Main Tenu Samjhawan Ki...

There was stillness in the night. Even though I was engulfed by darkness still my eyes were sensitive to few things. I could see a cloud of hair spread beautifully on a white pillow. Even though she was sleeping with a quilt, still I could see her perfect curves as not long ago I had lost myself in them. Outside the room, the street was fully illuminated and for the first time even my insides felt brightened.

            I toyed with her hair and she stirred in her sleep and drew close to me. My insides swelled and I wanted to hug her hard but I let her sleep. Although she confesses that she could rarely sleep peacefully, seeing her sleeping like that made me fall in love with her all again. My phone vibrated and suddenly I came back to reality. There was a message from Sneha. I turned my phone off and directed my attention back to the girl sleeping in my bed.

            Ananaya.. her name was apt and fitted the scenario well. I met Ananaya almost a decade ago, when we were young and fiercely loved the notion of life and love. Honestly, I don't even remember how we met. All I remember that it has been an age that I have known her. There was nothing extraordinary about her still we became friends. Well honestly, I became friends with her, while for her since the very beginning she felt something deep for me. However, I always took it in a light mood. She did get angry at me for not taking her seriously, but I still don't have the heart in me to tell her why I always took it in a joke even when I didn't want to.

            Time passed and she found someone and so did I. I won't say that we were happy with that arrangement but unlike her I never voiced my disapproval. I don't know how and why but she always spoke her mind with me. She used to tell me incessantly that she loved me, missed me, wanted us to be together but even if I now look back I don't know why I never pursued it when in my heart I know that it was what I wanted also.

            I got up from the bed and drank some water. It wasn't like that I was parched but I wanted to do something that would distract me and save me from slipping into past. She stirred a bit but was peaceful again. I needed distance from her, so I sat down on a sofa right next to the bed from where I could watch her sleeping as well as continue my thought process. Even though we both found respective partners still there was no change in our relationship. I would say that with passage of time it only grew. Be it the texts or the phone calls, the conversations increased. Most of the times we were busy with each other when our respective partners sat just opposite to us waiting for us to stop working on our cell phones.

            Like I told earlier, she had always been damn honest. So within no matter of time she told her alleged boyfriend that she doesn't love him but is in love with someone else. When she told me that she broke up with him, I really wanted to break all of my ties too and go to her but I didn't. At times she did get angry and hyper as she felt she harboured one side feelings in this relationship but I wonder why she never stopped loving me. To be honest, I am thankful that even though I rejected her almost every now and then still she didn't stop loving me. With passage of time, her love only increased for me and I could vouch for the fact seeing the extent she was ready to go for me.

            Nevertheless, she couldn't stop time. Her parents got her married and seeing no step taken by me, she decided to give her parents the happiness that they had been wanting. She got married. It was then it hit me what had happened. I remember unlike others she didn't send me a wedding card even when I joked about that she didn't want me to come to her wedding. We were chatting and I realised that she got serious and answered yes. I hadn't asked for the reason but Ananaya being Ananaya would tell you whatever she wanted to. She told me the reason she didn't want me at her wedding was because she didn't trust herself and she knew that I would still never go with her. Something hit me hard then. I had been never good at conversation, so I wrote her a mail telling her what she really meant/ still means to me and how I can't turn the time back but would still feel for her.

            Honestly, after she got married for once I thought that I had lost her forever. There would be no messages or calls now and she won't inflate my ego by telling me that she loved me every now and then but she stayed true to her word. She still loved me. Not a single day passed when she didn't voice it. She gets angry every now and then that I never voice my feelings for her but I guess now she has learnt to live with it.

            I also got married. Though she never said anything but somehow I know she must have broken down at the news. Ananaya is an extreme case. She loves and hates to the extreme. So, I know she loves me to the moon and back and for my partner... well for Ananaya she doesn't exist.

            We had been in different cities all this while but I don't know what came on to her that she left no stone unturned in order to end up in the same city as mine. I don't know what made her bold enough or vulnerable that she opted for this move. Unlike other instances, she didn't leave any point mentioning that she loves me to such an extent that she left her city for me. Honestly, I was glad that she did her but as usual never voiced her. Now we could meet up easily and it did make me happy too. The one thing that I tried to keep to myself but became evident later was that even I was desperate to be with her.

            If you all feel that we were a perfect fit you are absolutely wrong. We are exact poles apart. I still don't know what it is about this short, chatty and attractive girl that gives me solace as no one is capable of till now. We meet, go for a coffee, I tease her to an extent that had it been anybody else she would have never met me again but not Ananaya. After every meet, she left me wanting for more. But again, I never tell her all this. However, I know she knows all of this and she hopes that one day I may tell her all this in person. Maybe she is waiting for that day and frankly I don't know how much time I would take to voice it.

