Slowly opening the door I tiptoe into Nana's room. She seems to be in deep slumber. Standing by the side of her bed, I gaze at her serene sleeping face. She looks like a child. The lines of age crisscrossing her face have softened a lot in sleep. 

I heave a sigh of relief. I still have nightmares about the night when I had found her dying in her bed. I'm yet to make myself trust that she has recovered, has come back to me. 

The image of her peaceful sleeping face, her body lying on its side in its usual sleeping position on her own bed in her own room, somehow reassure me. Silently I come out of the room, closing the door behind me. 

Yesterday, I had bunked school. They were going to release Nana from the hospital and I couldn't bring myself not to be there when she returned home. So I lurked around the house unless the ambulance arrived, carrying her. She was still very weak and couldn't talk much, but her eyes were clear and happy. That was all I had asked for.

Today I have to go to school, or Nana will be worried that I have been booked again for some mischief there. Not that I don't want to go there myself. I haven't seen Ruy yesterday, and I want to see him now. 

I arrive at school late, but for once I'm not punished, as my class teacher knows that my grandmother is seriously ill. I go and sit at my usual desk and try to look for Ruy. He's sitting at his desk, and as I look at him, our eyes meet.

He tries to avoid my gaze immediately. Lowering his head, he seems to focus his attention on the textbook that lay open in front of him. 

From the corner of my eye I see that the teacher has gone to the white board and is writing something on it. I turn my gaze away from Ruy and try to concentrate on the numbers and letters scrawled on the board. But everything in my mind has jumbled up.

Why is he avoiding my eyes? What's happened? Since that evening in the jetty we haven't been alone together. I was too busy with attending Nana at the hospital and didn't contact him at all. I didn't go to Jojo's birthday party as well, but on a second thought, even if Nana was not sick, I wouldn't go there at all. I'm not inclined towards social gatherings anyway.

He, too, didn't try to contact me. Not that I expected him to do so. He is a damned flirt and he will always be so. It's not that I'm in love with him or something. It's just that I don't yet know what I want to do with him, and unless I know it well, I can't let him go either.

Thinking about Ruy, I can't help but remember Lina, too. Involuntarily, my eyes search for her. No, she hasn't come to school today. She is someone who bags the prize for 100% attendance at school every year. What could have happened to make her absent today? I can't think of an answer to any of my questions.

The day rolls on languidly. As the evening draws near, I become more and more restless. I want to see Ruy alone once again. I must find a chance to do so.

The school is over. As usual, I'm on my way home, alone. Just as usual, Ruy has been waiting for me at the corner of the road where a bunch of old trees has created a cosy shade. 

We walk side by side. For a few minutes, both of us are silent. Then he says, "How are you, Mimo? Has your granny come back home?"

"Yes," I say, "I'm fine, I think? How are you?"

He doesn't reply and keeps on walking, silently. I glance sideways at his face. It is dark, thoughtful. Something must have happened there.

I can't bring myself to ask. I have never shown curiosity in others' affairs. I'm just not interested in them, I think. 

This time I want to know, but can't show it. 

We arrive at a fork of the road. We'll go our different ways from here. 

I stop in my tracks. He stops, too. "Come to the old clock tower in the evening. I'll be there waiting for you!" I rattle out on a sudden impulse. Walking all this way side by side with him has ignited that same old flame in me. My limbs are once again numb from the desire to drag him inside me and drown him into the bottomless whirlpool which churns everything inside my soul. I want to see if he is the one I'm looking for.

He nods curtly and goes his way, without ever looking back. But I know he'll come.

Turning away, I walk on my path and enter the darkening mango grove. In the dying light of the day the huge ancient trees gather around me, looking like the giant legs of monsters waiting in silence for their prey to come this way. 

A shiver runs down my spine. I'm not frightened, but a strange sense  of foreboding engulfs me. As I look around, I see Lina, leaning against a huge tree, a strange longing hovering in her amber eyes.

I stop in my tracks. I can't even stir a limb. Instead, I wait for her with bated breath.

She walks slowly towards me. Stopping by my side, she leans in and her face stops inches away from mine. I can smell her breath now.

"Are you going to meet him, Mimo?" 

"I guess I'm?"

"Don't Mimo, please! He's a damned beast! See what he has done to me!"

She pulls her top over her head in an instant, allowing her round, half-formed breasts to tumble out from the cups of the top she had been wearing. Even in the half-light of the evening I cringe at the sight of the bitten and bruised lumps of soft flesh that hang in front of my eyes. Lina's voice keeps on pouring in my ears.

"Last night he walked me home from the party...I was alone and he, well, he raped me! See how he feasted on my body! That brute!" 

She breaks down, laughing uncontrollably, but somehow it sounds like crying in my ears. I step back from her. 

"You don't believe me?" She cries out. "Go see the mark in his chest; below his left collarbone. I bit him there! GO! NOW!"

I step further back. I want to run, but I can't. The hell I care if Ruy has raped her or not! But the mark of violation on her body sets me off, releasing a beast inside my chest. 

Turning away, I start to run away from her once again.