Lost Love Found Again - Part I

She had just finished with high school and was planning to join college.
She was a very quiet girl and was brought up by her grandmother. She was very simple and shy and always kept to her work and her hobbies. She used to collect coins, stamps, cartoons characters, and all sorts of nick knacks that were of interest to her. She had a good collection of novels too as she loved reading.

It was one of those days when she was busy sorting out her stamps when
there was a knock on the door, when she opened the door she saw two young boys standing at the door, one was her sister's friend whom she recognized but who was the other, she wondered. Well she greeted them in and there were introductions. Since it was her sister's friends , she went back to her collection. While she was sitting in the far end of the hall, she could feel someone coming towards her, and when she looked up , it was Ricky. He came up to her and says
"Hi, is stamp collecting your hobby" and she shyly answered yes. He said "I also collect stamps maybe we could exchange our collections", and he told her that some of the stamps that she had were bent and would be of no use.

Ever since that day he would accompany his friend to her house. He seemed to be very interested in her. One fine day, he approached her grandmother and asked her if he could take her out. The grandmother although being very strict agreed, as she found this boy to be good. She told her granddaughter "he likes you so why don't you go out with him". She was very shy and refused but relented after much persuasion from her sister and granny.

Then It happened once that Ricky and his maiden beheld each other in a public assembly for the first time…He gazed with great delight upon the beautiful face until he caught her eye…And, oh, how blessed is it thus to meet! Their friendship carried on for few months, after which he went back to the Rigs where he was working and she continued with her college. They would correspond regularly and both were in love with each other only through their letters, then came December and there was no mail. She would wait for the postman to come, but he would smile at her and say "no mail today".

She was getting very restless and did not know what to do, she kept writing to him but it seemed of no avail. She never knew what had gone wrong and why he had all of sudden stop writing to her.

Summer vacation had come; knowing that his brother was going to meet him, she gave him a letter and asked him to let her know what happened. She was getting very worried and two months passed yet no news from him.
Then his brother returned and all that he said to her was "just forget my brother and carry on with your life". She was hurt and upset. Soon, she started falling ill and was wondering where she had gone wrong. She truly loved him and never did anything to hurt him, then why was she being treated in this way. She did not do too well in her exams, due to the heartbreak. It took a toll on her health, she was sick. Her grandmother got worried and called up her aunt and told her the situation. They told the grandmother to pack her things and to send her to Bombay.