The First Encounter

Creative Writing Competition 2012 India
CODE	363
SETTING	College Canteen OR Restaurant
OBJECT	Cell Phone
THEME	True Love Triumphs

Short Story Love – The First Encounter

The first time I saw him was at the college canteen. And then it hit me, deep in the pits of my stomach. A warm fluttery feeling in the heart down to the recesses of every cell in my body.It was not mere exaggeration.It was every bit the feeling you get when you are crazy about someone. Clinched as it sounds,I knew I was crazy about him the very first time I saw him.It was the first week of my freshman year in College.I couldn’t help but smile as I realized that I had found my first college crush.

“What the hell are you staring at?”, my friend nudged me. Startled,I came back to my senses.

“Nothing, just eyeing the cute guy over there”,

I pointed to him seated with two of his friends,at the table opposite to us. He was smiling now and his features were akin to Adonis.

“The one with the blue shirt?”,she asked.I nodded my head in agreement

“Yep,he’s a looker all right but the other two……”she trailed off.

“Yeah ,I get your point”,I chuckled.

They quite lacked in the looks department.

“We better get going. Break’s going to get over!”,Maya said as she stood up.

“Oh,great”, I said with disappointment at the thought of leaving him there.

“Come on, Rita.We better not get scolded in the first week itself”,

she said as we hurried out of the canteen and got near the engineering campus of our college. Both the arts and engineering campuses were connected in our college, as the arts college was a sister concern of the same institution.We paced across the hallway to the first year IT department in our block and got in,just in time for class.It was EG period but all I could think of was the blue shirt guy and his cute smile. Suddenly our teacher went out of the class  and came back. But this time,there was another student with him. I gasped in wonder. It was the blue shirt guy. I could see how tall he was now,which I couldn’t earlier at the canteen. He was introduced as an additional entry to our class by the teacher.His name was Mayank. The teacher made a motion for him to sit.

As he went to an empty seat in the last row of the boy’s seat, I could hear many girls secretly hi-fi each other in their heads, because a looker had entered our class. I sighed. I knew, I never had a chance with him, considering I was only average -looking. College was all about hooking up with hot people-guys or girls or so it seemed. I realized in the first week itself that all dreams conjured up of a happy college life after slogging in school was false, at least when it comes to an engineering college.

It required diligent work,the kind one must do in 10th and 12th of school and slowly me and my fellow mates had gotten used to it..As I looked at where he sat,his head turned towards me and our eyes met for a split second.My heart leapt and I turned my head back to the board immediately.That incident replayed it itself two to three times in the next week,so I stopped looking at his side at all.Most of the girls now knew I had a big crush on him.Most of them already had boyfriends , so one really opposed me having a crush on him.

My route was pretty clear. Maya even promised to help me out. But anyway my intention was not to get in a relationship with him. Hell, it was just a simple crush.Then one day, I got assigned to partner up with him during a computer lab session. I couldn’t believe it. The opportunity that I had been waiting for was finally granted to me. I wondered if he secretly knew that I liked him. In the weeks that he had entered our class, I observed that he was not much of a talker.He attended to his work mostly and left the class.

“Can both of you scan some documents for me?.I will give time for you both to do the lab later.”, the lab professor asked us, as Mayank came closer.We nodded our heads in unison. And that’s how I got to have my first conversation with Mayank.

“You know to scan the documents right?”,he asked in a bored tone.

“Yeah”,I nodded my head.

HE JUST TALKED TO ME.My mental voice shrieked. I ignored its childishness in spite of the joy I felt.

“Good,so you do it” he said as he took out his cellphone.

“Need to text my girlfriend”,he added.

Though, I already knew I never had a chance with him, it was a big blow. Not only did he have a girlfriend, but he was also bossy and domineering, I found. The Mayank crazy balloon I had created in my head, deflated. I couldn’t even believe that I had had a crush on this blockhead. So while I scanned the documents in anger, he whistled to himself. I fumed in anger.

“Hey, you can scan one or two you know?”,I said to him.

“Can’t you even scan some documents for me, when you stare at me all the time?”,he snickered.

“No I don’t”,I fumed.

“Oh please, the whole  class knows you have a big thing for me!”,he said arrogantly.

My face flushed.”Well not anymore and if you aren’t doing anything, I am gonna go tell the professor”,I retorted.

“Fine. A hard nut aren’t you?”,he said annoyed and we finished scanning the documents.

I decided I would hate him from then on. I stopped raving about him to Maya. And within a matter of time, the topic of me being Mayank-crazy had died down in the class.Two years passed. And with good luck, I never got to partner up with him later on. He made up some good friends in girls and boys and later on was christened the playboy type . Mayank was also a  good learner. So was I, but not upto his mark.Yet I couldn’t still hate him.There was something about him that always made me feel different.Though I had many friends in boys, I never felt the way with them the way I felt with Mayank. And I hated it. I would just ignore it and meet my dream guy, I thought. Sometimes I would catch him staring at me .Why the hell was that guy taunting me when he already had a girlfriend?

In the third year, all of us became busy with our studies so I had no time to think of Mayank. Together me and Maya (my best friend) finished it. Finally,the fourth year of our college was also done and all of us got placed in companies. Mayank got placed in Infosys. Maya and I got placed in TCS.

Last day arrived. We all bade tearful farewells to each other.I said goodbye to everyone except Mayank. Crush or no crush he had no right to insult me back like that in first year, considering how well he behaved with the other girls. Maya and I promised to keep in touch. And as I hurried back to the bus stop to get home, I heard a voice,

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”.

Knowing very well who that voice was, I turned and replied curtly,”No I don’t”.

Today, he was in a black shirt and blue jeans.

“I love you”, his voice choked with emotion.

” Say what?”, I glared at him as if he had lost his mind.

This time I was looking at a different person.His eyes were so gentle.

“You were my childhood crush from school, but you never noticed me. I used to be in the same van as yours when we were  10 years old and when I saw you here, I was totally surprised. I was just annoyed that you hadn’t noticed me back even once then, so I put on that whole fake arrogant-act.”

“Then when didn’t you say that earlier?”, was all I could muster up in total shock.

He was right. I never used to pay much attention to my van mates when I was in school. I had missed noticing him in those years.

“Simply, I was just seeing if you would still like me, even when I acted like that, which you still did”.

“No I don’t”, I said in anger.

“You were such a dumba*s then, and still a dumba*s now”, he playfully said and hugged me.

And thus began our love story…

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