31. Just a Crush

An unknown surge in my heartbeat, my foot frequency, my very soul. I was feeling adrenaline, or may be it’s some variation of adrenaline.

He was already there, beaming at the sight of me. We walked in the canteen helped ourselves with some snacks. Most of the time we had been silent with mmmms and aaaas. Each one trying to talk something but deciding otherwise immediatelty.

He now stopped talking market in the fear of driving me away out of boredom. I could see he was as bad as myself in such talks. Krishna and his mashes flashed me for a second.

“Are you from a boys school?”

“No, only till primary school, later I shifted to a co-ed why?”

“Just like that, had you any girl friends at school”

“Hell no..”

“Not that I mean, did you have friends who are girls?”

“No I seldom spoke with girls”

“Oh why?”

“No specific reason, I don’t really like it”

‘it’ what does that ‘it’ refer to. I couldn’t figure out, for some reason I dismissed the idea of asking him. I wanted to ask him, ‘so you like talking to me’ again my internal censor board cut it out.

Almost an hour passed. We have spoke very less, less than 1/100th of what Shantanu would have spoke in the same time about American economy or I would have about data structures or algorithms in which I am now perceived ‘nerdy’ in our hostel.

I walked back with a feeling of melancholy missing him, it’s a strange feel something like missing mom and home to hostel but this is different. He is less than a mile away yet it felt like opposite poles, meeting him again is just less than a day away yet.

I entered hostel appeased. As soon as I entered my room Anu, Sangi and Divya jumped, “Hey what happened?”

“Why did he call you?”

“what were you doing all this time?”

“Did he propose you?”

“Did he say you look gorgeous?”

Lots more..

“Girls give me a break..”, my voice rang around for a while, followed by seconds of silence.

“I walked into the canteen he was already there..”, I narrated the full story.

Divya, “So you have feelings for him?”

“Hell no, he is just a friend”, I tried to look honest.

“Oh so you decorate yourself heavily to meet a friend!”, Sangi.

“Hey that’s usual make up”, I tried to manage.

“Ok yaar if you don’t wanna tell us fine, we will wait until you want to..”, Anu in a deploring tone.

“Hey it’s not that, but, may be he is just a crush, I mean there is nothing serious”

“So you have feelings for him”

“I said it’s just a crush”

“Crush certainly is a feeling, isn’t it?”

“Whatever, If something worth telling you happens I will for sure tell you, now lets go for dinner”