Destined By The Waves

Closed Doors

Joy

We stood there in complete awe of each other when my mother came to us to bid goodbye. After she left, both Faith and I descended from the stage, hand in hand. As soon as we reached the last stair, somebody from the audience came running towards us and hugged Faith tightly.

Judging by the growing smile on Faith's face, I assumed her to be the friend she said was like her soul sister. Rosie, yes, that's what she had called her. Before I could introduce myself to her, a crowd of familiar, happy faces rushed towards me and to my utter surprise, lifted me off the ground, on to their shoulders. My guys.

My football buddies.

I felt ecstatic to see them again, to finally be with them again. I wanted to ask them so many things.. how did the final match against St Louis go, who won, who played instead of me... but I couldn't bring myself to say anything, because both my mind and my eyes were still fixated on her.

Now it's been a few minutes since I am being tossed around, and Faith is still standing beside who I guess is Rosie, and she's looking at me amusedly, as if enjoying the sight of me being shuffled around from one shoulder to another. When the guys finally decide to put me down, I am pulled into a bone crushing embrace by Ace. He breaks the hug after a few moments, and immediately slaps my shoulder with force.

"Arrgh! What's wrong bro?!", I ask him, finally looking away from Faith, towards Ace.

He must have caught me staring at her all this while, because he looks at me with a mischievous smirk playing on his lips.

"Bro, we are meeting after so many days! We just discovered that you are alive. We are here celebrating your return and you don't even have a minute to look at our faces?," he asks feigning hurt, but I know him too well to understand, that he has finally got an opportunity to pull my leg after all these years of me doing it to him.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ace!," I try to scold him, not knowing how to deal with this situation. I have never been at the receiving end of such leg pulling and embarrassment, I can't think of a way to shut him up without sounding either rude or stupid.

"Come on dude, I want to know everything. We have so much to catch up on. Come to the locker room with me, our practice match starts in an hour, we can catch up till then," he says and starts pulling me towards locker room.

My eyes wander back towards Faith, who is now looking at me longingly. She nods and fakes a sweet smile at me, but it fails to hide her sadness in letting me go without actually meeting her nicely and talking to her after so many days.

I mouth a sorry to her, and signal at my watch after showing her my index finger.

Just one more hour sweetheart, one more hour till I finally talk to you again. Till I finally hold you in my arms again.

____

Faith

It's been an hour since Joy's friends literally dragged him away from me towards the locker room. He didn't look least bit excited to go with them. As much as I wanted to hug him tightly and never let him go away again, I couldn't stop him from catching up with his friends. Especially when Joy had told me already, how Ace is the brother he always wished he had. He is practically the only person he truly considers family. How could I stop him from meeting his true family after so many days of separation?!

So, I decided to wait for him. I didn't even feel like attending my classes today. I have already missed so many of them, so what difference would one more day make? Anyway I wouldn't have been able to concentrate, because my mind is still elsewhere.