Disclaimer: I think there has been a fair amount of confusion about this writing, because I wrote it in first person with me as a character. To make it clear, this post is a short story, and a work of fiction predominantly. I say predominantly because certain settings and background have come out of real life, but the story in itself is complete fiction :). Enjoy the story!
1997
I met you at at that party. You were wearing jeans and a t-shirt, something uncommon considering that I had always seen you in salwar-kameez in college. May be you did not want to create the wrong impression I figured; it was 1997, after all. I was meeting all of you for the first time probably. I knew the guys from college, they were all my classmates; it was their group party – to which I was invited too, perhaps as an initiation into the group. I met many people that party, yet your memory haunted me well after the party. After all you had said – “Aquarians are romantic!†No one had told me this before, and I at such blossoming prospect couldn’t help but smile.
1998
We’d known each other for 6 months already, and if not anything, we were slowly becoming the best of friends. You wouldn’t look at me in college lest your friends made fun of you. I wrote down your name and birthday in my diary, in an encrypted form, lest any of my mates figured out who it was. Often we would run into each other in college, almost not expectedly, but since we had, we would stop and say “Hi†to each other. At times when you were alone, you would talk; Maybe for two, or three minutes; usually about classes and such. We both knew we would have lots to talk about when we met in parties – our private parties – where there were just the few of us close friends – and nobody looked up on us. The arrangement worked for you, but was still weird for me; though it didn’t matter when we met up like that.
We’d talk about everything under the sun. There was always something to talk about with you; sometimes they were the same things over and over again, sometimes things which both knew about already, or sometimes things that didn’t make any sense – we never went out of topics. And then when I’d come back to my dorm, I’d make a note of it in my diary. Every single time we met, every single time you said “Hiâ€, went in my diary. In no time, I had lots of cryptic numbers (of your name) scribbled everywhere in my diary. We’d still maintain our stoic distance in college, but when we were away outside of college, far from conspiring eyes, we jelled, we had fun, we fought, and we did everything that all couples in love do.
Except that we were still the best of friends.
One day in a party we’d organized out of city in a park full of trees and lush meadows, you let me into your life. You told me about your previous love, a love that you and he both lost. And that it has been the biggest regret of your life and, you confidently asserted that it was his biggest mistake too. You also told me the reason why you didn’t speak to me in college. There was another guy in college in love with you, who wouldn’t take it nicely if he ever saw me or any other guy talking to her. “Do you like him†I had asked, barely whispering, expecting a negative, to which you replied “I don’t knowâ€.
You told me you liked being with me because we didn’t go there, where others went. We didn’t talk about love, we didn’t talk about being together, and we never questioned ourselves if we had any feelings for each other. You liked it, because it set you free of thought – it made you happy being able to talk to me without the burden of questioning yourself about me. It was a poignant moment, both for me and you, for entirely different reasons, yet, we both held our peace.
You wouldn’t tell me much about your previous love, not even his name that day. I figured it out few days ahead, unfortunately to discover, it was a close friend of mine, in the group. It was useless to ask both of you why they never talked about it with me, much with you; maybe you both did not want to talk about it. Maybe you both didn’t feel the need. And yet, the day you told me about him, it was obvious: You both had never really broken up. Both of you wanted to be together again, though both of you were held back waiting for the other to make a move.
1999
We still remained the best of friends.
I had stopped writing the diary by then. It was no use – it didn’t matter. All it contained were a bunch of cryptic numbers in meaningless sentences. Maybe I stopped writing after that party, I don’t know.
We went again to the same place for a party again. It was almost a year we’d been to this place – the grass had grown taller, no one obviously had bothered to cut them out. You didn’t seem in a mood to talk that day, and I let it be. Something was bothering you, but you wouldn’t talk. I wouldn’t force you to either. But everyone else too noticed that you weren’t the same. And then he tried to talk to you about it – he had come along to the party. He was in every party.
He tried to talk to you, alone. May be this is their day to be together, I wondered. Maybe they would realize that they couldn’t live without each other, I thought with a tinge of disappointment. But he came back, angry, and miffed. You’d retorted back that it was too late, and there was no need of him being in your life anymore. You’d said that everything was not as easy it was anymore, and you did not have to go through it. He of course, did not understand most of it, but what he did, was enough to put that last crack in the glass to cut it in two.
It was my turn. You were sitting a hundred yards away, looking elsewhere. You sat there, with tears in your eyes, with a look so despondent. We didn’t talk for a while; perhaps for a long time. And then you told me. The other guy in college had proposed to her, again, and this time he needed an answer. You were confused, you didn’t know if you loved him, and I was sure you didn’t. You said you’d been feeling disgusted, low and how entire world wanted to know what she thought about him. Why couldn’t she be friends with that guy, you asked me, just as you and I were? To which I had no answer, but a smile. A concealed smile.
By the time you were done telling me about the other guy, hitherto, all unknown facts to me, it was too late in the evening. Clouds had gathered and the signs seemed ominous. Everyone had already left for home, waiting for us, except him, and another friend.
