Hi everyone, thanks for reading! :) Just plain bored at work..what to do!! Here goes the next part...sowwy will post the rest later. And the trees, white branches stretching out for pieces of love left by loners. But they don't look desperate. I didn't either. He sat next to me the next day again. I hated it. I had the nerve to excuse myself and walk towards the end of the bus. Poor guy. He didnt' do anything wrong. How can I be so heartless? It's winter. I dialed Suraj instead and woke him up. I laughed at something very trivial- I don't know if it irritated him, but I could notice Ramesh had his head high and alert, looking out of the window. He just got down from the bus and left. Tall and straight, his strides were attractive. Reminded me of Erik Bana in Munich. My job is boring. I wanted to bring out Rang De Basanti's Rebel in me. My job. I'd rather help deliver babies at a hospital. Oh! Delivering babies. Babies- soft, warm, wrapped in innocence- shrieking- they come out, sign of life- freshness. Youth. Joy. Laughter. Innocence again. Delivering babies is like lifting the cocoon- setting them free. Giving someone life is amazing. Suraj is proud that he helped. I wonder how he'd feel to give life- let it out- that someone growing inside your body, to let it breathe- sad thing that he is deprived of it- yet he feels he can protrude the natural growth cycle- change someone's life. Love was misunderstood may be? For affection? Sympathy? Care? Obvious reflex actions. He cares for me, and love must have seeped somewhere in between the layers of physical attraction and a natural human tendency to show affection for opposite sex. I remember the sweaters he had bought for me when we first met- blue and white. He didn't buy silver coated earrings- his gift was that he cared- it was cold, and warm clothes would supersede the fakeness of buying sexy summer dresses instead. And somewhere in between his pleasing humor and beaming confidence, my pride cuddled like a newborn- I wasn't embarrassed. I didn't hate him either. I feel like taking a stroll at Target. I don't want to see him, for some reason. Yet, I want to go there today. I dont want to hide feelings. I dont have feelings. I had. Lots of it. Suraj didn't want a share of it. He didn't like sugar, I forgot. He said it dilutes the taste of the substance. "So you like engineers?" After days of trying to hide away my face from him and his serene persistence in wanting to exchange a word or two with me, things changed. "Mechanical engineers? How can a sexist like you fight for feminism?" "I'm not a feminist. I can't tolerate injustice. If you suffer, I'll risk my life to come save you." "Really?" He gazed into my eyes for a while and smiled. My heart didn't stop. "A man- masculine. He doesn't care about your feminism. No man does." "I don't want him to care." "Oh! So you like to be challenged! Not loved." "I want to yearn for it, before I get any. I don't like things being given to me. And I want my man to be hungry. For love. Only a lion can counter a lioness in hunger." I said it with so much passion that he was taken aback. Without notice, my smile slipped off control. He laughs. I cannot hide what I just said- I wish I could grab what I just said and hide it somewhere. I giggle. Ravi was his name. Not a unique name to be utterly pleased. A lot many Ravis take the same bus everyday- nod a Hi yet look as strange as an abandoned gully of an ex-lover. One cold evening while we stood next to our doors chatting, he told me about his passion. "I like gazing at the stars." "I do too" I said, walking closer to the telescope. He fixed his telescope and gazed into the sky for some time- "That's the Orion nebula- see- its spread across the sky, it's a little blurry, but you can make out right?" It was beautiful. Simply amazing. Later I came back and downloaded images of Supernova- clear, bright, mixture of black and red space filled with small glitters- the stars filled my desktop like it filled a little girl's skirt with raspberries- I was that little girl happy with her discovery- I wanted to go run tell him what I found. For the first time, I wanted to talk to him, be with him. Lesbian dance with my Indonesian girl friend. And smoking out frustrations during residence parties, passion for drum beats, crave for things unusual- it was unlikely that Suraj and I'd pair off together. We were not arranged to meet- it was not love at first sight- it was a strange coincidence that we are even together today. I miss him, I do. But how long will thirst last? Drinking a glass of water will quench it all. Its not passion- its not yearning for something incomprehensible, its not a crave that will persist and even grow with time. I could twist and turn, stay awake whole night and think about ice cream, not him. But I'm going. I'm leaving on the 20th of February to be with Suraj for the rest of my life. To be his. To be continued..