'Batch of 2009 - 10th reunion' the banner proclaimed gaudily. Sara was thankful to enter the hall with Vini by her side. Being not particularly fond of the majority of her classmates, she felt confident facing them with her best friend by her side.
“There! I see Mina. Come on”, Vini pulled her through the sparsely crowded hall. Sara's eyes were arrested by a familiar face near Mina. She automatically felt her tread slowing down. No, she wasn't as confident as she thought she will be.
Before they could reach her, Mina screeched across the room, “Sara! Vini! Oh my god, how long has it been?”
'So much for a subtle approach', Sara sighed to herself. His head had whipped around at the sound of Mina's welcome. He came forward hesitantly though eagerly, "Hey.... Sara, how you been?”
"Hey Nikil", she managed.
He turned to Vini with an easy smile, "Hey Vini, how's the family?"
The hellos were all done and they had all found seats around the circular tables scattered across the room. Sara was thankful that no formal seat allocation had been done. She found that she still couldn't stand many of her classmates. And also she might not have ended up next to Nikil, as she did now.
"So, what have you been up to?” he asked casually.
"Hacking away at life, one day at a time", she said with a straight face. Seeing his startled face, she smiled her trademark curved smile. “I’m sorry, I knew you wanted to know about job, family etc., but I was feeling particularly philosophical then".
"Wow, you haven't changed at all, have you?” he smiled at her.
"I have, Nikil. I very much have", said she looking intently at him.
The hall had started filling up and the reunion events were starting. This was no place was intent conversations. Nikil knew that until he had had that conversation with her, he cannot leave the town. He was able to turn to his other neighbor only after he had made sure that Sara will meet him, at the cafe that had been a favorite haunt, the next day.
---
“It's a Latte isn't it?” he asked her, desperate to be right.
“Latte would be good”.
He heaved an internal sigh of relief, not knowing that she wanted him to be right and that she gave up coffee ages ago.
“Find us some seats. I’ll get the coffees”, he walked off. Waiting in line, he couldn’t resist sneaking surreptitious glances at her. She was lounging by the window, looking lost in thought. ‘What was she thinking? What will she say now? Is it too soon to talk about…? No’, he decided vehemently. He did not have the luxury of time. This was not college where he had thought, foolishly he added in mental parentheses, there was always going to be next day or next year. It had to happen in the now.
Sara was smart enough to understand the reason behind this meet. Though she came hoping that it might happen, she still found herself pleasantly surprised that it happened. Being of the group of people who always secretly wish for a thing to happen but convince themselves that such a thing cannot happen to save themselves the disappointment, she was cautiously happy to finally be sitting here, looking forward to coffee and conversation – the latter more than the former. Cautious, since she was not sure how they were going to talk about it; And if he knew everything that had happened. This train has to make a lot of stops before it reaches destination.
He came back with the coffees. “So”, he said settling in. “So”, she smiled. Deep conversations have a tough time taking off. You can’t just dive directly into the deep end. Questions that will change his life were foremost in his mind. So obviously he asked her anything other than them. “How's work?” he started.
“Good, how about yours?” Yes, she was doing it too.
“Pretty good”
She smiled her knowing smile. They both understood they didn't really care about each other’s work.
He gathered up his courage. 10 years of separation and age gives that courage. “Are you ok now?”
“Of cour.... Oh”, she understood him and bit off her conventional reply. “Yes, I really am”.
“When I heard about it, much time had passed. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to talk about it. I wasn’t comfortable calling you up out of the blue. Still I wanted to reach out to you many times, but -”
“But didn’t know how I’ll take it?”
“I’m sorry about it, you know. I really am. ”
“Nikil, it’s fine.”
“Are you really fine Sara? It’s not that I’m prying but I need to know. What actually happened?” He needed to understand and it had to come from her.
She looked at him, startled. The Nikil she knew was never this direct. He had usually been a little diffident around her, never really understanding that she always had given him more rights than he had taken. This directness made him more attractive.
