ELEVEN

Adah's birthday party was one of the best day of my life. It brought to me the fact that Adah considered me as her best friend. That was something I hadn't expected. For the time being,I was excited about my father's arrival.

It was a weird feeling that I was getting my father after becoming an adult. I had many questions in my mind like, "what should I call him?"...Dad or daddy or something else? And "what do I say when I first see him?" I was confused. My mother wasn't telling me the date when he would arrive but when I asked her many and when she got irritated ,she told me that he would arrive in two days. I was excited and nervous at the same time.

That day,at night Adah called me.

'Hello' I said in low voice as I was in sleep .

'Were you sleeping?' she asked .

'No, not at all. I was playing Ludo with mosquitoes.' I said sarcastically .

'Haha very funny.' she replied .

'Of course I was sleeping. I am not an insomniac like you.' I said.

'I just have partial insomnia.'

'So you didn't take your partial sleep?'

'I just slept for a while. Not feeling sleepy anymore.'

'So you decided to eat my brain?'

'Shut up. I was thinking if we could go out somewhere.'

'What! At this time? Its 1:20 AM now!'

'So what?...I think you know that I have clock in my house. So you don't need to tell me the time.'

'Exactly! Who goes out at this is odd hour?'

'I do.'

'Then you go and let me sleep.'

'Okay....I am going out alone!' She said a bit aloud.

'Wait wait .....Adah, it's not safe for you to go out alone at this time.' I said, now completely out of sleep.

'Why do you care? Let me go.'

I knew that she was playing with me now. It was her way to convince me.

'Okay...where do you wanna go?' I asked, giving up finally.

'Beachside!' she exclaimed, her all time favourite.

'What? At this time?' I asked.

'What's so bad about this time?'

'Who goes to beach post-midnight?'

'Let us do it for the first time. It would be the best adventure.'

'Adventure? Are you serious? What are we? Thirteen or fourteen?' I asked.

'Please let's go.....Pleeeeeaaaaas.' she pleaded in her sweet voice.

I had to give in. I couldn't decline her sweet request.

'Okay.' I said.

'Yaaaaayyyyy! Thank you thank you thank you soooooooo much.' she said like a baby.

I had already lost my sleep, so her idea seemed fun.

'Okay, can you take your car?' she asked.

'Okay, I can do that but we should do all this unnoticed.' I said.

'Yeah, I know. You just come without making any noise.' Adah said.

'Okay, I am coming.' I said.

We hanged up our call and I took the car keys and slowly walked down the stairs to the dining hall without making any sound. Then I slowly walked to the main door and opened it. I came out and saw Adah already out of her house. I closed the main door and went up to her.

'How did you get past your watch watchman?' I asked in low voice,lest anyone woke up.

'He always sleeps at night. He doesn't do his duty at all. I'd complained about him to my parents but they gave a deaf ear.' She said.

'I have brought Strawberry milkshake for you.' she said,pointing to the bottle in her hand.

I just looked at the bottle, wondering how she must have made the milkshake without making any sound.

'Okay let's go.' I said as I walked towards the car.

We sat down in the car and I started the ignition.

'Just do everything silently.' Adah said.

'I can keep myself silent but there is no remedy to make the car engine silent. It will roar as it does always.' I said.

'Yeah, I know that, stupid.' Adah said.

'Thank god, my mother is a deep sleeper,or else we would have been caught.' I said.

'Even my parents are deep sleepers since they always come back late at night.' She said.

I drove the car out of our colony successfully and now we were safe.

'Don't know what all I would have to do until you are there with me.' I said in a sigh.

'Until I am there with you? O Hello mister, I am not gonna leave you so easily.' Adah said.

'I would never leave you too.' I said in a low voice, more to myself than to her.

'What?' she asked.

'Nothing. I just said that.....uh...you are so crazy.' I said.

'You'll soon love my craziness.' She said.

'I love it already.' I said,again in a low voice.

'What are you murmuring all the time?'

'Uh...nothing. I just said that I hope that I start loving this craziness. Otherwise, I don't know how often would I have to lose my sleeps like today.' I said.

'You whine like a girl.' She said, frustrated.

'No, I don't.' I said.

'I should have called someone else to accompany me.' Adah said.

'No no no....I am fine. See, I am all awake and happy.' I said, trying to give a big smile.

'Good boy.' she said, patting my shoulder.

We got out of the car after we reached our destination. The beach was completely dark with no one. Who would come to the beach at midnight? Both of us advanced towards the water and sat at the shore of the beach.

'Do you like it?' Adah asked me.

'I love you.' I said absent-mindedly, in my own world.

'What did you say?' she asked.

I bit my tongue, realizing what I had said. Thankfully, she hadn't noticed it.

I was so lost in Adah's thoughts that I couldn't focus on anything else.

'I mean I love it.' I said with a nervous smile.

'Yeah, I love it too.' Adah said.

I smiled

'You know why I asked you to bring me here?' Adah asked me.

'Yeah, to snatch away sleep and disturb me since you couldn't sleep.' I said.

'No you stupid. Stop being so sentimental.' Adah scolded me.

'Then why did you come here?'

'In my childhood, I used to come here daily with my parents.....' she said.

'At midnight?' I asked, puzzled.

'No, you stupid. I used to come here daily during daytime. Now I asked you to come here because when I was sleeping an hour ago, I saw a dream about my childhood and in it, I saw myself in this same beach. Nowadays, since my parents are busy, they do not have time to go anywhere. Recalling those days made me emotional. So I decided to come here and feel my childhood again.' Adah said.

'You could have come during daytime.'

'Yeah, but I couldn't resist myself.'

I smiled.

'Here take this, I had brought this for you.' Adah said, handing over the bottle containing Strawberry milkshake in it to me.

I drank the half of it and gave it to her to drink despite many attempts of saying that she didn't want it.

'It's tasty. I loved it.' I said to her as she drank the milkshake.

'Thanks.' she said.

Then she wiped out the moustache which had formed on my upper lip due to the milkshake. I loved this gesture of her even though her touch felt like an electric shock. I wanted to do the same thing which she did to me to her but her upper lip had no formation of moustache.

Unlucky me.

'Thanks for coming with me.' she said.

'Anything for you. And I should thank you because you made me experience a beach at midnight ' I said and she smiled.

Soon we returned to our homes and I loved our little journey.

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

I woke up in the morning and still felt sleepy. Thankfully, my mother hadn't known about my disappearance at midnight. Later that day, I met Mike and told him everything that had happened at midnight.

'You are such a jerk, man' Mike said to me.

'Why? What happened?' I asked him.

'She is going on giving you hints and you can't see it?'

'What do you mean?'

'Everything she did yesterday clearly shows that she likes you too. That story she told you about her childhod,when she used to go to beach with her parents, is her personal life and she decided to share it with none other than you. That sums up that she clearly likes you.'

I remained silent.

'I am almost sure that she likes you and I think you should step forward now and express your feelings to her.'

I just nodded my head. Almost. That was the key word there. It showed that it was not a sure thing.

I wanted to express my feelings to her but I was afraid that if it turns out that she does not have any feelings for me then we might not be the same way as we are now. I might lose our friendship and I didn't want that to happen. I just hoped that whatever Mike told turn out to be true and if that happens, Adah can express her feelings first. I couldn't take the risk.

Such a coward I am!