"You were just sleeping and sleeping . . . and today, I thought you were dead!" I heard Lila giggling, alluding to yesterday's mishap. She set aside her panda coffee mug as if she realized something important to do, advanced towards the balcony with the grey drawstrings of her pyjamas swaying and carelessly pulled away the light, white curtains. It was a sultry summer, I could see it without needing any reference to temperature or time of the day. Strong sunlight overflowed the balcony, spilling out of the gaps in the balustrade and perhaps trickling down to whoever unfortunate walked below. Scorching their egg heads and mushing their insides. "It's the middle of the afternoon . . . We missed half a day! I can't believe you can come all the way here and just sleep all day."

"Half a day," I corrected rather smugly.

"Haha! Let's go and swim right now. The sea is calling us." She slid the glass door of the balcony as if to prove her point that the crashing of the waves was a personal call for a swim. She put a foot down and immediately retracted it, the overflowing sunlight burning her delicate flesh. Slowly and sheepishly, she turned around and mock acted as if she yielded to my demands of staying in, "Alright, alright, you can sleep some more. We'll go swimming in the evening. The sun is being too cruel on us. Bad, bad, sun!" Shaking my head at her childishness, I proceeded towards the bathroom to brush my teeth and take a shower. "Where are you going?"

"What do you think?" I closed the door, hearing her shout something along the lines of hurrying up because she would be bored without me. I went through all the daily ablutions in a leisurely manner, emerging out fresh as a daisy in my white cotton t-shirt and black track pants. Lila was laying on her stomach on the bed, rigorously typing something. "Are you talking to your boyfriend?"

"Are you jealous?" came her prompt, airy reply. I had zero reasons to be jealous of her relationship. I could be in a better one with Anthony if I wanted to. That boy seemed to really like me yesterday night. Too bad that he didn't know how to kiss. "I'm talking to mama. Raul and Anthony are going through the most terrible hangover ever! They won't meet us today. They're passed out in their room. They look super funny. Anyway, great for us, no? We have an entire day to ourselves!"

"Half a day," I mumbled, realizing that Lila had heard me the moment I felt a pillow gently hit my arm.

She propped her head on the open palm of her left hand, her elbow against another pillow. "What are we planning to do today?"

"I am planning to read all afternoon and relax. You can do whatever you want." I pulled out a copy of Sorrows of Young Werther from underneath the pile of my clothes in the trolley bag, hearing the dramatic gasps of Lila.

"You have come all the way here, just to read all day- half a day," she rephrased, a bit irritatedly after noticing my complacent expression. "We need to do things, we need to live in our world. Not in that dude's world." Sitting up, she pointed accusingly and vehemently at the author Goethe's name. "We can have more fun than that."

"Like what? Play monopoly so you can win like last night?"

She punched the pillow and cried out, "How did you find out my true intentions?!"

Laughter shook my body as I stretched myself beside her on the bed, placing the book on my lap. "This is unfair, Lila. You want to have fun with me only when you aren't fooling around with Raul. I saw you both yesterday. You need to be more careful around him . . . You know how he is."

"You're just jealous," that infuriating, knowing smile appeared back on her lips as she lay on her stomach. My humour dissipated and I decided to not talk to her further. Instead, I concentrated on the book. Every minute or so, her legs swinging in the air would kick me playfully, trying to capture my attention. Nope, that was not going to happen today. Soon, it became so quiet that I could hear the browning pages rustling from the wind of the ceiling fan and I had to press the pages with my fingers. Yet, the upper corners would flutter, beating my hands, teasing me like a coquettish woman batting her eyelashes. Exasperated, I lifted the book and gripped it in my hands with the firmness of a woman ready to take on the world. Immediately, Lila rested her head on my lap and peeped in the book with her dancing eyes looking for trouble and a frivolous, spreading grin. "What are you reading?"

I folded the book and moved it away from her face. "Does it matter?"

"Tell me nooooooo. Even I want to become intelligent."

"It's about this guy who loves this girl a lot, despite him knowing that she's engaged to another man---" I couldn't even finish the entire summary before she burst out giggling, reducing a classic to a mere joke.

"Sorry, sorry! I won't laugh, I promise." She looked sincerely into my eyes from below and for a few seconds, I doubted her sincerity.

I broke her gaze, turning to the book, this time explaining vaguely, "Yeah so he goes away to distract himself, comes back again, but the girl is married to the other guy now."

She tilted her head upwards. "That's it?"

"Well, I have come only so far. If you read, you'll understand. Telling you like this is a waste."

"I'll read it now. I have plenty of time. Give it to me." Her grasping hands like that of a baby's reached towards me and I reflexively raised it high above my head. She got up and speedily snatched it, but my hold was so tight that I feared the book would tear. Unable to get the full book in her hands, she used other tactics like tickling my sides which had no effect on me and eventually made her only giggle. "Alright, please, please, please, give it to me."

Once again, I waved it above my head, taking advantage of a few inches of my height, "I have no reason to surrender."

"Oh, you will!" She tried standing up on the bed, but with my free hand, I firmly held her legs and that made her weakly collapse against me, her face shaking with laughter and burying in my shoulder. Her laughter transitioned to whining, her headbutting my shoulder, "Just give it to me, pleaseeeeee. Please---" First headbutt, "---please---" Another headbutt. The weight of her head suddenly disappeared from my shoulder when she met my eyes with a fierceness of a lioness. She challenged me, "So you won't surrender?" Her face was so close to mine that not only I could see her faint, brown moustache, but I could feel the warm breath fanning my lips. There was the serious, urging look in her eyes and I instinctively leaned forward, expecting the prisoner to be freed. I felt the embarrassing tears overwhelm and roll down when my eyes couldn't comfort them anymore. Her lips were so soft, so warm and I could taste the saltiness of my tears on her lips as she muffled my sobs, throttling them, trying to kill them.

Within what felt like a second, she rolled away from me on the bed and burst out into tremulous giggles, "You kissed me first this time! You like me! You do like me!" I stopped crying, the dead weight of finality sunk in my stomach like a stone vanishing in the sand. She covered her crimson face with her hands, still giggling, so unaffected by everything. "You made me feel so stupid all this while. I hate you Tulsi, I hate you very, very, very much. How could you make me feel so stupid?"

The goosebumps were like thorns, piercing me coldly and when she again brought her face close to me, I turned my face away, no longer letting her kill my sobs, my voice. "I love you, Lila . . . God, I have always known that I love you, but I never-never ever wanted to be it. I'm sorry, I'm crying, I know how you hate crybabies," I forced the words out, breaking into such a nervous chuckle that the humiliation of it, made me more nervous. The tears simply wouldn't stop, smearing my face, smearing my words with unclarity. "But I don't want to be one of them. I don't care what others do-or-or who they bloody love, you know? I swear I don't! I honestly don't care. But I don't want to be that. One of them. Queer. Shit, I'm so sorry---" I couldn't complete my sentence. The sobs overtook my words, the guilt of what I had said made me cry harder like a spoiled kid, but Lila . . . She wasn't appalled or weirded out. At least, she didn't show that she was when I felt her arms engulf me and caress my hair. The tenderness of a woman. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I love you, Lila, I do. I swear---"

"Then that's what matters," she said smilingly, holding my chin and letting me taste my own shame on her lips.

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