Robin Love

"So, who is it?", he asked her, his black hair fluffy on the top and cropped on the sides, black eyes deep, clear, bright and curious, she laughed, she does enjoy playing with his curiosity. "It is better if I don’t tell it….why don't you find out who it is Mr Romaine Buemont??.... I am sure that you are very smart. In fact, you are the only person to be enlightened by this fact", she said her eyes wide, excited, he was not totally excited though, he knew that he won't be able to until he knows who it is. "Well technically Miss Caroline Paris, it is great to know that I am the only one you let in on the secret, but still you blabbered about it to me by mistake. You did not really intend to tell me", he pointed out, literally with his index finger towards her and a raised eyebrow. "Aie!", he said rubbing his finger ," I did think of telling you, but I just forgot to mention it", she said swirling the pen that she just now used to hit him. "Whatever…who is it?", he said grabbing the pen from her,"...you know that I won't tell anyone…you won't tell your best friend???", he asked trying to maintain the most innocent face possible. She looked at him in the eye, if not for the increased height in her rolling chair that she is now sitting on, she should have looked way up to look him in the eye, "don’t keep that face dude! You know I hardly tell 'no' to people, and I obviously find it hard to tell it to you", he smiled hoping that she will tell it now," but…you told me not to be like that and to learn to tell no, so…..no dude…find who it is", she said grinning all innocently as if she has nothing to do with this, "Mince!", he said kicking the rolling chair beside him lightly. " Come on….don't do like this…..if you do so like this then I won't walk you to the bus stand dude", he said trying to sound as determined as possible. She smiled " I know that you won't leave me alone like that in the dark after college, but, I decided to tell you ", "Really?", "Yeah, I have decided to give you clues that will help you find him", she said grinning again. "Ok, great…is he from our college???", she thought for a second and looked around dramatically and sighed….."nope, he is not here", " so he does not study here?", she giggled," just kidding…he does study here", she said swaying on her chair. "Is he our batch?", "I am not telling that", "Just tell that alone", "nope…I told enough for today….find……use your detective skills", yeah, my detective skills, he thought and sighed.

 "Do you even have the idea of starting to drive??…why are you even keeping your driver's license locked away safely? Just use it…", he said as they waited at the bus stop and as usual, she just said, "I will…I will…", " fine, so tell me about your secret crush….when did you start having the crush?", she just looked around and looked at him at last," kind of recently, I myself did not know that I loved him until a few days back", she looked down," wait, now, the crush became your lover???"," dude, you are not supposed to have a crush if you don’t plan on loving them right?", she asked, her thick eyebrows raised. " hmm….seems right, so….tell me about him", " if I tell that, then you will find out who it is", she pointed out," well, I won't, don’t worry, my skills are just budding, so tell", "okayyyy…. I knew him for a long time, but I began talking to him really well in the past month or so and there is just something that I don’t know how to explain. You know that I am kind of hard to be understood right? But, he just understands what I am thinking without me giving any input. He understands exactly what I am trying to tell and he does not make me be careful about my words with him, unlike others. I just feel complete with him and I feel happy when he talks or texts me you know", she looked at him, happiness oozing out, and he understood that she really likes this guy," so you are really close with this guy?", "yeah….Seriously though, I myself can't believe that how I became close with him in such a short time, there is nothing that I have never told him too, it is like we have this separate wavelength between us….trust dude…..he got that easily from me……all I can think of is for him to be happy and not to lose him at all in my life, In fact, it started as a normal friendship and I have no idea when I fell for him". She sighed and looked down…."hey, he seems like a really nice guy you know, he is not like me at all, he sounds really good", he said smiling, looking around, she narrowed her eyes at him," seriously dude?.....who told that you are not good?", "Me, Romaine", he said pointing at him with a grin," of course no, you are the nicest guy that I ever know of!", shaking his head, he just said, " your bus is here", she sighed knowing that he won't accept. " Okay, buhbye! Don't forget to charge your phone before going to bed, bye!", she said waving while getting into the bus. "yeah, I won't, bye soeur!!", once the final glimpse of the waving hand disappeared Romaine walked over to his bike and the engine power of the Duke Panigale carried him away in a zap...

"I want ice cream!", she said, standing in front of his desk at the sound of the bell referring to the start of the break. "Now?", he asked eyebrows raised," yup, right now, I am excited, you told me that you will get me ice cream whenever I want, so I want ice cream!!....now now now!!!!", "ok ok, come on". Settling down with butterscotch for each, hers topped off with chocolate, she began, "you remember the movie that I saw once and was literally swooning over it?", she was talking excited," yeah, I remember, you literally did not leave me until you told me the whole story remember? You were even telling that you want a guy like that, Robin Love right?", "Yeah!, and you know what? he is exactly like that!!! He is like the human form of Robin Love from that movie! OH My God!... I like him a lot! You know he is the first person that pops in my head when something happens in my life", she sighed," but you still won't tell me who that is?", " I will tell you on the day I confess to him", she said smiling, " great, when are you planning on confessing?", he asked curiously, " Ummm…", she smiled sadly, "I may or may not confess to him, dude". "What!? Why??", " as I told dude, he became a really close friend of mine in such a short period of time. He is the kind of friend that I never want to lose in my life. No matter what. Confessing to him means that I am also keeping my friendship at stake. You know, it is ok if I don’t make the move too, but I can't afford to lose his friendship", she said wiping a tear away. "Look, don’t cry, if you don’t confess you won't know if it will be a happy ending or not too. According to what you tell, he seems like a really nice guy, and I don’t think he will break the friendship just because you liked him more than friends. You get what I am telling? You look like you are somewhere else", he asked, his eyebrows raised. "If you really trust him, definitely you will trust him in this too, just confess to him, trust him, ok?", she looked thoughtful. "Actually dude, something happened recently that made me think what if he sees me just as a friend….", Romaine got curious, "what is it?....what happened?", "He called me as sister dude!!!!!", and that was it, Romaine burst out laughing. "don’t laugh dude!", she said smacking him with a book on the head. "Ouch!...okok…..I am not laughing ", and finally managed to compose himself. "Did you initiate the brother-sister relationship with him?", as an answer to the question, she covered her face with her hands and talked through it," yeah…. I was not having any feelings towards him at that time, and he was just talking about brother-sister stuff casually and I gratefully accepted it!...and now I am regretting it!..... That guy also did not forget it!", " enjoy dude…..", he said trying to not laugh." no…..i don’t want him to call me as sister….that is heart-wrenching", she said placing her hand over her heart with a dramatic sigh." See, at that time you did not know that your feelings for him will end up like this right?....now you don’t call him as brother right?", he asked finishing off his ice cream without any speck."ummm….no…not at all", she said shaking her head vigorously. "Then no issues, what do you tell him when he calls you as a sister?", he asked, "hmm…I just blink without telling anything...usually…or I change the topic, has been working still now", Romaine looked thoughtful, and the bell rang.

