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I’LL NEVER LEAVE YOU… EVER(PART 2)
The third time I met him was 3 days after that stormy day. I was with my best friend and hall mate Jessica, having just finished a 6 p.m. lecture. I had told Jessica about the mysterious stranger, and though she was pretty worried about me and lectured me constantly about stalkers, I was disinclined to listen to her. In truth, I had been hoping to see him again, and maybe find out more about him. Most of all, I couldn’t get over that feeling of déjà vu I got whenever I saw him. For some reason, I felt it was very important that I get to the bottom of it.
Jess had been whining about craving nasi lemak all throughout the lecture, and she was really driving me up the wall. So it was with a sense of relief that I sat down in the mostly deserted canteen and Jess informed me that she’d run and buy her nasi lemak first, before the stall closed.
I was simply sitting at our table, reading over my lecture notes while waiting for Jessica to return, when suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled to see… It was him! Standing right behind me, smiling down at me!
I gasped and dropped my notes. Papers went fluttering over the table and on to the floor. As I bent down to pick them up, I slipped sideways and nearly landed on the floor. Or at least I would have landed on the floor and sustained a painful bruise on my bum, if he hadn’t swept his arm round me and hauled me back to my seat. I could feel my face flaming red at my own clumsiness.
“Are you ok?” he asked solicitously as he quickly gathered my papers together and placed them on the table in front of me.
“Fine, thanks,” I said. Now that my first flush of embarrassment was over, I again felt that peculiar sense of peace and contentment steal over me as I looked up at him. His face… there was something so familiar about his face. Where had I seen him before?
“Can’t you remember me at all, Sheryl? Not even the slightest bit?” he suddenly asked softly.
I was dumbfounded and caught off guard. That moment, I felt the first stirrings of fear begin to flutter in my chest. “Who… are you?” I whispered. “How do you know my name? Who are you? Tell me!”
His face, so cheery a moment before, suddenly lost its smile and took on a veneer of sadness and despair. He took a few steps backwards.
I stood up as well and faced him. “Tell me!” I cried. “Why are you following me around? Why do you make me feel this way? Do I know you? Where? When?”
He shook his head. “Sheryl, if you don’t know… I can’t tell you. You have to find out for yourself.”
I shook my head in disbelief, even as I felt tears spring to my eyes. The look of utter despair on his face tore at me. The tears also shining in his eyes broke my heart. For some reason I felt like I had done him a great wrong. And his face, his voice… something was swimming in my memory. But I simply couldn’t dredge it out.
I stepped forward so I was right in front of him. He was so close, his lips almost touched my forehead.
“I need to know who you are,” I said softly. “Please, Nicholas, please…”
I trailed off as I realized I’d just called him Nicholas, for no reason. His head snapped up. “You remember me now!” he cried.
But I simply shook my head. It was true I still couldn’t remember him. All I did was say his name, though how I knew it was a mystery…
He took a deep breath and smiled at me through his tears. “It’s alright, Sheryl. At least you know my name. At least you know now that I’m Nicholas… It will all come back to you in time.”
And with that, he turned and walked away as I slumped back into my chair, dazed. But it was just a few seconds later when I felt a hand on my shoulder again. I jumped and swung around, expecting to see Nicholas again. But it was Jessica.
“What’s wrong?” she asked concernedly, setting down her tray of nasi lemak and hurrying over to me, putting a hand on my clammy forehead. “Sheryl, talk to me! You look like you’ve just seen a ghost!”
“Did you see him?” I asked. I knew that Jessica would have walked past him coming back to my table since there was no other way he could have exited the canteen. Furthermore, she wouldn’t be able to miss him since there was practically no one else in the area we were at.
“Who?” Jessica asked, looking confused.
“Nicholas! You know, my so-called stalker…”
“Where?” Jessica said, looking around. “There’s no one…”
“No Jess, I mean, when you were coming back to our table… I’d just finished talking to him, he’d only just left… you must have passed him on your way back here.”
Jessica looked at me blankly. “Are you really ok, Sheryl? I saw no one at all… the whole canteen is almost deserted! I passed no one at all on my way back!”
I shook my head disbelievingly. “But… that’s impossible… he… he’d only finished talking to me a few seconds before you came back! He walked off in the direction you came from!”
“I swear, I saw no one at all,” Jessica said firmly.
I stared up at her in horror.