Sharon Raiprakash had a list of the things Sharon Raiprakash would never do. If the world was hard on people, limiting them all the time, people like Sharon Raiprakash outshined them with these amazing self-imposed limitations. When worse comes to the very worst, she noticed, people like her started having a difficult time just trying to breathe.
"Don't dance at dance parties." "Don't be seen listening to Mohammed Rafi in public." "Don't eat more than one of those candy bars." "Don't let them know you are hurt." Don't let Swayum Shikhawat see that you are intractably in love with him."
Maybe some people could live with these boundaries, these ridiculous and unreasonable instructions they gave themselves. But Sharon knew that eventually, the breath will be knocked out of her. She wanted to breathe.
So, on a not chilly day of early November, she found herself sitting outside a coffee shop. Since she was a smart girl generally, she knew that Swayum Shikhawat was a bigger problem than the number of chocolate bars she was allowing herself to consume these days. And it had been like that for many, many years.
You know, when she wore her hair in pigtails and not a bun? She knew he existed even then. When they grew up a little, she found him rather weird. But obviously, on growing up just a little bit more, she understood that Swayum Shikhawat had come to infect her. He was inside her in the figurative sense of the phrase. And that was no small business.
It was gravely huge.
Everything about it was massive and precarious in her opinion. So, as she sat waiting for him, her paranoia was inducing a rather interesting set of visions in her mind. It was not every day she asked him to come see her. What if he didn't come at all? And if he did, why would he come at all? For crying out loud, it was not every day she asked him to come see her.
He turned up twenty minutes late. But he turned up. And she turned away.
But Sharon knew she could not chicken out of this now. Smiling at her lightly, he made his way across a few benches and occupied a bench in front of her. He had this effect on her that she always wanted to note, despite all her restrictions on herself. His presence disarmed her. She wished she could tell him that.
However she started so, "You're late."
"I am sorry; I parked my car a little way away from here." He smiled at her casually.
"You couldn't have just parked it here?" She challenged his intelligence.
"Sharon," he said, gesturing with his hands for her to relax.
"Right, okay, hi." She added, "Why exactly do you think I have called you here?"
"Um, I dunno. Whatever I am thinking would be proved wrong by you anyway, what's the point?" He chuckled.
"You're oddly right." She mumbled.
Whispering stuff to herself, she simultaneously kept asking him to be patient with her. He stayed where he was while she appeared both to herself and to him like a very confused idiot who had no idea of her whereabouts and intentions. In truth, however, she knew exactly what to say.
"You know, when we were little, like in ninth grade, I thought you were very weird." She pointed out suddenly.
"We were little in ninth grade? And you think I am weird?" He reasonably counter attacked.
"Yes, listen. This is important, important that I give a brief introduction to my content here." She laughed a little.
"I see. But is it relevant?" He wasn't buying it.
"Oh, it is. It is. Hear me out; it's been years since then. And I, okay, look away please."
He didn't. So, she obliged.
"I have had feelings for you all this time." She said to the bushes a little way away from where she was seated.
In that moment, she did not know anymore just how hard those words were to say. Worse still, the state of her heartbeat while she spoke to him, let's just say none of that mattered anymore. She felt as light as a feather. And feathers too, like her, have no secret feelings for old friends whom they hardly see anymore.
"How many years, did you say?" Swayum looked like this wasn't happening to him, what had he ever done?
"Six or seven . . . give or take a few months." Sharon tried to sound casual, evading his eyes still.
"How can this be?" He whispered to no one in particular. "I thought you wanted to like have a deep, intelligent conversation or something."
All those years of making assumptions seemed wasted now. Her every interpretation of who Swayum was, was just as clueless as he had been till then. He did know more than he gave away. But he never knew as much as she had thought, he was not even close. Swayum actually knew squat. Although he was cute, well, wasn't he?
"It just can. Although I don't expect anything from you, so you can relax."
When he didn't seem to relax, she added, "I can take you to the ER in that hospital to our right, if you want."
"Actually, to your right and my left, there is a bank, not a hospital. It's to my right and your left. So, if I am having what you're thinking I am having, it might be too late for me if you take me there." He smilingly said to her, like he didn't know she was madly in love with him.
That was when she finally looked at his face. It was a face she had called ugly more times than anybody could count. It was also the face she wanted to touch and hold, probably tell its owner a few sappy things that neither of them could quite digest. She had always loved him very much. But precisely now, when Swayum Shikhawat chose not let her revelation affect his behavior toward her, she found herself falling in love with him again.
And that was funny since she had come expecting a closure and a possible end to her feelings for him. When they parted ways about forty minutes later, a proper goodbye did not happen. Sharon Raiprakash still had a list of the things she could say to him. Only she was not afraid anymore. It didn't feel like she would never see him again. Her paranoia never let her be sure of anything but with a slight exception after this wee bit of an incident.
She was certain now that her life was filled with infinite possibilities.
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