She woke up early Saturday morning with a monstrosity of a headache. Instead of sleeping quietly and seething about it she chose to go to work. Payal and Lavanya were in a dizzy after she received a call from her ex-boyfriend: Manish. When her two friends started discussing the possible love triangle between Manish, her and Mr Bournvita Eyes, she had let out a shriek of frustration. But when the supposed triangle became a polygon of unknown sides which included the wife of Mr Bournvita Eyes, she walked out of the house with a massive headache.
She took a cab instead of bus to her work place because she felt embarrassed that the tears lurking behind her eyes would spill out anytime with a small poke in the right direction. Office would be safe haven without nosy eyes of her friends or pitiful looks from her colleagues. No one really came to work on a weekend unless there was something critical going on. There wasn't any so she was sure that she would be alone which both elated and bummed her out.
Unlike her room which was heavily personalized, her work area – her cubicle was painfully bare. She had refused to personalize it unlike the rest thus it looked like a graveyard amidst a garden. She liked simplicity by nature though she sometimes succumbed to glitter and sparkles to get her friends shut up. She threw her bag on desk and booted the computer and sighed as her sweat soaked t-shirt turned cold as the central AC burst in regular intervals. The office was totally empty except for the weekly carpet maintenance guys. She took off her footwear and picked up coffee mug and sprinted on bare feet towards pantry area where a coffee machine hummed in low tune. Carpets tickled her feet and the thrill of it brought a smile on her face.
She sighed when first sip of coffee warmed her and the coffee heat brought a temporary relief to her headache. She blamed her friends for her headache as she felt it already abating in dark and quiet of the office. Her thoughts suddenly sprung to the last phone call she received from Manish the previous night. He had been extremely sorry for dumping her in public and that he realized that he loved her. She had calmly asked him to forget the whole thing and leave her alone. Her polite indifference had evaporated when his rant indicated that she had a huge hand in destroying her own relationships. She had gone stiff and unlike other times when her mouth ran off ahead of her giving the person a piece of her mind, she had simply hung up on him.
She swallowed bitterness along with coffee when a part of her sort of agreed with Manish had said. She walked back to her cubicle as the thought of her masochistic behaviour ran in her mind at light speed. She had been most serious with Rajeev believing sincerely that he was the one for her. She had gone as far as introducing him to her family as someone she could see the rest of her life with. Her heart wrenched painfully at the thought of Rajeev. He had called her immature and juvenile and said that he preferred much mature women like his colleague at office with who he had been sharing lunches and coffees and dinners. She had yelled, screamed and thrown a ruckus at him but she bleakly realized that she had only proved his point. She was strangely comforted seeing his broken nose as she slammed the door on him.
Her relationship with Manish started off casually but it became serious within three weeks. He was strangely simple, very smart and had an air of indifference about the popular trend about him. Looking at her own attire she knew that he had passed on his affair with bohemian look to her and they actually turned heads when they walked on streets hand in hand, lost in their own world of games, role-playing and alternate rock. But she had just been a passing fad to him and he had dropped her like a hot potato when he thought her time was up.
She removed her specs and rubbed her eyes.
And now she had a crush on married man. It was one of those things which she saw in movies: a girl sees a guy and sincerely believes that he is her soul mate. She ends up getting the guy in the end and they live happily ever after. Even though they don't show the happily ever after, she knows that it's heavily implied. Mr Bournvita Eyes was like that; she didn't know a thing about him but nonetheless made her want to talk to him. He was good looking, there was no doubt about that, but there was something in the way he was holding those books and watching her bemusedly that tickled her fancy.
It was too bad he was married. She would definitely go to bookstore and watch him from afar. If he loved books as much as she once did, it would be a memory she could bottle and keep it on her bookshelf and she could carry on with the rest of her life with the bottle going everywhere she would. It would remind her of the possibility of finding a person who was both like her and wasn't like her at the same moment. It would remind her bivouac of her life when she truly dreamed of being with someone; someone like him.
