I've celebrated birthdays before but surprises were never in the offering. There was one today though, and all thanks to the three who made it happen, ever so sweetly: Roni, Parul, Karan, I can't thank you enough! Looking forward to the party on sunday.
Gosh, I'm 19. It hasn't sunk in yet. But either way, something tells me the best is yet to come :)
There are people who work very hard and get great jobs, then there are others who don't work at all but end up having the prettiest girlfriends and yet again, I belong to neither category. I'm not even bad at anything much and that truly pisses me off. I mean, I've been treading this 'average' line for long enough and it's high time I chose to be really good or found myself to be really bad at something. It's also high time I cared about my own feelings more than somebody else's. I need that comfort, this way or that. I hope to get going on that front before the holidays end.
“Do you love me?”
“Yes, very much darling, what made you ask that?”
“I just wanted to hear you say...” She looked through his eyes and into his heart, and therein she found herself. In that instant, she knew all over again that she loved him.
He could see the green light blinking by her side, reminding him of the time passing by. He turned to look at her, her calm face studying him intently, as if he were some interesting antique. Those blue eyes, deep as an ocean, an ocean he lovingly drowned in, every time he looked at them. He still remembered the first time he had seen those magnificent eyes, sometimes it seemed like a lifetime ago, but on other days, like today, it seemed as if it had been yesterday.
“Excuse me professor, can you please tell me the way to the library?” The sun might have been shining then, but as he had looked at her, he had realized why the room had become brighter. He had forgotten his lines; he had forgotten he was playing the role of a professor in the college play. Two days later he had even messed up the play. But amongst everything unsolicited, one thing had been welcome, the one that had mattered most. He had seen it in a number of movies, read it in a number of books but the magic of the moment when he knew she was the one, was beyond description. It was as if he had been set free and yet he was tied, tied to her. It was like the wind, always around; like the stars, always there but invisible till the right moment arrives. He thought he had always known this feeling and yet he didn’t know what the feeling was.
The beep was loud, loud enough to bring him back to the present.
“ I’m so sorry dear, you had messed up that play because of me.” She murmured. Had she been reading his mind? “Oh dear, it’s absolutely fine. You don’t have to worry about that now. Whatever I lost in the play, I got back a hundredfold by finding you.” He smiled.
She knew it wasn’t one of his ‘those’ smiles. She would sometimes wonder how she had gotten to know someone better than she had ever known herself. She just had to look at his face to know his mind. She knew what he would say before he said it, it was like a code on his face, and only her eyes held the key. She knew his smiles, knew when he actually meant them. The one right now didn’t come from his heart. But he had good reason for it. She was herself having a tough time feigning a smile in front of him.
The beep was getting faster now, and so was his pulse. He blocked out everything from his eerie white surroundings, and took her hand in his. Her touch calmed him. The warmth of her body spread through his veins, blocking out the chill that he knew would resurface. And yet he wanted to ‘live’ her this moment, he wanted to feel her warmth as it caressed his every nerve, as it flowed through every living cell within him, passing on the message of their love. He would miss her warmth, he thought. And it was then that he started to cry. He had known for a long time now that the storm was coming, the storm that would rip apart his life, and more importantly, his love. His world had been shattered then, and the broken pieces were coming back to stab him now, one final time.
Six months it had been. Six months since he had heard that deadly sentence. Every word had struck him, filling his life with a poison that he knew would be there forever. “She doesn’t have much time now. At most, six months” the doctor had said before leaving. And along with the doctor, leaving him was every dream he had ever witnessed, every smile he had ever smiled, every hope he had ever conjured.
He had stood there, unmoved, powerless, defeated with the dead remains of what had been, till a few moments ago, his life. They had cried together, they had complained, they had prayed and then they had cried some more. They had cried together because they could not let each other go, but fate does not always give choices, only judgments. And then they had decided to stand by that judgment, to give themselves to each other, to smile in every sunrise and never to cry for the final sunset that they knew they must endure.
But their resolve had been broken today as they saw the final shade of their love, just before the sunset. The friends and relatives had left; they were alone as she lived through her final moments. She wasn’t crying any longer, there wasn’t any strength left. Every muscle in her body hurt, every breath filled her with pain. She knew it was coming, and she was ready now. She just had one last thing to say to him,
“Always, be.”
Her hand hit the bed with a slight thud, as her lifeless eyes gazed somewhere beyond. The last tear hadn’t quite left her eyelashes and her lips still curved to form the ‘be’ she had said. He still had her hand in his, and most importantly, he still loved her. He had always thought that he would die if she did, but she had told him to be, and so he shall..