(continuation of A Lover's Wait... If you guys haven't read that story first then I suggest that you do since this story is a sequel to the previous story).


I was more than relieved when we left the Carnival halfway to go home. We're currently in our aunt's SUV, with me sitting in the backseat with the window glass pulled down, taking in the breeze and gazing at the pitch-black fields of Bastora as the car passes by.

This helps me put my mind at ease a bit. I still can't believe what happened to me back there, and right now I just don't want to think about it. I'm glad Rufus understood that I needed to get out of there soon and managed to somehow convince his mom, Philomena, my aunt who brought us there in the first place, to leave quickly by feigning that he was starving, to which she, of course, agreed. If there's anything I know regarding Goan moms, it's that they do not in any way compromise when it comes to feeding their kids, at least not Aunt Philu. She'll make sure that her kids have eaten to their heart's content even before they go to bed and won't take no for an answer. Meat dishes dominate the other dishes that would be set up on the dining table. No wonder she complains that her dresses don't fit her because she's getting too stout for them anyway with the amount of food she hogs all day. I sigh silently, thinking about the day when I'll finally be in Dubai again.

My phone begins to ring after a while, and the caller ID indicates that it is my dad.
"Hey, dad."

"Hello, Ted. How are you? And what were you doing hours ago? I tried calling you a number of times, but every now and then your phone seems to be unreachable."

"Uh, yeah, my phone had no service, dad. Well, my Aunt Philu, Rufus, and I had gone to Mapusa to watch the Carnival, and you can guess the phone reception there was pretty messed up. "

"Oh, alright. Is Aunt Philu with you now? "
"Well...", I looked over at Aunt Philu at the same time when she looked at me from the rear view mirror and gestured to me that she would speak with him later.

"She's driving at the moment, dad, but she'll call you as soon as we reach home."

"Oh, that's fine with me. I hope you've packed up all your stuff and arranged your suitcases since, at the last minute, it's going to be a rush. "
"Yes, dad, everything's packed and ready. You don't need to worry about it. "

"Okay then, you take care of yourself now. Bye son."
"You too, dad. Bye and see you soon. "

I put my phone away and notice Rufus is looking at me.

"What?"
"You didn't tell your dad about your imaginary girlfriend?" He asks teasingly. I give him a look that tells him to shut up, but Rufus, being the clown that he is, just looks at me amusedly.

"A girlfriend?" My aunt Philu asks. I facepalm myself mentally. Great! I think to myself.

"Yes, mom. Dias here saw a girl and even claimed to be talking to her! " He exaggerates the last part.

My aunt Philu makes a tsk tsk sound and adds, "I'm not sure why you have to call him by his surname Dias, when he clearly has a name that's similar to a stuffed animal. I mean, a teddy bear's name is even longer than his." Rufus chuckles at this, while I just roll my eyes. It's not like she has said this the first time, but every time she uses this statement, Rufus cracks up real quick like a child.

"Hey, chill out, man!" He says when he notices that I'm giving him a bored look.

"What girl are you boys talking about though?" Rufus's mom asks, looking at us from the rearview mirror.

"Oh, the one Dias seemingly met at the carnival." Rufus explains by wiggling his eyebrows.

I narrow my eyes at his nonchalant attitude concerning my situation, and, at the same time, his mom claims that she didn't see me with anyone.

"Yes, I was engrossed in looking at the floats and observing the different Goan folk dances and I was even humming to the beats of Goan singer Lorna's Konkani songs, but I also made sure to keep a close watch on you boys just so I wouldn't lose sight of you both." She answered when I asked her if she may not have been observant enough to notice if I was talking to someone.

"I surely would've noticed if you were talking to anyone, Ted," she adds, with Rufus nodding in agreement.

"Well, it looks like you saw a ghost, Dias. That's the only explanation I can give you right now. After all, it wasn't like we were far away from the church's cemetery." He says this nonchalantly, with a smirk on his face.