It would also probably be the last time she would voluntarily seek out Mr Bournvita Eyes.
The thought sprung tears into her eyes while her lips stretched in a bleak smile. There was a pleasure in this agony, she thought wildly and Manish's words passed through her heart like a fallen shooting star, burning in its wake. She wasn't destined in love let alone a half decent relationship. She had worked in her relationship starting from meeting people and working towards appreciating them and in the process believing that she loved them sincerely. She wondered if her approach was incorrect in its entirety or that she was just wired wrong.
It was the first time she had felt this way…this butterflies in stomach syndrome which caused incredible amount of nausea, nervousness and speechlessness…the sudden burst of heartache at the thought of seeing for the last time today…and the melancholy of losing it all in one day.
She gave into the despair and sobbed till her heart was numb with sorry and there were no more tears to shed. She cried for lost opportunities, getting heartbroken again and again, and hurtful parting words by her ex-boyfriends and Mr Bournvita Eyes smiling in love at his wife.
She looked at her reflection in bathroom mirror and smiled softly at that.
'It's going to be fine. Don't make the loneliness consume you. Go to that bookstore and see him for one last time. Make your memory. Treasure your memory. Who knows, maybe one day you will get what your heart desires. Maybe it won't be Mr Bournvita Eyes but one shouldn't stop hoping right?' She spoke to her reflection. The reflection nodded and smiled wanly.
*****
"What the hell are you two doing here?" Khushi glared at her friends who were in bookstore looking bored. She had arrived few minutes earlier and the unmistakable profile of Lavanya had taunted her.
"We are here to see Mr Bournvita Eyes, of course," Lavanya answered. Khushi sighed.
"Look, we will be standing afar and will not follow you around. Okay?" Payal said rubbing her arm.
Khushi shrugged and walked away from them. She loved her friends a lot but there were times when they crossed their line which angered her. She knew that they weren't doing it for their selfish need of perverse entertainment but were merely looking out for her. But for once she wanted to be left alone in her wistful endeavor.
She marched towards the discount table where two large heaps were thrown. She was surprised to find no people surrounding the table and cheered herself on this lucky break. She pulled a book which caught her eye from the center of the heap making several books tumble from the mountain and crash to ground.
'May be it karma,' she thought and bent to pick those books from the ground.
*****
He wanted to hit everyone with a copy of bad chick flick till they turned red or started seeing stars. The entire battalion was marching on the front door and they had closely followed him since he left home earlier. He had used all his charm and childish tantrums to prevent his grandmother from coming. In the end it was not really a battalion but just Anjali, Shyam and Akash. But still his brother-in-law made up the numbers in the freakishly fast way of thinking up random things. Anjali's knowing smile and giggling had irritated him and Akash's barely there grin wanted him to smack him repeatedly.
Pushing the homicidal tendencies aside, he scanned the bookstore quickly and in one sweep, he came up with nothing. His smile fell, his enthusiasm felt jack knifed and his heart moaned in silent disappointment. He was sure…so sure that she would be there as he had recognized the look of elation in her eyes when he told her that he would be here, Saturday evening at almost same time. His legs were rooted on the ground in sheer disappointment and noting his grave expression, Anjali knew that something was off.
"She isn't here," Arnav said forcing a smile. Before Anjali could respond Arnav said, "I need to browse and find…stuff." He walked away from them towards the discount table swallowing bitterly.
He didn't know why he felt incredibly betrayed. There wasn't a promise or an assurance that she would be here but he had felt a current run between them – so strong and electric and he sincerely believed that she had felt it too.
He saw books lying on the ground as it seemed someone had pulled a book from heap making it lose its integrity and disperse like bunch of ants. He started picking books and looked up to see another girl picking books from floor and looking blase about it. The books fell from his hands noisily and the girl looked up.