“You know about the accident, I suppose”, she said with a slight question. He nodded.
She went on with her calm, measured voice. “It shattered me. It claimed my unborn and kept my husband and me in the hospital for weeks. After a while, we got better. Better in health, though not in mind. We were ridden with guilt. We blamed ourselves for something that had been beyond our control. It was natural to have a lot of ‘what ifs’. We had our fair share. Counseling helped a little.”
She took a sip from her cup. Nikil didn’t move a muscle.
“Well“, she continued, “it had been a little more than a year since our wedding. It was supposed to be the time for a newly married couple to get to know one another. Not to go through a life-shattering experience. This changed us. Completely. He had gotten married during a rebound phase. I had gotten married because it seemed like the right thing to do. But after that, we both realized that we could not find a reason to stay together. Every day, we kept finding reasons to stay away from each other. Divorce was the sane option. A quick wedding, quick death and quick divorce”, she gave a self-deprecating smile. Less because she enjoyed her wit, more to let him know that she really was fine.
“It’s easy to talk about it now. But I kinda withdrew into myself then. If it hadn’t been for Vini, I might still be there. I got a transfer to be near her family and have been there ever since”, she ended with the same smile.
--
There had been silence for about five minutes now – which really is a long time. She had compressed 10 years of her life in just a few minutes. It took Nikil more time than that to process it all. His mind was racing in a million different directions. Above the racing, one thing stood clear – his resolution of asking her to share his life just got infinitely stronger. The experience had emotionally scarred her but she was still the resilient, confident girl he had known. The scar had only increased his respect towards her.
He had always found it a little hard to collect his thoughts and put them into words when he needed to. And he found himself in the same unenviable position now. While he was struggling with his thoughts, she had moved on with hers.
“So, tell me. What have you been doing with yourself?” she asked. Five minutes were all she could give him to respond. When he didn’t, she didn’t get upset. She had been used to not hearing what she wanted to hear from him, that it had stopped bothering her long ago. With a mild shrug, she naturally shifted the focus.
It had always been like this between them. She had usually decided the direction their conversations shall take. ‘But today’, Nikil decided, ‘will be different’. He ignored her question.
“I’m glad you told me about… well… everything. Sara, will you give us a chance?”
This was a very direct and confident and yes, vocal Nikil that Sara was seeing and for a moment she was disconcerted. Though the question was a wonderfully welcome one, there were still many stops the train needed to make.
“What about… what about Nitya?” she asked a little hesitantly.
“Nitya?” he was surprised, “Didn’t you know that we broke up after a few months?”
“No…” she gave a sudden smile, “all I knew was ‘Nikil – Nitya’. It was our college’s version of ‘Ross and Rachel’”.
“She moved out of the city for her work and long distance wasn’t working. We realized that the only reason we got together was because everyone around us expected us to be together. It was a different kind of peer pressure” he sighed.
“If only…” he stopped.
“What?”
“If only things had worked out between us, there wouldn’t have been any ‘Nikil – Nitya’” he looked at her with something like a reproach.
She raised her eyebrows in an ‘are you kidding me’ look. “How could it have worked with us when you were already with her? From the time I knew you, you guys were talked of together”.
“That was all just talk. They took something I said, added their own meaning to it and started talking of it as if it’s a sure thing. I believe all I said was she was hot or something. College kids – what can you expect?” he said ruefully.
“But you never denied it!”
“Didn’t I? I tried really hard to convince you that there was nothing going on between us. But you were not interested. Whenever I tried to talk about her, you changed the topic”
“Nikil,” she was half amused and half frustrated, “didn’t you realize I was jealous?”
Now it was his turn for the look. ”Jealous?” he said unbelievingly, “You?”
“God! Don’t we know anything about each other? Yes. I was jealous. Madly so. I hated hearing of her. When you started talking of her, I was afraid that you might make me your confidant. It was hard enough to see my guy falling for another girl. I couldn’t imagine being a confidant for them too. That’s why I always changed the topic”
“I’m sorry. Did you just say ‘my guy’?” he asked, smiling from ear to ear.
