The Moment of Truth (Final Part)

And then I knew it was the last time I was going to see her. The day arrived to save me from further ordeal. Years of pain would soon become history. The dreams would never be true. The wait which was always longer would no longer be waited upon. 

 

Why did I even ask her to meet me today?

Last time I spoke to her was 3 months back. Although 3 months seemed like more than 3 decades, but I still lived every day, every minute in the memory of her. I used to recall all the good memories and wept to bed, slept for a few hours and woke up at the thought of her and die during the day in her memories. No living soul could bring me peace. I fought a losing battle, yet there was slender hope in me of her coming back and brightening my life. 

But today, everything is shattered and an irrevocable damage is caused. The thought of her and the urge to meet her made me call her; but the poor girl thought I had moved on and so agreed to meet. Little did she know that I would be proposing her for the zillionth time! 

All that she said was “I’m in a relationship and I really hope our paths never cross”.

These were the last lines I would ever hear from her.  The little world I had created ceased to exist and the road to the future which I had built was left with no travelers. Time passes but memories hardly fade. It took a few minutes for me to get hold of the present and return my way back. 

It all started six years ago. Two years after the painful breakup with the childhood sweetheart (The moment of truth- Part 1).

 It took two years to get over her and strongly believe that true love doesn’t exist, and a few more days to fall in love again. 

The first day

 

 

The evening was calm and the light was getting dimmer. I just love moments such as this, it brings lot of calmness to a messed up mind. I had a long leisure walk and was returning home. A girl was walking in the opposite direction and her long hair was dancing to the tunes of the wind. She caught my attention for one full minute and disappeared. Her thoughts passed my mind a few times and I soon forgot about her. 

After few days

I was waiting for a bus and saw her walking towards the bus stand. The sight of her for the second time made my heart miss a beat. I glanced at her often and was wondering how could others around me miss a beauty or was it only me finding her beautiful. 

Bus arrived and she got in first. If you are lucky, you will get a seat in a public bus. If you are blessed, you will get a seat next to a beautiful girl. Yes, I was blessed. I sat beside her and my heart was beating faster than ever. It took a few minutes to calm down. It never passed my mind to talk to her but just sitting beside her made my day.

 I had to stop thinking about her and more importantly stop looking at her. I didn’t want her to grow suspicious and make a fool out of myself. I took out a novel and started staring at it. My lips were reading but the mind was elsewhere. And she spoke first.

“Excuse me??”

I initially thought it wasn’t me whom she called. She called again. Now, it had to be me. I was wondering I wasn’t glancing at her now but why did she call me. Was it because I was staring at her in the bus stand or a few minutes ago inside the bus? I looked at her and for the first time made eye contact with her.   This was enough to make me fall for her. 

“Is it Atlas Shrugged?”

“Yes”

“A good novel. Happy reading”.

I could only just smile; no words came out of my mouth. After a few stops, I had to get down. I thought of telling her bye but she was busy listening to music. 

Friendship

It doesn’t take much time for a guy to find details about a girl and it takes much lesser time for a girl to find details about a boy. So was the case now.

I was just done playing cricket and was walking back home. I heard someone call my name and turned back. It was her. I didn’t know her name but she had found out mine. 

“My brother plays cricket with you and that’s how I found out about you”.

I knew her brother plays cricket but didn’t know that they had a conversation about me. He was that little kid who joined us a few days back and was fit only to be a ball boy. His fortunes would change from next game onwards. 

Before I could speak, she introduced herself and told that they were new to the locality and that she didn’t have any friends. 

It’s always good to meet a girl with few friends but extremely great to meet a girl with no friends. You don’t get a chance to listen to the problems of the world. We spoke for a brief while about each others background and departed. 

These short walks continued every day after cricket. After few days, we exchanged our numbers and started chatting. Soon the chats turned into phone calls. After a few months, it so happened that we used to talk all night on phone and meet during the day and hardly slept.

 The downfall

And then the day finally came.

I proposed to her and she disposed. This was the first time we ever had an argument after months of knowing each other. She spoke at length of how she looked at me as a friend and confided in me all her secrets and I had turned traitor by asking her out. Well, I was friend zoned. There was no way out except to shut myself up. 

I think there is not yet a way found to win an argument against a woman in this world. I am still patiently waiting for the day to arrive. 3 days passed and we didn’t talk to each other. She made efforts to get in touch with me, I wouldn’t budge. My mantra was clear; accept me as your boyfriend, after which shall the talks resume.

I could no longer resist. I ended up talking to her but was careful enough not to mention about dating. A few days passed and everything became normal. Whenever I used to retrospect, I found that this friendship was no less than a relationship but was perplexed why she didn’t want to term it so. There were times when I brought this topic up but we ended up fighting harder than the previous time.

We reached the pinnacle of fights after a few years. The innocence had died in both of us and gave birth to ego and greed. It hurt me whenever I spoke to her and hurt me even more when I didn’t talk to her. 

In one of the heated exchanges between us, I slapped her which I regret it to this day. Probably I won the argument but I was utterly wrong and learned the lesson the hard way. I apologized but it wouldn’t heal the inner wound in either of us. 3 months of not talking and then I made another try which became the last ever.

Epilogue

Life is a great teacher; it gives the test first and then teaches the lesson. I learned a few things at the expense of more than what I could offer. There is no point defending oneself or regretting a missed chance. What is not rightfully yours will never be yours and would be futile even if you try again and again. Lesson taken and life moves on. As you grow older, these lessons only make you wiser and we commit lesser mistakes.