"There you are." He said biting his lower lip to control the large smile breaking on his face.
"You are here." She uttered it like a silent exclamation.
They both laughed nervously at the subtle proclamation, inclination towards seeing one another and the sweet symphony of their shared attraction.
"Can you please not stand up?" Arnav said pulling her down. She looked at him and looked at his palm catching hers. Noting that, Arnav started pulled away.
"What happened?" She asked raising an eyebrow. He looked embarrassed.
"The woman you saw with me last week is my sister and today she is here with her husband and out cousin." He said feeling incredibly dumb.
She felt her heart was about to leap out of her chest. "So you aren't married then?" She asked slowly and waited with bated breath for his answer.
"I am not," he said smiling. "Those three are here to…keep an eye on me."
She raised an eyebrow at that. "If it's any consolation, my two friends are here to keep an eye on me too." He grinned at the stupidity of the situation.
"Want to get away from here?" He asked suddenly. "…away from prying eyes and spidery webs of unnecessary affection?"
"Where will we go?" She asked feeling giddy about the whole thing.
Arnav bit his lip and looked at the books fallen at his feet and a moment later he looked up at her with an answer. "There is an underground used bookstore, two streets away from here. What say you?" He said grinning.
"I love that place," Khushi gushed.
"We have to be extremely discreet." He said. She nodded in understanding. He offered his hand and she gladly took it.
He turned around to steer them away from the store with a smile splitting his mouth at the corner. She was glad that he was looking front and not her strawberry colored face. She wasn't a blusher but the man who clutched her hand softly was making her blood run wildly in her veins.
He navigated them successfully till they were five feet away from entrance and from there, the two broke into a run. They walked out of the building and made it through the quaint bookstore hand in hand. He hadn't felt a need to let go of her hand and neither did she find it necessary. The spoke easily about their friends and family though neither admitted openly again that they were in the bookstore to see each other. They didn't feel odd that they were already holding hands even before they knew each others names. Her smile was genuine and his charm was sincere.
"Check that out," he said nudging her and cocked his head towards the setting sun.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" She said. He steered her towards the bookstore which was twelve feet underground and was filled with musky odor of old books, tarnish and scent of jasmine.
"Khushi?" He called her after couple of hours of looking around for books and choosing few. She had settled on the floor with an old copy of 20,000 leagues under the sea. She looked up and saw Arnav at the end of aisle with a book open in his hands.
"Nothing. I just felt like calling your name." He said walking towards her.
She smiled brilliantly at him. "Are you ready to go?" He asked her and saw the stack of books next to her. She nodded and closed the book she was reading. He offered her a hand and helped her on her feet.
"Bloody hell," she heard him say.
"Is everything alright?" She asked picking up the bag of books from the counter.
"I forgot my purse." He said embarrassed, a faint blush decorating his cheeks.
"That's alright. You can buy me my next haul." She said and gave her credit card.
"And when will that be?" He asked, still embarrassed.
"Whenever we decide," she said happily.
"Is it a date?" He asked carefully.
"It's a promise," she affirmed.
He smiled goofily and took both their bags in one hand and clasped her hand in his other.
"Coffee?" She asked as they walked in the busy street slowly.
"Only if you are buying," he said recovering from his embarrassment.
She threw her head back and laughed heartily. Arnav joined in her laughter a heartbeat later.
NOTE:"There you are." He said biting his lower lip to control the large smile breaking on his face.
"You are here." She uttered it like a silent exclamation...
😆 😃 😊 phew ... finally ... after battling with the battalion ...
running away from the mad mad world into the bookstore which was twelve feet underground and was filled with musky odor of old books, tarnish and scent of jasmine... and promises of a happier tomorrow ...
and a coffee date ... 😉
Thanks RB and Hasini ... that was so cute ...
first I read this update before Ur pm :P
it was just amazing... both running away from their personal crowd to
spend some qualiTy time alone...
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