I turn my head towards the window to look outside and sit in silence throughout the drive-in in hopes of ignoring him. However, I can't help but wonder if this could even be a possibility. No, it's real. Her touch, her kiss, her voice... everything felt so real. I feel myself shuddering as I think about all this, but more at the prospect of me making out with a ghost! I take a deep breath to calm myself down and push away those thoughts for now. Rufus is just trying to get under my skin, that's all. After all, ghosts aren't even real to think about, are they?

As soon as I reach home, I quickly freshen up and try to convince Aunt that I don't want to have my dinner, but in vain. I've lost my appetite after what I experienced a few hours ago. She forced me to have dinner with the family, and I had to give in. I'm in no mood to have an argument with anyone. I somehow managed to finish my dinner and rushed to my room to be alone for a while. I lock the room door and, with a huge sigh, I sit down on the chair in front of my desk. The small watch on my desk reads 10 p.m. I am thinking of calling my friend Kenneth Bist, but I don't know if he's busy since he informed me yesterday that he would be hanging out with his cousins who had come over for vacation at his place. I still leave a text for him to call me as soon as possible since it's an urgent matter.

I unlock my phone and browse through Instagram to search for Merylinn. I admit that I am not a big fan of social media and spend far less time on it, especially at night, but this situation can't wait and I need to get to the bottom of it. My phone had really bad reception in Mapusa and I couldn't go online even whilst we were in my aunt's car. I'm glad this house has a good wifi connection. I scrolled up to search for her profile, but unfortunately, her profile's locked. Great! I think to myself. I end up going on Facebook and looking for her there. When I searched for her name, I received a lot of results, but after looking for a while, bingo! I finally found her profile.

I clicked on it and luckily it wasn't locked. I checked out her latest post, and I froze when I saw the post of an obituary. "MERYLINN FERNANDES (24 DEC 1999 – 14 FEB 2022)" was written in bold block letters with many condolences being mentioned in the comments below the post. I stared hard at the picture, with horror written all over my face. I feel numb and stop breathing for a moment. A shiver ran down my spine with goosebumps erupting all over me. I'm at a loss for words and can feel the blood draining from my face. It suddenly feels cold around me, even when it's sunny outside. This can't be happening, I murmur to myself. I did not kiss a ghost, nor did I touch a ghost! This is a lie. I composed myself but in vain. I look at the date of the post and it clearly shows that it was uploaded on February 26th, 2022. I refreshed the page several times but to no avail. I stared at the screen of my phone in disbelief, which was still showing me her obituary.

I started looking through more of her posts on her profile and found some of her funeral pictures posted there, of which one picture caught my attention. The background indicated that it was taken in the cemetery, with the coffin fully open, showing Merylinn sleeping peacefully with white gloves covering her hands. Her hands are folded in a prayer-like manner, with the rosary gently circled around them, and she is wearing a white gown, the same white gown in which I saw and met her yesterday. I nearly jumped and almost threw my phone down when I heard it ring. Bist's name flashed across the screen. I took a big deep breath and, with shaky hands, I swiped across the screen to answer the call.

"Hey, Dias," Bist says as soon as I answer the call.

Bist and I have known each other for over three years now. He's more like a good friend to me, and I admit that I haven't made any new friends except some of them since I'm socially awkward at times, and yes, we do refer to one another by our surnames.

"Hey, Bist." I say casually, hoping he doesn't try to catch the fear in my voice.

"Hey man, what's the urgent matter you wanna to talk about?"

"Huh?" I say, feeling confused.

"Bro, you texted me, saying that you needed to talk to me urgently and to call you as soon as possible."

"Oh, yeah. About that..."

"About what, exactly?"

I filled him in on the whole incident from the start that had occurred with me, explaining everything in detail without possibly leaving anything out.

"Wait, what? She kissed you?" He asked, clearly surprised and interrupting me halfway. I facepalmed myself in annoyance. I should've known better.

"Yeah, she did. But that's not the point..." Before I could continue with anything, Bist cut me off again.

"Dude, that means she's into you and you just scored your first kiss with a girl, man." He says this clearly pumped up on his side.

"Yeah sure, if you wanna call her a girl."

