Stirring the coffee kept on her table for two, she looked past the door of the cafe. He noticed that she hadn't registered him entering. So he stood at a safe distance and looked at her intently -
something he didn't do often enough. He peered into her tired eyes, the crinkles by their sides not escaping him.
Time had its effect on all things - on her, on him, on them. Time had been, on them, a fair yet ruthless judge. It told them exactly where they stood, the picture it painted painfully unadulterated.
As years passed, it stripped, one after the other, each of the lies they wanted to believe in - till only the truth remained.
He sighed, as he continued gazing in her eyes, desperately looking for the door to the world she had sauntered into, hopelessly hoping for it to be a fond memory.
But all he found was emptiness… inanition that stems from pain and grows in the helpless acceptance of it. His own mind now slipped into the past. He remembered how getting late to their dates was his habit and how it enraged her. But somewhere in these eleven years of knowing her, that rage disappeared. And he hated himself for not knowing when or how it happened. Come to think of it, she became more and more accommodating - thus less and less herself. To become close to him, she distanced her from her own self.
If she could hear him think, she would vehemently disagree with everything he said. She would argue that she did it for love.
And then she would quote her favourite explanation of what love was. Love is the union of two individuals, she would say, like the formation of a chemical compound that exhibits properties that are sometimes entirely different from its constituent elements. There she'd go, with her chemistry, even while talking of love.
He smiled at his sudden ludicrous thought.
"Hear me think!" He muttered.
But that smile disappeared as quickly as it formed as somewhere inside him was a voice saying that he did this to her. The woman who put him first in everything aspect of her life came last in his. Her turn came after his work, his friends and even his colleagues - every single time.
Whenever there was a compromise to be made, she would be the one suffering. And she made it look so easy - the suffering.
Cancelled dates, forgotten occasions, constant absence, emotional unavailability.
She endured it all with a smile on her face.
The service that he gave to this nation was not just his, it was hers too. The sacrifices he made were not his alone. The world forgot this often but it was unfair of him to forget too. Yet, he did.
He walked towards her, casting his thoughts aside, the pain they brought too much for him to dwell on them further.
"I'm sorry Tarika," he said, taking his seat opposite her.
He knew that she thought he was apologizing for being late and he chose not to clarify.
He just looked at her, as though he were making up for all the times he didn't. As her eyes met his, he saw in them, a playful questioning. He saw in front of him, a very strong woman, who knew exactly what she wanted. He saw the woman who loved him, the woman he loved.
It was like everything he had observed from afar had vanished under the three worded spell he had uttered.
And then it came to him - whatever he saw was him, his guilt. It had been, all along a mere manifestation of his own guilt.
"Kya hua Abhijeet?"
"Kuch nahi - mere aankho mein kuch chala gaya tha."
Hi everyone. I know there has been a lot of confusion. The previous story has NOT been written by me. This is the one I was talking about when I posted the note. It has been overdue, I know. But it has been hard to write.
Please review.