She flushed and bent her head.
“Why didn’t you tell me this Sara? At least shown me that you were interested?”
“Misplaced pride I suppose”, she said shrugging. “I couldn’t show you my interest unless I knew you were free. But that didn’t happen. There was always this girl or that girl...”
“Sara!! You’re making me out to be a Casanova! Which other girl was there?”
“Oh please! How about Varsha?”
“Who..?”
“Varsha, from first year?”
“Oh… her. Why would you assume there was something going on? I don’t even remember her”
“It was something that you let slip back in the day. Never mind”, she stopped for fear of appearing whiny.
“No. Tell me please” he was insistent.
“Well,” she started half-ashamed, "I had called you at midnight on your birthday. I heard call waiting. When I asked you the next day, you said you had been speaking to her.” She was fully ashamed now. “I got mad that you ignored my call to speak to her. My over-active imagination came into play then – I had you guys married by the end of that semester. Forget it, it doesn’t matter”.
This was a new Sara that he was seeing.
“Doesn’t matter? Doesn’t matter? If only I had known this, I would’ve come and told you point-blank that you were only girl who mattered. I always found you unwilling to talk about this. I didn’t understand why until now”
“That’s the problem with being a version of the 'strong, independent girl'” she sighed. “I wanted you to make me feel special, feel pampered but my pride always stood in the way. There was no way I was gonna show myself as a jealous girl who needed assurances that she was the most important person in someone’s life.”
She gave herself a little shake and continued. “Now that we have begun the full disclosure I might as well tell you all, I guess. Then there was Neela. I heard her in cafeteria one day, going on about how much in love with you she was, and that she had spoken to you about it and was waiting to hear from you. But I didn’t hear a peep from you about her. I assumed that you didn’t think me close enough to talk to me about her.”
“Wait a minute,” he interrupted, “you got mad I tried to talk to you about Nitya. Then you got mad I didn’t talk to you about Neela? What is a guy to do?”
“Oh they are two different things. You don’t get it”, she said impatiently.
“I have a feeling I never will”, Nikil smiled.
“Anyway, all these things contributed to my thinking that you only just thought me as a good friend and nothing more. That you found me easy to talk to and that’s it.”
“Well, the talking part is right. Out of all the girls in our class, you and Vini were the ones I found easy to talk to”
“There! That exactly is what I mean. See what you just did? When you want to make someone feel special you don’t group them with another person! Vini is my bestie, but when you say things like this, it appears that you put me in the same position as her. Any wonder that I thought I was in your friend zone?”
He sighed, exasperated.
She gave a sudden laugh. “You know what? Forget my stupid complaints. Water under the bridge. Good that we finally cleared it all up”
“Yes,” he said “10 years later!”
“10 or 20, I’m glad it happened Nikil.”
“I have to agree. I'm really glad we cleared the air today”. He took a deep breath, "You do realize that you really are special to me? That there is a reason I came to this reunion? All through our college life, you were the only one in my mind. Even though we never got together, even after we went our own ways, I just couldn't shake you off my mind. No one else felt right. Not even Nitya", he smilingly answered the question in her eyes.
Her face lighted up. She couldn't believe she was finally hearing what she always wanted to hear. Her college crush, her closest friend was finally confessing his love to her! She had imagined versions of this scene many times in her mind. But never got the confidence to make it a reality because of her misconceptions. But today! Did the long-lost coffee break her reserve? She gave the coffee a sip of thanks.
"I'm sorry I kept these grudges. I should've asked you directly but couldn't quite overcome my ego. I also must confess - you were the only one that was special to me. No one else mattered. If only I had the courage to tell you this then...", she sighed.
It was his turn to light up! "Let the past die. What matters now is the future. Will you share yours with me, Sara?”
He held out his hand. She took it.