"What do you mean, 'if you wanna call her a girl?" He asks

"It means she disappeared without a trace. I don't even have a clue where she came from and nobody saw her, including my aunt and cousin. Doesn't it seem strange to you?"

"Well, they must've been busy with their own stuff, and you must've lost sight of her in the crowd, as you said it yourself that the carnival was crowded."

"Yeah, I thought so too until I found her on Facebook..." And he cut me off, yet again.

"That's great! You can text her there, get her contact and boom! Go on a first date and enjoy your time together."

*Sigh* (one minute of silence with the crickets chirping in the background)

"uhh, Dias? Hello?"
"Yeah, I'm here," I say annoyedly

"I thought I lost you, man."

"Yeah, no, I was wondering when you'd stop yapping like a yappity yack!"

"Oh, cool. But dont forget about planning your first date with Merylinn though." He says it with a tease.

"Kenneth, I would have to use an ouija board or worse, kill myself to go on a date with her because she's no more, Merylinn's dead."

"Wait, what the...?"

I sent him the obituary post of Merylinn as a screenshot on messenger. He's still on the call, and I can hear him mutter a curse under his breath.

"Are you for real, Ted? Give the dead a break! Are you seriously stupid to pull a prank on me with this?"

"Is that how you feel now? About what I saw at the carnival? Only a madman would make a fool of such things. Up until now, I didn't know that she was dead, but I also know what I saw, felt, and heard, so you can call me crazy if you want to, but I believe what I experienced and I'm not making this up in any way."

There's a momentarily pause on the other end of the call before Bist speaks.

"Hmmm. I'm at a loss for words right now. I just... I can't seem to wrap my mind around this. It's scary yet stupid, the more I try to make sense of it. Stupid because I know ghosts aren't real."

"Yeah, moments ago, I actually thought I lost my mind, but when I looked closely at other funeral photos of Merylinn, I noticed the same white dress she was wearing at the carnival and in the photos taken whilst she lay in the coffin. Believe me, the revelation of this wasn't pretty to me either."

"Yeah, plus you were also intimate with her."

"Ugh, yeah, can we not talk about that?" I say, still shuddering at the very thought of that.

I hear him give a small chuckle and respond by saying, "cool."

"I also don't understand why the college never really bothered to announce Merylinn's untimely death?" Bist asks curiously. "Oh, wait! Because they never really got a chance to or they must've done it, but the third year batch students wouldn't be there to hear it since we're already passed out." He says this by answering his own question.

"Also, if you notice the date she died, it was the day we had our farewell function." I add quickly.

"Yeah, our exams were in January, and I think I'm pretty sure I saw Merylinn during those days, and also remember seeing her hanging out with Julianna. I believe they're close friends. "

"So contact her."

"What? Why me?"

"Look, if I really want to know why, out of all the people, Merylinn chose to appear before me, I believe her friend would be able to give me at least some answers, especially if she's her close friend like you said and also you're aware that I'm uhh, I always fumble whilst talking to a girl."

"Dude look, first off this entire thing sounds ridiculous. What makes you think Julianna would want to listen to this?" He asks as a matter of fact.

"Maybe it seems like I've made up the whole thing but my instincts tell me there's more to it man. Like I'm missing something and believe Julianna is the best shot, we got right now."

"So we're just supposed to blindly trust your instincts then? Go with the flow kind of thing now, is it? Dude I don't want us to look dumb is all I'm saying. Maybe you were daydreaming or stressed out about something which may be then caused you to have a hallucination."

"Kenneth, I'm serious. I want to figure out what's going on and I don't care if I end up looking like an idiot in the process and yes, I believe, I would be able to tell a difference between reality and a dream and no! I'm not stressed nor am I hallucinating about anything. Look, if you're worried that this would reflect badly on you then blame it on me. Tell her, I'm out of my mind!"

"But I can't just call her up now! It's midnight." Bist says

"So?"

"So... She's probably tucked in bed by now."

"Just because I'm in bed by 11pm, I doubt others have the same routine. You don't sleep until 2 a.m. in the morning. No one sleeps this early, especially if one loses a close friend."

