Chapter 1

She tossed and turned restlessly in the queen size bed in search of comfort. Her body demanded a rest but the soul wasn't ready to give it in. Her heart was itself in search of some peace as it had been doing from the past months. Atleast it had not lost hope like her...it was still waiting for that bright ray of light, alone in the darkness, without her support. A part of it was still beating for him...

She opened her eyes to see no change as her eyes met an absolute darkness as it faced before. Throwing the comforter aside, she tried to persuade her body to wake up and respond to her command. Finally standing up successfully after a few seconds, she walked with her bare feet on the slightly cold marble floor. Grabbing her shawl on the way, she carefully made her way towards the window. Her hands reached out to set aside the curtains slowly, following which she gave a little push to the windowpane as it moved across, letting in the fresh breeze of air.

The white moonlight entered inside the room, reaching up to the corners with its brightness. Wrapping herself under the warm shawl, she sat on the broad window sill. Her tired eyes reflected a sign of insomnia as she looked up to meet the face of the half moon. Unable to bear the intensity of the light, she closed her eyes abruptly. Her face glowed under the moonlight, bringing out the innocence it once used to carry which she had recently tried to replace by a more mature side of hers. Her mind was now gradually drifting back to those untouched memories...

It had barely been two weeks since I had landed my foot in France. I was still getting acquainted with this big city of Paris. It wasn't the first time I was travelling alone, but the bothering fact was getting adjusted to the norms of being around a whole new language, around a place where more than half of the people you collide with only spoke French. From my childhood till now, I was only able to master two languages; my native lingo and English as I never bothered to give others a try like my cousin, Muskaan who could rant endlessly in five different languages. She could talk until one drops asleep!

I had been brought up in London, England. I could only speak English in the British accent which kind of irritated my American cousins as at times they were unable to comprehend it. But, I would always hold my head in a pure pride as I loved my accent.

At that time, I had recently completed computer engineering. I had no idea that how did I got the idea of choosing Paris as the place for my internship. Now I was suffering seeing the aftereffects of my decision'I didn't even know a single soul in such a big city. It all seemed hopeless and I was just ready to run back to London. I was lucky that the internship was to last for a few months only and I took this as my only source of solace that I would be back to England sooner than I think.  

I was out window-shopping in the huge and overly expensive malls of Paris. Never was I going to buy such expensive stuff, but still I entered all the shops of my interest, criticizing everything I liked in my mind...that was the only way I could resist myself from the temptation of buying it. I stepped out of the mall, busy in tying the belt of my heavy coat as it was getting colder. In a hurry, I missed the last two steps of the small staircase and instead of falling on the floor, I actually crashed into someone. I looked up to see a set of green eyes flaring with anger. "Oops!", the word escaped my mouth unknowingly as I saw the sight he pointed at...the car that my boss had kindly lent me for the day had towed down to bump into what I supposed as his car.

My driver was no where to be seen, but my mind wandered off to think how in the world did he knew the car was mine? Before I could ask, he pointed at a figure standing a few feet away. I squinted my eyes and zoomed in to get another shock as I realized it was indeed that driver. 'How could just leave the car like that? And now he's trying to blame me...Am I in trouble? No. No. It's so not my fault!', I tried to relax my mind and talk the matter out in my head. Soon another realization dawned upon me that I was still holding on to this unknown person like earlier to prevent my supposed fall. Feeling conscious all of a sudden, I backed away. "Look, I am so sorry but trust me it's not my fault. You see I was inside the mall...", that driver cut off my nice enough apology session. He started to talk in French with the 'unknown person'. Something told me he was putting all the blame on me...oh he dare not! He's gonna mess with the wrong dudette otherwise. Even that 'unknown person' was nodding his head as if he was agreeing to whatever that stupid driver was blabbing about.

"Shhh!", I placed my finger on my lips, knowing exactly that the driver didn't understood a word of English.

"you have a cell?", I asked that unknown stranger. He nodded his head. 'ahh!', I screamed mentally as this person had not spilled one word until now. How was I supposed to communicate stuck with these two?

"May I have it?", I asked in a polite manner but almost snatched it from him when he took it out. I glanced, skeptically, one last time at the damage done to his car as I waited for the line to be picked up on the other end.

"Hello? This is Ridhimma Gupta speaking. May you please connect me to Mr. Ronald?", I asked the secretary. Mr. Ronald was the manager in the firm I was interning for. I explained him the problem and I was more than glad to find out I was in no such trouble.

"Thanks", I handed back the cell to him. That was the first time I clearly saw him. He had a fairly white skin, big green eyes and his dark black hair almost reached to his eyes.

"So?", he spoke up for the first time. 'hmm...so he had been keeping a track of my actions...interesting...', I thought. I took a pen and paper out of my bag and scribbled down a name and number quickly. "This is Mr. Ronald's phone number...contact him as he is my manager and he'll take care of the damage done by our car. Once again I'm really sorry for the mishap. I hope your car is fixed quickly...", he cut me off in between, snatching the little note from my hand the same way I did with his cell.

"Lets just hope that it atleast works for now.", he stepped inside his car and turned on the ignition. Alas! Say it luck or something that his car didn't budge from its place.

"umm...if you want I could give u a lift in our car. Hmm?", I offered genuinely feeling bad for the stranger. He just nodded his head and walked towards our car.

The car ride was spent in silence. I was bored. I looked at him sitting on the other end of the back seat. He was quietly staring the view outside with a slim, black bag on his lap. I assumed it probably contained a laptop. I faked a cough to capture his attention. "If you have any problem getting in contact with Mr. Ronald, then just refer my name. I'm sure you'll get through. I'm Ridhimma Gupta.", I was trying to help him out. Somehow he looked troubled to me and I took it as a cause of the car incident. Afterall his black car looked brand new. He shot me a quick glance and in that split second my eyes met his. His green eyes were sparkling. I didn't notice what it was at that time. However I did realize after that he actually had tears in those mild green eyes.

We had dropped him off near a tall apartment building. "uh...sorry but I didn't catch your name...", I said seeing him getting off.

"I never told it to you, Ms. Gupta.", he said and walked inside the building.

"How arrogant!", I whispered to myself setting my first impression for him.

They say that 'first impression is the last impression', but I guess it is not always true for every case like it wasn't either for our situation.

She opened her eyes slowly. Her lips curved into a small smile that reached upto her eyes, radiating an enormous glow on her face from the inner joy she had availed. This was one of the memories that was fixated in a special corner of her heart, embedded in full detail at the back of her mind. One such memory which might always make her smile and cherish the sweet incident that brought up the new phase of her life.