Chapter 4


The setting sun cast a warm glow upon my surrounding bathing everything around me in a soft golden halo. I silently walked through the bustling streets, a coffee in hand, heading to my hotel.

Rome is a beautiful city. Cradle to one of the earliest civilizations of all time, it reeks of history and ancient culture. The streets smell of old ink as if they were only supposed to be seen in aged storybooks. Yet in all those dated buildings you could still feel warmth seeping into your soul with each step you take.

Yesterday night when I came to my hotel, I noticed a park near it. I walked towards that park, found a bench, placed my belongings there, and sat down to sip my coffee. The park was relatively busier as many people had come out during the evening to enjoy. Old couples were walking, little kids playing, and some teenagers going out with their friends.

I let the chaos slowly dilute my presence in the park and let my inconspicuous existence bring me serenity. The cold evening wind along with the strong coffee cured my persistent headache little by little. As my head cleared of pain, the happenings of the past few days started to seep in.

I had just completed four years of my carrier as a diplomat. My first posting had been in Abu Dhabi as it was a place of my choice. I had expected to continue my service there for another year. But due to some unknown reason, there was a sudden shuffling of people in my department and many people were recalled back to my home country. And then there were people like me who were reposted immediately to another location without proper preparation beforehand. It was so sudden that I did not get a chance to prepare or say goodbye to my family. Moments like this make me think if choosing this career option was a good thing.

Usually, when we are allotted to new countries we are provided with accommodation and transport upon immediate arrival. But due to the suddenness of this posting, I was left without accommodation for another three days.

It was not a big deal but it caused me quite the hassle to adjust to a new environment immediately. And today had been one hell of a day. I was pretty sure that by the end of this week, the whole consulate will find their new source of entertainment in me. But I can't completely hate the day as it earned me a new friend.

And it also let me meet him.

He was probably one of the best things that had happened to me in a long while. It was not that I got hooked on his looks and could not forget him. Though that was part of the reason, there had been plenty of beautiful people that I had met in this line of work. There was something entirely different about him that made me want to remember him forever.

When I think of the incident now, I feel the deep urge to bury myself in a trench and become a mummy or something. I am scared of imagining what kind of first impression he will be having of me.

But I just could not help it. From the minute I met him I felt like the wind had stopped. Any pitiful amount of oxygen my lungs were taking in, was from the air he was breathing. The world paused and all I did or thought had him as the spotlight.

And all of a sudden I became so conscious of everything, the amount of distance between me, if my hands looked ugly when I placed them in front, or if my doubles chin was showing. But the moment his skin brushed against mine, all my thoughts stopped. It felt like a current traveled from the point of contact all the way to my brain rendering me incapable of all possible human activities.

I had fallen in love before; I had crushes on people and even had a couple of boyfriends. Even when my feelings had been at their peak with other people it had never been as powerful as a single meeting with him had been.

I had always scoffed at the idea of love at first sight. It seemed like a well-dressed name for pure carnal attraction. But here I was peening over a guy who I knew nothing of. I wished I could say it was just lust that took over me when I saw him, so I could assure myself that I would get over it soon. But every second with him was way more feelings than humanly conveyable. it is like meeting him quenched a thirst in my soul that I didn't know I was even feeling.

All these emotions had my adrenaline so high that I was scared of what they would bring to me. But at the same time, I could not stop myself from thinking of him and yearning to have one more meeting with him.

What has he done to me?

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't notice my coffee bottoming out until I seeped on it and nothing came out of it. I broke out of my reverie and went to throw out my empty cup.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket with an incoming message. I took it out and saw a text from Nadia informing me about a meeting tomorrow morning.

After all of them left my office today we went to the director's office to find out what issues Abhimanyu had with his package. It turned out that he was part of the team that has come to Italy for a joint military operation. He will be staying here with his comrades for half a year. He had a package that was due to arrive last week. Because the packages of military personnel are strictly checked before letting them pass into the base, he was supposed to receive the package from the consulate itself. Due to some unexplained reason, his package has been delayed till now.

After knowing the cause and effect of the matter, the director promised to look into the matter and give him a satisfactory answer by the next day. Thus the upcoming meeting. Being the newbie who had already embarrassed herself, I was assigned the task of looking into the list of high-importance packages received this month. Just great

The thought of seeing him again made me not want to go at all. All the different emotions that he evoked in me made me really scared. I decided that for the sake of my own sanity, I will just provide the data to Nadia and then opt out of the meeting. I was not mentally ready to meet him again so soon.

With the big decision made, I started to walk out of the park and go to my hotel. When I reached my hotel lobby I saw a sunny little man, no more than 20 years old sitting on the sofa of the hotel and scrolling through his phone. At first, I couldn't believe it because this was the guy who sat beside me on my plane journey. I was really surprised to see an acquaintance.

I walked up to him and knocked on the table in front of him to grab his attention. Besides the fact that he was my co-passenger, the reason I remembered him was because of his personality. He looked nearly 20 years old, with a bouncing curl, a natural redhead, and amazing light green eyes. He really was a little sun trapped in a human body. The entire plane ride he kept being angst about the ride. I noticed it and to divert his attention I started small talk with him.

Once we started talking I discovered he was really an energetic kid and he was traveling to Italy for his studies. Once his nervousness calmed down, he introduced himself and made it his mission to make me laugh the rest of the flight.

We had exchanged numbers and promised to meet each other again, but seeing him so soon made me surprised and a little happy. I saw he was not paying attention so I tapped on the table again and called his name," Diego".

After hearing his name he instantly lifted his head and his face bloomed into a smile after he recognized me.

"Hey Maya! what a surprise. I didn't expect to meet you so soon."

"Oh, I am staying in this hotel for a little while. What are you doing here? What about your college?" I asked.

He turned left to point towards the elevator and said" I am here to pick up one of my friends for dinner. I didn't expect to meet big sister here."

He proceeded to explain that his college was due to open the next week and his friend just arrived in Italy. He was here to pick him up and go out for the night. He offered to tag along but I rejected it as I was very tired.

We talked till we saw his friend coming out. He introduced his friend to me and then they left for their dinner.

After they left I started going to my room and was quite happy to have met that cute kid again. The only thing that stuck with me was that his friend was quite big for his age. And he looked really scary with his full bearded look. I decided to ask Diego about his friend the next time we met and tell him to be careful. This little kid really made people care about him.



Authors note

hello peeps 

I am back with chapter 4. thoughts?

Thoughts about abhimanyu constantly being in maya's mind?

How did you like diego? Isn't he really cute?


vote and comment to tell me how you liked the chapter.

_aBHIRA

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