"Hey, come on now! You just can't assume that I sleep late everyday." Bist says defensively

"Yeah, that's why I have so many pending reels to be watched on Instagram sent by you, with the text time clearly stating that these were sent at 2 am, sometimes even at 3 am."

"(sighs) Fine, I'll call her and if she doesn't answer my calls now, then let's try in the morning."

"Okay, cool."

"But, if Julianna doesn't want to talk or hear you out then obviously it's a lost cause and you gotta move on from this."

"Done. I agree with that but if it's not a lost cause then we both will do what it takes to sort this out."

"Deal."

He hangs up the call and I lie down for a while on my bed. A part of me almost wants to sleep, but another part of me is a bit too eager to know more about Merylinn. Why me? I think to myself. Then I remember the words she whispered to me, "Je vous aime mon amour, Dias."

What did she mean by this? I used Google Voice to search for this sentence, and the results indicated that it was French for "I Love You." Did she love me? Then why did she not confront me when she was alive? Why not tell me about it sooner and why not say it in English? This all didn't make sense to me.

Minutes felt like hours as I waited patiently for Kenneth to call back. When he finally did, he informed me that we'd be doing a conference call with Julianna. I readily agreed to it since I had so many unanswered questions that I felt she had the answers to. When the call was connected, I heard Julianna's faint hello through my phone, and I was shocked at how oddly similar it sounded to Merylinn's voice.

"Hi Julianna, this is Ted here."

"Hi Ted." She said monotonously

"I umm..." When I felt nervous about continuing any further, Kenneth broke the awkwardness surrounding this conversation.

"Okay, I'll be the ice breaker here. Julianna, Ted will narrate the incident that occurred at the carnival. So just listen up closely to any details you hear, and if you feel like stopping, just let us know. "

Julianna agreed to this, and I went on to explain all that happened, from my encounter with Merylinn till I last saw her disappear in the crowd for good and later on, included about discovering her obituary post on Facebook as well as finding out that the dress Merylinn wore at the carnival was the same one clicked and seen in her funeral photos. By the time I had completed narrating the whole incident, there was nothing but silence on the other end of the call.

"Uh, hello Julianna?" I inquired.

"Yeah, I'm not asleep, if that's what you're wondering." She answered

"Well, do you have anything to say about this?" Bist asks

"As of now, no, I don't. But I believe him." She says

"You believe me? Why?" I asked curiously. I knew at that moment that she was aware of something that I didn't know. I mean why was she so quick to trust me?

"I can't explain it on the phone. I need to show it to you. Then you'll understand why I believe in your story. Both of you meet me at the Calangute beach at 4 pm tomorrow and don't be late! "

We all agreed to meet up in Calangute and hung up the call shortly after that. I glanced at the watch on my desk and it showed that it was 2.30 am. I lie down on my bed with Julianna's words ringing in my head. What is it that she couldn't talk about and wanted to show me? I can feel my eyelids growing heavier by the second, and so I slowly close my eyes and fall asleep in anticipation of tomorrow.

We arrived in Calangute at five minutes to four p.m. with Kenneth's bike. He parked his bike at the allotted two-wheeler pay parking spot, and we had to walk the remainder of the way to the shore. Julianna said she'd be meeting us in front of BONO's Shack, which is on the left side of the beach entrance. We proceeded to walk barefoot on the sand with our slippers in hand. The soft sand felt good under the soles of my feet. There's always something so beautiful about beaches. They just have such a serene and calming effect on an individual that I bet even if one decides to take a quick stroll on the beach, they will want to make it last longer by taking their own sweet time. The sound of waves crashing against the sand seems like a smooth, melodic tune with an underlying continuous rhythmic beat drumming within it. The sunset scene is just another highlight of the seashore's already spectacular qualities.