            I know you might think of us as cheaters but this wasn't the life we had asked for. I didn't mean her to fall in love with me and neither did I. And by the time I realized that how much I love her, things had gone out of hand. It is not that none of us tried to stay away. She earnestly tried to love her husband, and she does too but yes it just didn't qualify to the feelings she has for me. How do I know this? She told me. The day she confessed this, she was very serious and I just couldn't take the intensity of her confession, so I joked about it. She smiled a bit but I knew she was disappointed as I again this time sidelined her confession as if it didn't mean anything to me. What I have never told her that it is same for me too. That she isn't the only one who feels vulnerable and disappointed every time our meeting ends. That she isn't the only one who is desperate to meet me. That she isn't the only one who loves me so much. But knowing her I have kept these feelings to myself. It makes me guilty to watch her saddened expressions every time I brush off her feelings but I just can't help myself.

            It's like I'm caught in between two lives. One is with Sneha and one is with Ananaya. I don't know which one am I supposed to choose and whether do I have the strength or not to even choose or not. Whenever I tell Ananaya about how I spent my day with Sneha or how we went on a vacation or how peaceful I was with her, I know I hurt her to such an extent that only she can understand. Still it angries me that after hearing this she withdraws herself in a shell for a while and I know that during that time she is full of self doubt but then she again bounces back and tells me that she loves me as if nothing matters to her, like she has learnt to live with my alternate life. At times, I want her to scold me and yell at me and demand how could I do this to her? That she came in my life way before Sneha and that she deserved my love and my existence, so how can I share it with somebody else, but she asks nothing like that. She just listens quietly with an occasional hmmm and then she is quiet for sometime. I didn't want any of this. I didn't want her to suffer the pain. Nor her or Sneha but now I can't help it.

            Even knowing all of this, I still am desperate to meet her. I still wait for our short meets, desperate touches as well as I do want to know how does it feel like to share my life with her. What amazes me is that she is so strong and confident but I tend to get to see her vulnerable side the moment I drop her. I want to take her in my arms and assure her but then I just can't.    

            I wanted to feel her skin again, so I went back to the bed. I slightly kept my hand on her body and as if she read my mind, she took my hand and wrapped it around her. I did sleep for a while but was up within no matter of time. The moment I woke up, I realised that I was being watched. I looked at her only to find her staring at me with unadulterated love in her eyes. The moment I caught her staring me she turned her head away. Our day had almost ended and she was back at being in her vulnerable state.

            To lighten the moment, I talked a bit with her. She participated too but it felt like her tears were at verge only. They could spring at any given point of time. Out of nowhere she hugged me and I wanted to tell her that I am a human too. I felt all that what she was going through. Like her I was disappointed that the day ended before it even started and now I have to go back to the reality where she won't be with me. But I withheld all these emotions and just savoured the hug. I was the first one to break it because I knew if I stayed in her arms for a longer period, I won't be able to detach myself from her.

            Like always, she did not pretend this time also that she didn't want me to leave. Even though she didn't voice her feelings, I knew she wanted me to stay with me forever. I wanted her to say that but she didn't. Either she was scared that after hearing this I would withdraw myself in a shell and would never meet her or she was scared of being rejected again like always.

            The time came and I drop her. She hugged me and went away with not a look back. I knew she was crying. This was all the restraint she could had on herself. I waited for sometime and felt my heavy heart too. I wanted to go after her and tell her that I committed a mistake and that I don't want her to go but I didn't. I am lying on the bed again. Now Sneha is lying next to me, but I am not at peace like I was with Ananaya yesterday. My phone beeped again and this time the message was from Ananaya saying that she loved me. I wanted to type my usual hmmm but my fingers didn’t allow it. I could imagine Ananaya’s face drenched with tears. I got up from the bed and could simply ask her why was she still awake?  Could imagine hurt and disappointment flooding on her face but her next message made me smile. She wrote that she still loved me and hoped that I may say the same to her one day.

            I kept the phone in my pocket and looked out of the window. Unlike last night, today my insides weren’t brightened. I wondered how I would be able to convince Ananaya that I loved her too and she wasn’t the only one who was suffering. I closed my eyes for a while as if trying to search for an answer but when I didn’t find any I typed again that I missed her. She didn’t reply. She must have slept by then and I closed my eyes again and tried to live the moment wherein I would actually confess my feelings for her and give reason why I couldn’t work on us to be together.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD1gepaUZms