I lay awake for a long time that night, unable to sleep because I felt so guilty and miserable for multiple reasons.

1) Shubman. He still hadn't called or texted. Here I must add that neither did I. Maybe I should...it's not his fault that he has the one to take the first step.

2) Abhi. There is no doubt at all that I have completely lost him. Nothing remains of our old friendship.

3) Results. We'd received a mail that our first semester result would be declared online within this week.

4) My sister. She has grown up a lot in the 5 months I've been away. Though Akanksha (or Rimi as we call her) is only two years younger than me, everyone including my parents, her parents (we live in a joint family) and myself always treated her like the kid of the family. 

Now she is studying for the engineering entrance exams, halfway through in class 11, no longer seeming the whiny kid, but a mature studious young adult.

Everything was a mess and I have no idea how to sort it all out. After three hours of wakefulness, the obvious answer hit me. 

I should not hold on to my ego any longer. Ego never did anyone good, right? Isn't that what we've learnt since childhood?

It was 3:50 am. Of course it was impossible to call anyone at this hour, so I decided to message him.

'I'm sorry I went away like that, I should not have lost my temper when you were upset.'

It seemed to apologetic; I thought it would be better if I apologized on call, so I deleted it.

'Are you ok? When did you reach home?' I typed.

Even that seemed a bit weird; I deleted that, too.

Finally I decided on a simple:

 'I love you.'

I kept down my phone, hoping that whenever he saw in it in the morning, he'll forgive me and call me back. What I hadn't expected was my phone starting to ring immediately.

My heart jumped as I saw Shubman's name.

"Shub..." 

"I love you too," he cut in before I could even complete his name.

"Oh," I said stupidly. "Thanks."

Can you believe I just replied 'thanks' to someone telling me he loves me? I was feeling so mortified that I almost considered disconnecting the call and pretending the next morning that I had replied in my sleep.

Shubman laughed. "You're most welcome," he said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. 

"Yeah, ok," I grumbled. "How come you're still awake?"

"The same reason as you were, I guess," he said. Then he went on in a rush, "Look, I didn't mean it when I said that you don't understand me. And it's perfectly fine that you don't live, eat and dream cricket...in fact that's one of the things I like best about you, at least you don't yell at me when I don't play well. Even my dad does that so I'm really glad to have someone in my life who..."

Shubman sounded almost desperate.

"SHUBMAN," I said loudly. "It's ok. It's ok, you don't have to rant. I get you."

"You always do get me," he mumbled. "I was such a jerk."

He sounded so sweet that I wanted to hit myself for driving him away. I could have had a whole day with him if I had not acted out.

"Guess what, so was I," I said. "We were both jerks, so let's just forget it. When can we meet again?" I was already getting excited at the prospect of meeting him.

"Mom and Dad have invited guests tomorrow...I can't get away," said Shubman unhappily.

"But you can get off for a few hours right?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can go to Fazilka!" I said.

"Allie you're impossible!"

"By a morning train," I protested. "I meant a safe, placid morning train."

Shubman considered it in silence.

"Your parents won't ask questions?" he asked fianally.

"Oh, I'll make some excuse, don't worry," I said.

"You haven't told them yet have you?" asked Shubman.

"Noo," I said, horrified. "I'm still living in my home, which implies I haven't told them."

"How are these two connected at all?" demanded Shubman.

I rolled my eyes. "They'd have kicked me out to live on the streets, idiot."

"That's harsh," said Shubman, and continued with the familiar mischief in his voice, "On the whole I'm glad, because I wanna tell my parents first."

Somehow the idea of his parents knowing freaked me out.

"Well, there's a lot of time before you have to do that," I said carefully.

"I'm planning to make you meet them tomorrow...if you come," he added.

"NO!" I whisper-yelled. "No, no, no...."

"Calm down," he said. "Why are you hyperventilating?"

I did not know.

No, I did know. 

I am nobody special at all. And Shubman is so special. I had seen the video of his dad cheering him on during the match vs KXIP, and it was clear he was very proud of his son. He would probably want a princess for his son, but since princesses were rather scarce in India these days, he'd settle for a beautiful and accomplished person.

Look at me. No, seriously, I'm not saying I'm unbearably ugly or disgracefully uneducated or anything.

But I'm totally average in every sense. Middle class family. Chemistry majors. Average looks. Not particularly pleasant-natured, either.

Shubman does not seem to mind any of it, but his parents would. His dad especially definitely would.

"Allie, Allie, Allie, Allie," Shubman was chanting at the other end.

"What?"

"Why are you silent?"

"Look," I tried to say calmly. "Don't tell your parents yet. I'm telling you it's not a good idea."

"Ok," he said. "I won't."

Since when did he become so docile?

But I wasn't complaining.

"Good boy," I said with fake kindness.

He sniffed, whether to play along or whether to be scornful I could not figure out.

I yawned, suddenly realizing how sleepy I was.

"You'd better go to sleep now, child," he said, calling me by that name after a very long time, so much so that I felt quite nostalgic. "Got a long journey tomorrow."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Good night..." Just to see how it sounded I added, "...sweetheart."

It sounded super cringe, and evidently Shubman agreed, because he gagged loudly.

"Don't ever call me sweetheart," he said sternly.

"I thought it would sound nice," I grumbled. "Good night SHUBMAN."

"Better," he said. "Bye."

I fell asleep easily after that, because as it turned out, out of the four reasons I'd thought of, the first one was the major one. Maybe the only one.