(Source : The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri)
The following week, back at Yale, Ruth met Gogol and they went for coffee at Atticus bookshop. She was dressed in the same jeans and boots and chocolate suede coat she'd worn when they met. At first he sensed an awkwardness he hadn't felt on the train. The cafe felt loud and hectic, the tables between them too wide. Ruth was quieter than before, looking down at her cup and playing with sugar pockets, her eyes occasionally wandering to the books that lined the wall. But soon enough they were conversing easily, as they had before, exchanging tales of their respective holidays. "I looked for you on my way back," he admitted to her. Afterward they walked together through the Center for British Art ; there there was an exhibit of Renaissance works on paper, which they'd both been meaning to see. He walked her back to Silliman, and they arranged to have coffee a few days later. After saying good night, Ruth lingered by the gate, looking down at the books pressed up to her chest, and wondered if he should kiss her, which was what he'd been wanting to do for hours, or in her mind, they were only friends. She started walking backward her entry way, smiling at him, taking an impressive number of steps before giving a final wave and turning away.
He began to meet her after her classes, remembering her schedule, looking up at the buildings and hovering casually under the archways. She always seemed pleased to see him, stepping away from her girl friends to say hello. "Of course she likes you," Jonathan told Gogol, patiently listening to a minute account of their acquaintance one night in the dining hall. A few days later, following Ruth back to her room because she'd forgotten a book needed for a class he placed his hand over hers as she reached for the door knob. Her roommates were out. He waited for her on the sofa in the common room as she searched for the book. It was the middle of the day, overcast, lightly raining. "Found it," he said, and though they both had classes, they remained in the room, sitting on the sofa and kissing until it was too late to bother going.
Every evening they studied together at the library, sitting at either end of a table to keep from whispering. She took him to her dining hall, and he to his. He took her to the sculpture garden. He thought of her constantly where ever he was ; whether in the drafting class, lecture hall of his Renaissance architecture class. Within weeks the end of the semester was upon them, and they were besieged by exams and papers and hundreds of pages of reading. Far more than the amount of work he faced, he dreaded the month of separation they would have to endure at winter break. One Saturday afternoon, just before exams, she mentioned to him in the library that both her roommates would be out all day. They walked together through Cross Campus, back to Silliman, and he sat with her on her unmade bed. The room smelt as she did, a powdery floral smell that lacked the acridness of perfume. Postcards of authors were taped to the wall over her desk, Oscar Wilde and Virginia Woolf. Their lips and faces were still numb from the cold, and at first they still kept their coats on. They lied together against the shearling lining of hers, and she guided his hand beneath her bulky sweater. It had not been like this the first time, the only other time, that he'd been with a girl. He recalled nothing from that episode, only being thankful, afterward, that he was no longer a virgin.
But this time he was aware of everything, the warm hollow of Ruth's abdomen, the way her lank hair rested in thick strands on the pillow, the way her feature changed slightly when she was lying down. "You're great, Nikhil," she whispered as he touched small breasts set wide apart, one pale nipple slightly larger than the other. He kissed them, kissed the moles scattered on her stomach as she arced gently toward him, felt her hands on his head and then on his shoulders, guiding him between her parted legs. He felt inept, clumsy, as he tasted and smelt her there, and yet he heard her whispering his name, telling him it felt wonderful. She knew what to do, unzipping his jeans, standing up at one point and getting a diaphragm case from her bureau drawer.
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