chest, lest I wake up. At the point, I loved him more than I knew. I think it was the first time I realized how I had begun to fall in love with him.

When we reached our hostels, he gently shook me awake and neither of us mentioned anything as we started walking. The night had become darker and cooler, and there were few people on the street. When I started rubbing my arms because of the cold, he took off his sweater (or got me another one – I seem to forget) and because we had been walking for long, I also began to feel hungry. I took him up on the his offer of getting oranges from his room that he had bought earlier that evening on the condition that he would peel it for me because I hated doing that.

So in the middle of the night, under one of the hostels, we sat talking, laughing.He peeled oranges for me, painstakingly removing the white bits as he fed it to me and I grinned in delight. I don't remember how but we eventually began a competition who would throw the seeds of the oranges from the mouth, the farthest. We laughed, jeered and cheered each other as we finished the oranges and talked well into the night, while at the back of my head, all I could think was that I was in love with him.