I Choose To Believe In Love

“Your back is still wet. Come here let me dry it,” he said as he pulled me towards himself and started patting my back with a towel. I giggled.

“Now let’s get dressed and get something to eat. You haven’t eaten anything since morning”, he says. I giggle again.

That’s what I do when I am with him. I giggle to everything he says because I can hardly formulate any replies. He says things that I cannot comprehend. The words would ring against my ears, get translated into literal meanings but seldom I get the concept behind them.

I tried to understand at first. I would look deep into his beautiful eyes while he uttered 'Honey' in an attempt to catch the little hint of mischief that could confirm the weightlessness of his utterances only to be confronted by innocence. It seems that he actually means what he says, which is unusual and beyond my understanding, so I let it be.

I had always laughed at the idea of love. It was more like God to me, believed to exist because you are told it does, when no one has ever actually felt it; while capable people earned millions on creating stories out of it. Being in a family where parents hate each other and barely talk apart from extremely necessary things and watching as your father hits and abuses your mother, love as a concept eludes you.

However, I always took this deficiency of emotional support as a blessing as it had made me fully functional on my own. Totally comfortable with my solitude, I never needed or wanted anyone. I was complete and choked at the mere idea of romance.

There was nothing romantic about meeting him. I was in a physical relationship with a guy, occasionally hooking up with others for a change of taste when I ran into him. He was the best at his work, passionate to the point of being crazy. He needed everything to be perfect and would toil day and night to make it happen.

Being drawn towards lunatics has always been my thing and thus I had always fancied him. I had never actually been at the receiving end of his madness until I made a mistake and he shouted at me. While he was shouting at me at the top of his voice, I was making a mental note of bringing him to bed.

It was difficult. He wasn’t someone you could get that easily and consistent failure made me obsessed about him. I would think about him day and night; even with someone else on me in bed, I would imagine him. I named this obsession 'love'. Because that’s what love is supposed to be, isn’t it? It doesn’t let you sleep or eat or be in peace without constantly thinking about that one person and that’s what I was doing. So I tried a different approach. I made him believe I loved him, because you see I did, by showering abundant amount of affections on him. Though skeptical at first, he finally gave in.

He turned out to be completely different than my experiences or imagination. He did things that all the men I ever met, including the ones who claimed of loving me, never did. I was baffled and didn’t know how to respond. Instead of pushing me against the wall of an elevator and thrusting his tongue down my throat what I expected, he would hold the back of head and kiss my forehead. I know what to do in the former case, but what about the latter? You cannot pull one's hair while kissing back just as fiercely when it is a gentle peck on the forehead.

At first, I thought this must be one of those acts that men usually put on for breaking the ice and he would change after a while, but he didn’t. He would ask me to do strange things when we would be in each other's arms like, “Close your eyes, don't think about anything else and try to focus on the sound of traffic outside. What you feel right now is called peace,” instead of the regular, “Let's make love.”

He would make sure that I had my meals on time and would have a discussion at length about what I wanted in life. Instead of leaving me alone till I get normal again, what most people do when I am mad, he would call me up and talk about it. With time and persistence, he made me spill out all my pains which I had bottled up. And as I cried turning away from him, I expected him to stay away because that’s what everyone including my parents have ever done. That’s what people do, don’t they? They leave you alone when you are weak and come back after you’re strong enough to be useful. But he didn’t. He rolled me over to face him and said, “You don’t need to hide your tears from me. So what if your life has issues, you can tell me about them. I have some as well and I would want you to listen to them too.”

I felt myself changing. I was no longer complete. I realized there was a part of me that was damaged and couldn’t heal by itself. There was a part of me that needed him desperately and that scared me. So I did what I do normally when things get too intimidating, I decided to leave him.

I planned to tell him this today as soon as we get back from lunch.

“One thing before we head off though,” he said as he held my hand and pulled me closer.

“I have never felt like this ever, the way I do with you. I do not want this encounter of ours as mere romance for a few minutes but I want to stretch it as far as time can go. I want your face to be the first thing I see every morning. I want to drive off to places with you on Sundays, drink tea from the roadside stalls and kiss you while no one is watching. I long for you to hold my hand like this and be by my side while we try to change this world. I need you and you need me and everything we need we will find in each other. You don’t even believe when I say I love you. I know it will take a lifetime for me to prove that to you. So let me have that lifetime by growing old with you. Marry me?”

Speechless, I looked into his teary eyes, flashing nothing but serene sincerity and I knew this was true. I needed him. He has pulled me off the fake contentment of a routine that though never made me sad, never elated me either. He has made me realize that there is a person inside me who can echo a sincere laugh, who can actually be happy. I will never be contented with numbness again now that I know what it feels to feel.

So as I pull him closer and plant a peck on his lips I say, “Yes”.

For the first time in my life, I choose to believe in love. I choose to believe in him.