ola, remerciements! (........contd) Genuine or not it was pointless. Guys said if you had feet, you could have shoes aplenty. But my Cindrella heart was stuck on these magic pairs. My heart was irrational, it did not understand logic. Moving on was the easy way out but ler go I could not. So I was right outside the school-gate nervously waiting on her. She walked out and heart stopped. There was this immense feeling of emptiness that engulfed me to my core. I approached her, with sweaty palms and racing heart and a strange sense of unreality. "Listen,"I said. "I acted like a goofball." We walked on. She was at my side but I could not look at her. I knew "sorry" was said best when you looked at the person's eyes. Try as I might I could not face her. Looking at the passing cars, I mumbled, "I am sorry that I hurt you." She said nothing. I did not know what else I could say. Words were hard to come by. "I want to be your friend...talk with you..." She did not say a word. That night I could not sleep again. Once again, I promised myself that I would really, really forget her. But the next afternoon I was waiting for her agian more confused, more empty, more nervous, dogged in my aimless determination. I said,"I cannot sleep." I told her I had gone about her in the wrong way and now I realized my mistake. I told her what Rosie said to me about life, the answerless big questions of life. We walked in silence. The cars and the motorbikes passed by. The afternoon was cool and it looked like it would rain in the night. The other students walking by stared at me in confused amusement. I felt like I was walking through vacuum. "I just would like to talk to you," I said again. "You are talking to me," I heard her reply and could not believe my ears. She was not cold-hearted, I could tell. "I thought I was talking to myself. Great to know you were listening." ---------- mG.