SS: A Bend in the Road [Wattpad link-P.126] - Page 36

This was a bad idea, this surely was.

Tara saw her husband walk towards his favorite place with a walking stick and hoped against hope to leave.

The metal bench in the garden was his most favorite place, over looking the garden.

In Autumn, the golden leaves fell on the bench, and Dev could sit there, with closed eyes for hours in a meditative silence or simply reading a book. That side of her husband, she had known in the past three years, in only some stolen moments when he wasn't aware she was around.

This evening as she sits at this place by the tree, she see him approach and stop by just as he observes his favorite place isn't unoccupied.

She wordlessly shifts making space for him and he waits for a moment before taking the seat next to.

"You're ready to play the game?" He asks her, for which she wonders what could have given her away.

"It's a little weird though" she admits. "We aren't exactly strangers"

He smiled at her reluctance in vehemently not calling them strangers. Both of them were aware they are almost strangers.

"You're concerned about the history, if there is one" he says mildly.

Upon the expression on her face, he smiles again.

"If given a chance to be someone else than Tara who would you be?"

She looked at him curiously.

"You needn't answer that now" he said. "Just giving you food for thought. You could be anyone and I still won't be able to make out the difference so is the case with you"

How sad is it that he was absolutely right!

"Can we be fictional characters then?" She asks and it's his turn to be surprised.

"What?"

"If I can be anyone, can I be my favorite fictional character?" She repeated.

"Who would that be?"

"Jo March" she said "Little women"

He had a passing acquaintance with classics because he had once dated a woman who studied English literature, who had loved him like a love poem. For a short while he almost believed he fell in love with her.

But then somehow they both wanted different things career wise and couldn't stay together since they only stopped each other from being what they wanted.

After she had moved to a different city, Dev was still young and had realized commitment wasn't his thing.

The rest of his relationships had neither the devotion nor the seriousness. But for the entire summer, Dev had been to the library several times and let his hands pass through the spines of the old classics, thinking of her.

He was aware of most of the classics since he had spent several afternoons just staying by her side when she was reading one of them. Oh, what young love does to you!

It all felt a life time ago.

"And who would you be?" She was asking him now.

He smiled. "Let's just say, a man without a plan"

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