“Hmmm”, I smiled. I heaved a sigh of relief.
“I read. I read all the time. Agreed. I smile while I read. Agreed. I grow tense while I read. Agreed.I am buried in books. Agreed.” I paused.
I was about to make the big revelation. I was just trying to decide whether it should be ‘plain and decent’ or ‘hot and dramatic’.
When I was a kid, my aunt had a valve replacement and she had to chose between a swine-valve and a bovine-valve. She asked me “Pig or Cow?”. It got drilled in deep. Since then this helps.Funny though. ‘Pig or cow? Pig or Cow? Pig or Cow?’, I asked myself.
“Pig or Cow?”, Ooops that came out loud.
“What?”, he said, puzzled. He had signed in for a lot of crazy. Well, it was his fault. He wanted me to “see” him. No-doubt he was driving-crazy kind of hot. “Cow!”, he said quickly when he saw that I was fidgeting.
“I see you. I see you in every sense. Yes, I read but I see you. I saw you that day and I am seeing you right now. I went there for you. I wanted to see you, Sam”, I breathed. God! I felt like Mary Poppins. That was freaking-long! I suppressed my urge to roll my eyes. And the next thing I know is I am pinned to the wall again. But this time and then, I knew I enjoyed that.
“You see me.”, he said. His eyes pierced me. I wanted him to free his grip. I was not used to being held. Or touched. Or kissed. I had never been.
“I see you. PO1 “, I smiled.
He left my arm. There were few awkward moments of silence. Weird minutes. “What’s with the pig and the cow?”,he asked.
“Oh! Uh…It’s a family thing”, I said. I did not want to explain.
“Do YOU see me?”, I asked.
“I did.I do. All the time. Even when I left. I am glad you came looking for me. I see you too, Ana”, he said, resting his forehead on mine.
“Where’d you go?”, I asked. My heart skipped a beat on hearing my name.
“I was on deployment. I work for the Navy, which I think you already know”, he freed me. “I have to go. Its time to report at the camp. I’ll see you later?”, he asked, wishfully.
“We’ll.”, I said. His nose nudged mine. A breath or two intertwined and I lost the touch. He looked back twice as he left. I walked back home. I was over-joyed. I wrote everything in my diary. I read it and re-read it and smiled all the while. It was such a good feeling. I wondered about a lot of things,one of them being the next time we meet.
~More to follow.