He asked you to sit behind him on his bike; you refused. Instead, you wanted to sit behind me on my bike. As we started for the long drive home, it started drizzling. Even on the bike, you tried to maintain a distance between you and me; as the rain picked up strength, you put your hand on my shoulder, perhaps for support. As the rain grew stronger, did your grip on my shoulder; leaving me wondering why. Ultimately we decided we had to stop, as it was impossible to drive in that rain. I didn’t know where my friends were either – perhaps they had zoomed off. By the time we had found a bridge to stop under, both of us were soaked, to the skin.
We stood there, waiting, shivering, waiting for the rain to pass by; instead it only became stronger, now bringing with it thunder and lightning. You stood at the edge where you were being hit by rain slightly, but you wanted to look at that house on top of the hill. It looked beautiful in such rain, you exclaimed. It did look breathtaking. You said something then, that like the first time we met, I will never forget – “I’ll cherish this moment for forever. You, me, this rain, that house. This is all I want to remember of today.†I’d said that the bike ride was I’d remember most.
2000
We were just friends.
Somehow after that party, things changed for you, me, him and the other guy. Maybe it was all too complicated. Right after the party, a few weeks later, you’d asked me to assure her that nothing of “that†sort would ever happen between me and you, like it did between you and them both. We were meant to be the best of friends, and I was the only friend you could talk to. By that time, however, little did you notice, I had stopped talking, talking about all the things that I’d felt talking about. Maybe you were too busy to care. Maybe you were right – you could talk your heart out to a friend without a bother, but not someone you care about. Perhaps I was that friend. Maybe I was the difference that you were looking for. I wondered how long would we both handle it?
It was graduation. You refused to write in my scrap book that I had prepared with much hard work. You had gone into your own shell by then; you did not seem to want to talk much either. Not just me, but just about anyone. He had lost interest too, or perhaps he had moved on. After that party, you and he still remained friends, but as they say, you can join the glass pieces again, but the crack’s always visible. It remained that way I guess between you and him.
I could see that guy too had withered. Maybe he’d realized he was not the one for you. He’d tried his best – he talked to you twice, once met me and asked me to talk to you (and I refused), and once threatened to beat me up if I didn’t make things happen between you and him. Yet, nothing much happened. One day, I tried bringing on the subject – tried to understand if you had made up your mind, to which your reply still was the same: “I don’t knowâ€.
A few days before I left, I called you, asked you to give me a photograph of yours. It was funny, in spite of knowing you for so many years we didn’t share one photograph together. And I deserved it as a parting memory. You refused. You reasoned, he too had asked for a photograph once, and after you gave it to him, things went downhill. You didn’t want that to happen. You were acting stupid, I knew, but you had tested my patience finally.
You knew it by the time call ended that we’d just broken another glass.
2002
After two years of non communication since that day, you sent me an email with the subject: I’m getting married.
I thought for a while before opening the email. I hoped you had finally made up your mind.
It was neither of them.
You and I chatted and emailed each other. You had married, and it didn’t matter now, I figured. Perhaps, I could still be the friend you wanted. You told about your marriage, your move to America, your sedate lifestyle. I told you about my move to US as well, and things were so different in the country. I missed my life back home from our days, I’d tell you, to which you’d always you were glad to be out of it.
2004
And then just like that you asked me once on chat why I didn’t call her up. I picked up the phone that moment and called you. Your voice, still that same, but changed – you had suitably subdued, so had I, perhaps.
We still didn’t run out of topics to say to talk to one another. Or at least we tried to talk about different things. But you and I both came back to those days, of missed life and opportunities lost. We tried changing the subject several times, but we found our way back to him, that guy and that life. I tried to talk you out of it; instead, you talked me into it. I was still the only friend she could talk, you said, and I gave in.
We talked and talked, but you didn’t notice we’d spent more than three hours of talking – I changed my phone from my cell to landline after my battery gave up, but then, there was so much to talk about. And yet, it all felt pointless. Why were we talking about a life gone by? I had so much talk to, but nothing what I would want to say had any meaning anymore.
You told me about the other guy. How he tried to get me to talk to you, and she warned him that it was none of my business. You told me how he doubted that she had fallen for me. And how it had incensed him to the point of causing harm to himself. And others. You told me after she came to know of his tryst with me, you’d warned him that if he ever did anything to me, she would never speak to him again, and his hopes could rest. You had given up on everything around her you said, and even I wasn’t around that time. Little wonder then that she did not feel compelled to share that photograph. I did not speak much – there was no point in what we were speaking.
Maybe I was just that friend whom you could talk to. Nothing more.
2006
We never talked again on the phone like that..I had to move on, so did you. Maybe that last call was all that was left of us to tell each other. Maybe I needed that one last affirmation perhaps too. Chatting and mailing each other became irregular to non-communicative. Months moved, and we fell out of touch. Perhaps there was no need anymore.
Maybe I should not have called. I gathered that you had moved places, perhaps to a different country. There was no point anymore, now that I didn’t have your number anymore.
Yesterday, after nearly a year of non communication, I heard from you. You left me an offline message on my messenger:
“Call meâ€
