Memories

'What was I thinking?'

'I probably looked like a weirdo staring at her like that.'

'Lips.. her lips? What's wrong with me? Was I seriously thinking about touching her lips while gawking at her face so brazenly?'

'Oh my god!!'

'What must she be thinking?'

'I must have really lost my mind. I need to pull myself together.'

Cole braced himself against the wall and patted his chest in hope of lowering his heartbeat. He was going crazy because of the loud LUP-DUP LUP-DUP sound in his ears.

'Did she also hear it?'

'No way. That can't be.'

He stood there for a few minutes, when suddenly his eyes caught the CCTV camera in the hallway. He immediately composed his posture not wanting the people monitoring to get suspicious and made his way towards his room.

The days were passing by as usual, Merry was still not allowed to join others in the training sessions. But her appointments with Mrs. Miller were quite steady too much for her liking.

All her friends regularly updated her about what's going on in the sessions or about new things they learned.

Whenever she would hear them talk regarding their training, she couldn't really understand the pattern of the courses.

The training sessions were dynamic in range. They included as simple as cooking or cleaning to making weapons.

Henry had told her the other day, how he learned to make codes and decipher them. He was bragging to all of them until William washed down all his excitement.

"You just learned that today? It has nearly been a month since Cole and I started cryptology classes."

"What? Really!"

Henry was definitely in shock to learn that.

"What's cryptology?" Katie asked getting curious.

"What? Thank goodness."

"What?"

"I mean I thought it was only me who hadn't started the lessons till now. I nearly doubted my ability since I wasn't chosen for the classes. But looks like there is someone who is worse than me, they don't even have any idea about the classes."

Henry taunted Katie, when she realized he was disparaging her, she smacked his head with the cushion on her hand.

The memory brought a smile on Merry's face remembering their banter.

However, the next moment the small sign of happiness on her face disappeared completely when she remembered the day she was so scared that she felt like she would lost her breath.

It was two weeks ago, one day, after training sessions all of them returned except Cole. Merry assumed he was getting late because of the extended hour in his lessons which he mentioned in the morning before leaving.

She woke up the next day and directly went to check on him in his room but he wasn't there. The clock was striking 5:30 in the morning when she glanced at the sole clock present in their dorm's living room.

She thought maybe he had something early on so he might have left sooner than others.

Still she couldn't ease her mind and knocked on Henry's room.

"Who is that? So early, trying to disturb my sleep!"

The voice yelled at her from inside.

"I am so sorry for waking you up. Can you please open the door?" Merry requested.

"Is that you, Merry?"

The door opened with a messy haired Henry, rubbing his eyes out of sleep.

"Hey, I am sorry. But, have you seen Cole?"

"No, why? He must be in his room."

"No, he isn't there."

"Really!"

Henry walked past Merry to check Cole's room as if he didn't believe in Merry's words.