Chapter 4: When Love brought us Together

It had been a week since I had last seen Shashank. I had asked him to find me, and left the decision of my life to the universe. I had constantly wished to meet the strange man again. In fact, the thought had dominated my mind so much, there was barely anything else I thought about. If the universe still didn't get it, it had to be completely deaf, I knew.

As I walked to British Council, from the metro station, I was disappointed. I had gone to the ice-cream parlour hoping to see him there, everyday in the week gone by and yet, nothing.

In my boring and insipid life, there was a flavour of anticipation and longing. I wanted something, for a change.

What if I had turned down fate when I let him go last time? What if he could not find me? What if he had decided not to find me ...? What if....what if....what if I never saw him again?

The thought was killing me.

I was a few minutes early for my class. I decided to use the time to go to the library and fetch a book for myself.

I picked up each book and thought, "would he still have noticed me if I had held this book instead of the one that led to our first fateful meet?"

Obsessed that I was, constantly thinking about him, I berated myself and started looking for a book to read. I picked up the latest book by Animesh Tripathi, and started to browse through the pages. I hadn't read the first book, so the sequel didn't matter, I thought. I looked up to grab another book.
I looked down into the book quickly.

Did I just see him? I was sure I was hallucinating now. I should look up again, just to check, you know.

And there he was, standing with a copy of "To kill a mocking bird", another one of my favorite books.

In that moment, words seemed irrelevant. When we looked at each other, we knew. We had been looking for each other all week. And all my thoughts disappeared.

I missed my class that day and sat there discussing books with him until we were asked to stay quiet(It was a library, almost didn't seem to notice that!)

We left and sat at a restaurant for a long time. It was only when my phone rang, that I got my senses back.
It was time for me to leave. We said our goodbyes but, this time we had exchanged contact numbers.
We were going to keep in touch. We could not afford not to.

I had always loved books, but now I loved my love for books for it was this love for books that had fixed our meeting this time.