Romaine rolled off his bed in the middle of the night towards the constant ringing of his phone. After fumbling in the dark for the phone on the nightstand, "Caroline Paris", he saw on the screen," Dude!...", she wailed from the other side. "I don’t know what to do!", "what happened cookie?", he said quite awake now, "I fought with Olivier again!", she said, her voice gaining a new pitch every second." what happened this time??", he asked, "same misunderstanding dude", she sighed and began. After a three quarter an hour of ranting, "see, both of you are on edge now right, talk to him tomorrow, after all, he is your close friend, it will be ok, don’t worry", he said, consoling." You are right though, and…sorry for waking you up in the middle of the night dude, wait, wait", she said as Romaine tried to protest," you know that I will tell you everything that happens in my life, just wanted to get it through immediately and did not know who else to tell. We became pretty close in these few months right, the trust just grew immensely without my knowledge, you understand me without any prompt from me too and it is just awesome Rainbow!", she said softly. "Well, first of all, the rules! No thanks and no sorrys, remember! Also, I don’t feel bad that you woke me up in the middle of the night and all…ok? Why don’t you consider getting some sleep?.... Only then you can talk all well to your Robin Love nah?", he said smiling." Right, by the way, Robin too knows that I like someone. You know, sometimes I feel like he knows who I am referring to as Robin, but still, also….he is in our batch only, and I thought about what you told, I guess I will confess to him", "Great!", he exclaimed," But not now", "why??","Dude! What year we are in?", "umm…2020", he said," not that year, academic year, final year right? Our sixth year!", she hushed," we are externs, and he studies really well, let him concentrate on it dude, I don’t want to ruin his academics for him, let him write the ranking exam well and get a really nice rank as per his wish. I will tell him then", she said sighing," Just got to wait", "so you will reveal the person to me too at that moment only?", " yeah....exactly, around eight months more", she said smiling, "go to sleep, it is getting late", "right, good night Paris!", "Good night Rome!".

(Nine months later)

"I guess I will get old and get grey before you confess to your Robin dude!", " I know I know…..", she sighed with her head in her hands. "Cookie! National Ranking Exam! It is over and even the results are out dude! Come on! You told me that you will confess to him after the exams since you did not want to deviate him and it was a pretty valid reason. But now, you don’t want to distract him from looking at the results properly too?", "no dude", she said her hands on her face muffling out her voice," I am just scared to say it out to him. I can hardly tell no to him, but what if he tells no to what I am going to tell dude???", he sighed" nothing like that will happen, just confess to him, he won't tell no to you, just pour it out to him, don’t be like this, love needs courage too. You have to reach out if you want something, just telling that you like or love it won't really matter if you don’t reach out for it. Just reach out before it is too late. Ok?", after a thought Caroline sat up straight and smoothed down her hair and looked resolute." how about I boost my confidence with an ice cream first and then confess to him?"," you want an ice cream in this shivering cold weather? It is totally misty and you want ice cream now?", "yeah, in the café" she nodded. "Okay, come on", he walked over towards the café as Caroline trailed behind. Once they settled down in the seats that were placed outside the café with a thick sheet of mist engulfing them, they had their ice creams in silence.

"Ok, now you have your confidence boosted?", "Yeah…it is boosted, but I am thinking of how to tell", she said thoughtfully and neither of them was able to see each other, thanks to the mist. "Think fast dude, I guess I will definitely get old before you confess to him", "Let's get old together dude", she said hurriedly yet composed. " let's go to the glass bridge in China together, let's go to my dream resort place together. Let's be each other's pillar of support and be each other's other half. Let's trust each other until the end. Let's be friends as much as we can, the best companion for each other, and let us be more than friends too. All these days you asked who my Robin is. Well, it was you all along. It was you Rome! No one else has understood me more than you and I have never felt happier with anybody else's company as you. I was head over heals for you. I don’t love you for each of your characteristics. I love you for who you are because of those lovely characteristics. I love you Rome! It has been you all along and no one else. You are my Robin and I wish to spend the rest of my life with you as a confidante, a friend, support, a lover and keep you happy for the rest of your life", she said as her heart lightened with each word that she poured out," You are my Robin. Love you", she finished.