Who is Ruby? (Part-III)

Cece stared at the face that was hers.

For a split second, she thought it was one of those dreams. Those weird, out-of-the-world dreams she had been having since the past couple of days, the same ones that would make her feel very close to Gavin.

The thought was cleared when he heard Gavin speaking behind her. Even if it was a dream, it did not fall under the same category as the previous ones.

"This is Ruby. This is the woman I met that night. You have heard only one part of the story. You don't know what happened next."

Cece couldn't care more about the woman. She asked the obvious questions, "Why does she look like me?"

"She doesn't look like you, Cece, you look like her."

Cece shook her head dismissing the follow-up question entering her mind, which was directly related to Gavin's reply. She asked the next obvious question instead.

"Who is she? Is Ruby her real name?"

"Funny you asked me that. Her real name is Celia Circe Abrams. In her lifetime, she was the only daughter of a renowned writer and a cardiothoracic surgeon. Good in studies, never spoke much, often sarcastic but also very affectionate towards the ones she loved, and a great girlfriend." Cece could feel the venom in his voice burning her.

"And she was your girlfriend?" she asked.

"She IS my girlfriend. As you can see, she is still alive."

Ignoring the hiss, she turned to face Gavin and said, "You just said that she's fading away. Doesn't that mean she's—" dying. She was going to ask him whether his girlfriend was going to die without having any tremors in her voice. What was wrong with her? Cece frowned and looked down at her feet. Her mother had raised her up better than that.

"She is not dying. It will benefit you a lot, but she is still breathing. As long as her heart beats, she is alive. And as long as my heart beats, I am her boyfriend."

Gavin spoke very quietly, but that did not conceal the hatred he harboured for Cece. Her eyes filled with tears. Her throat was dry. She needed to drink some water. When she raised her head to ask Gavin if she could excuse herself for a moment, everything started to spin.

Her body felt light.

Light like a feather. She was floating in a blank space, around her was nothing but whispers.

Ruby woke up early this morning. She had her projects to work on, her dorm to clean, and more importantly last night she had planned to start a regular habit of morning walks. As a child, her mother would take her for walks every morning. The very familiar neighbourhood, park, and even the sky looked different early in the morning. Reminiscing those days brought a sliver of a smile to her lips.

She dressed up pretty quickly. Humming a song she opened her door and cursed loudly. "What the fucking hell?"

The man in front of her looked terrified at first, his face showed embarrassment next, and after that there was a sparkle in his eyes. Ruby stared at him, her disbelief was gradually turning into disgust. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

The man raised his hands surrendering and flashed her a grin. "I swear by God, I am not stalking you."

She remembered his name. Her friends couldn't leave her alone after seeing them interacting at the party, and they made every effort to make her memorise his biodata. Gavin Atwood, third son of a wealthy family, came from old money. Although his family was one of the oldest families in the town and the owner of multiple businesses, his parents were liberal enough to allow their youngest son to study liberal arts. He was one of the popular guys in the campus, famous for being good-looking, friendly and sweet.

The truth was, Ruby had tried to find out the dirty parts about him and his life so that she could hold them as an excuse of not liking him. He did pique her interest, in more than one way, yet Ruby couldn't bring herself to like him. The sparkle in his eyes told her, the case was very different for him.

"You have one minute to explain yourself," she said, putting her hands on her hips. She was probably looking very plain to him now, she thought. She had not worn anything stylish or even very clean, she chose not to put on any make-up this early, and everything brought her to the conclusion–she didn't have to look good in front of him. There was no need at all.

Yet she couldn't stop herself from glancing at the mirror in her phone sneakily, and adjusting her hair a little bit while speaking.

"Ask me nicely, and I will tell you what I am doing here. Maybe a little more than that," he said grinning.

Ruby angrily replied, "You can just tell me why you are here. I don't want to know anything more than that."

"And that is how beautiful girls break hearts," he said and sighed dramatically. "I came to meet your neighbour, and it was too late to go back so I stayed the night."

Ruby narrowed her eyes. "Which neighbour?"

In a cue, the door of room number 414 opened and a bright face peeked outside. "I knew I heard your voice, Gav." The bright face then turned to her and smiled, "Hi, Cece!"

Ruby felt her blood boil. She had always known Lisa to have her head in the clouds, but this was completely unacceptable. Bringing boys in the dorm was one of the fundamental rules no one was supposed to break, and this stupid cow not only brought someone but spent the night with him. "Way to go Lisa!" she muttered.

"What? What did you say?"

She grinned and looked at Lisa. "I said, good morning Lisa!"

"Gavin, I told you to leave before someone catches you. You know what will happen if the matron sees you," Lisa came out of her room now wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Her hair was up, wrapped in a towel. Ruby's anger surged towards her face. She could feel her face heating, but not in a cute way. She heard herself scolding Lisa, something she wouldn't do in general.

"I see you remember the rules. How charming is that!"

"That's the second time you've been mean to her," Gavin whispered in her ears, making her shiver. She glared at him. Ignoring the fire in her eyes, Gavin smirked and said, "I am just leaving. Don't worry, nobody will see me."

He turned to face Ruby and flashed him another smile. "You see, I am not stalking you, Cece." he winked and left without any other word.

And that was how her morning was ruined. Ruby stormed inside the room and shut the door with a bang, leaving a confused Lisa standing alone in the corridor.

After some cursing, a glass of water, and a couple of positive affirmations, Cece decided to go on with her plan. It was still not late, and she had about forty minutes in her hand. She opened the door again, looked around cautiously, and walked to the lift. On her way to the nearby park, she thanked mother nature for removing Gavin from this space. "Let him go home and do something else," she muttered to herself.

"Do you have a habit of talking to yourself, Cece?"

The question made her stop on her tracks. Why god, why? Cece looked up at the sky and sighed. She was right, it was going to be a terrible day. Without turning, she replied, "I thought you swore that you're not stalking me."

"That was then," Gavin said and took long strides to match hers. "Right now, I am very much stalking you, Cece."

"Just that one sentence can send you behind bars," Cece informed, overlooking the number of times and different tones he had been using to utter her name. Her real name. Cece cursed Lisa again.

"I will get a good lawyer and return to you. I have a feeling that fate would always bring me back to you."

"It's not a feeling. It is called 'delirium' and it's not good for your mental health." Cece increased her pace of walking, and to her annoyance, he did the same.

"Being ignored and rejected by a beautiful girl is also bad for mental health, but see, I am doing great. By the way, Cece, I like your name. Is that an abbreviation, or nickname?"

Cece stopped walking and turned to him. "Don't you know how to read between lines, or are you just plain stupid?"

"By now you may have learnt a lot about me, Cece, like I have about you. And I know you know about the level of my stupidity. To answer your question, I do know how to read between the lines, and that is why I am bothering you."

Gavin came closer to her, his childish joy was replaced by a seriousness Cece did not expect. He stared at her face for too long, and said in a calm tone, "I saw how you blushed that night, and how you got angry after seeing Lisa this morning. Is it in my head, Cece, because if it is, then I will stop talking to you?"