Bist and I walk in silence until we make it to BONO's Shack. We see Julianna sitting down on the sand, close enough for the waves to almost touch her toes. We slowly approach her and call out to her. She turns around to look at us, and I notice her eyes are red and puffy, which indicates to me that she was crying. She greets us back with a serious look on her face. The three of us sat down in silence at first, and a while later, Julianna tells us about Merylinn's death. She explains that Merylinn perished two weeks ago in an awful accident in Mapusa on the evening of February 13th while returning home after shopping. The doctors tried their best to revive her, but her injuries were too grave for her to survive, and so, on the morning of February 14th, she succumbed to her injuries and died. Bist and I are at a loss for words, but nonetheless, offer our condolences to her. I noticed Julianna put up a strong front and was trying really hard not to break down, all the while she was telling us about Merylinn. After calming herself down for a bit, she handed me a white envelope saying,
"She wrote this for you. In fact, she wanted to give it to you on February 14th, during our farewell function, but she never really got a chance to do it. I found it among her belongings in her home when I had gone to pay condolences to her parents. Merylinn had texted me the day she wrote the letter and was anxious as well as excited to give it to you. I know she'd want you to have it, but I wasn't in a position to give it to you and I'm really sorry about it. I'm glad that we met now and I can finally be at peace, knowing you have her letter."

I take the letter and, as I hold it with shaky hands, I read the words "TO DIAS" written in blocks on the front of the envelope. I slowly opened the envelope, took out the letter and read it:

Dear Dias,

I know it's cringy and maybe stupid to write a letter nowadays when there are clearly multiple apps created for this purpose. Well, this isn't just some ordinary message that I'd like to inform you about, nor do I want to rush with it. I wanted this to be special and real, and what better way to convey a message than through a letter? So, this is what I want you to hear from me: I am hopelessly and irresistibly in love with you, Ted.

I really thought that what I felt was nothing but a temporary crush, but as the days passed by, followed by months, I am sure now that what I feel about you is nothing but love. By now, it must've crossed your mind that this is absurd considering that we barely know each other. It's absurd to me as well, but guess what? I tried my hardest to not think of you, to not look at you every time you passed by, albeit the more I tried to forget you, the more I just couldn't resist you. You are kind and patient, quiet yet observant. There is so much more I want to tell you, but for now, I'd like to share one of my favourite memories of you.

I still remember the first time I laid eyes on you, a tanned guy with smooth raven-coloured hair who was wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, and sneakers that screamed Adidas. The black hoodie appeared soft and cosy enough to make me jealous that I don't quite own a jacket like that. Yeah, I'm a hoodie girl, if you haven't guessed that already. I was busy chatting away with Julie when suddenly I heard you laugh. I turned to my right and saw that this time you were standing and still laughing at what Kenneth said. You added on to what he had to say, and I couldn't help but fall in love with your voice when you spoke.

It was a melodiously husky voice that I wouldn't get tired of listening to. I stared at you this time and longingly waited for you to pass by my side, which you did, by the way. Our classmate, Crystal, approached us, and when Kenneth saw her, he approached us to greet her, and following behind him was you. I forgot to breathe for a moment, but I quickly calmed myself for obvious reasons. I didn't want you or anyone to know that I was drooling over you.

You looked stunning now that I could observe you more closely. However, what really caught my attention were your deep brown eyes. Your eyes are clearly gorgeous and mysterious at the same time, especially when the small rays of sunlight hit them. I was fascinated by the slight yet distinct colour change in them. A golden hue spreading along your two deep brown irises was a sight that I found mesmerizing as well as alluring.

I shall never forget this day, Dias. Until my last breath, I shall always hold this memory dear to me since it is engraved in my mind. I could go on forever talking about you, but I believe that this is enough for one letter and I shall save the rest for you to tell you more about it when you say yes to my question. The question, of course, is, "Would you like to give it a shot at being in a relationship with me?" The answer can be a simple yes or a no, with one or two sentences stating the reasons for your answers to the above question.

This feels easy, doesn't it? Because it is Dias. Whatever your answer would be, I'll gladly take it. You must've probably felt like I was some sort of stalker and you want to say no, then say no! I'll take it because love can't be forced on someone, and I definitely can't force you to do anything. Till then, I will wait patiently for your answer. Je vous aime mon amour, Dias.

Your Secret Admirer

Merylinn

(to be continued)....
© Shania(shazeel)