The Bus Stop Love …

Divya and Shruti were high school friends. Smart, beautiful and talented young girls. After school, they used to always hang out together. Be it going together for their evening walks or combined studies, or just attending parties of common friends, these two gals were made for each other, ‘Besties’ so to say.

They had joined Accountancy classes as they both had scored less in that subject for their term exams. The classes weren’t far from where they lived, just a 10 minute walk from their homes.

Days went by and both got busy with school, tuition classes and extra curricular activities. Every evening while they used to walk their way to tuitions, Shruthi had noticed a young man waiting for the bus at the bus stop. Well dressed and smart she found him presentable and something in him caught her attention. She never felt anything like this for any of her male classmates till date. Maybe it was just an infatuation, she thought.

Everyday she began noticing him and she hadn’t spoken to Divya about this ‘feeling’ for him though she too accompanied her to and fro. She felt as though she was so attracted to him and wanted his attention when in reality she detested attention in any form and from anyone but here she was, literally wanting him to notice her. Was this what she heard from her peers and elders as, ‘Hormonal change, ‘Attraction’, ‘Admiration’ for the opposite sex?? Was she experiencing love? Though she found going to classes quite monotonous she would not bunk a single day as she could see ‘her guy’ everyday though only for some minutes but that time was precious to her in words that was unexplainable.

She would dress well and try to look beautiful so that he noticed. Sometimes she would just forget she was a school going girl and he was an office going man who seemed to look like in his late twenties. But he hardly noticed her and maybe he must have glanced at them just a couple of times. He would be busy waiting for his company bus and kept to himself or would be reading something till the vehicle arrived.

Shruti began building castles in air though she knew very well that she was never going to approach and speak to him nor was he ever going to fall for her or talk to her. But her feelings, those emotions of a teenager could not be suppressed and she found herself fantasizing about him always. She started feeling herself, she was drowning in his thoughts, she made love to him many a times in her dreams, she felt the need to be touched by him, she wanted to be kissed by him, she felt her panty would turn wet just by merely thinking of him. All this for a stranger who didn’t even know that a girl called Shruthi existed and was going crazy over him. But then she was just 18. Well, age hardly matters when it comes to love, as they say…

Some days he would not be seen at the bus stop and she used to feel a void and an emptiness in her mind and heart. Then suddenly he would appear the next day and her happiness would be ten folds. Sometimes she thought to herself how silly she was to feel this way for someone she never knew and someone who was quite senior in age to her. But she loved that feeling whenever she saw him, her heart skipped a beat, her eyes looked for him in the crowd, her face brightened by the mere sight of him. While watching movies she visualized him and herself dancing around trees, romancing each other and sometimes she would smile to herself thinking if all that could come true! If this wasn’t love then she didn’t know what was!

Days and months went by and she was falling for him madly. And he, as usual, never noticed her and that didn’t bother her a bit. She was smitten by him. Sometimes she wished she could just walk over to him and catch him by the collar and plant a seductive kiss on his lips while the whole world watched her do that. And next minute she would laugh it off away.

Her final exams were approaching and soon the school would close for the vacations. She started worrying what would she do now to see him. Once holidays would begin it meant no tuitions and going for a break to one’s native town.

What would she do if she never got to see him.. She would miss him badly. She did not want that to happen.

Tuitions went on and as usual and she used to notice him daily but in the back of her mind thoughts of never seeing him for 1-2 months once the holidays begin was killing her internally.

One evening she did not see him at the bus stop. She looked at her watch thinking if she was a bit late or whether his bus had come earlier that day. The next day too the same event happened, he was not to be seen anywhere. Her eyes looked for him everywhere at the bus stop as though a thirsty man was desperately searching for water to quench his thirst.

Where was he? Where did he disappear?

Her heart was sinking. Whom could she ask regarding him? Was he not well? Why wasn’t he seen in the bus stop? Did he change his job? Did he leave this city? Did he move to a different house?

She had no answers to anything. She felt her world come crashing down. Though she knew nothing about him, she felt her heart had shattered to pieces. She cried during her lonely times. Her pillow was witness to her tears.

Why was she feeling this way for a total stranger. Was she in love with him or was it just an infatuation, she thought many a times. Why was she having strong feelings for someone she barely knew..

Would it pass away with time?

Everyday she would look for him but he was nowhere. A month flew by… but he never came. She had become quiet, she was not the bubbly self, something in her just broke. She wished she could see him at least once before the holidays began but he never appeared. She was hurt.

Her exams got over. Holidays began. Shruti and parents left for their native town. They were leaving by the afternoon train. Her eyes seemed to be looking for him everywhere and anywhere the train had halted. She saw his face in the books she read, in the music she played, in the movies she watched…

Her vacations weren’t fun like before. She was physically present but her mind was elsewhere, in his thoughts..

She just wished these two months to go by soon and her school begins and tuitions start again so that she could see him at the same place once again perhaps and who knows if he had returned and would be standing there at the same bus stop.

Holidays finally got over and she was thrilled to begin her school and classes once again just for the fact that she could watch him standing there but… he wasn’t there even after these two months.

Everyday her eyes looked for him in the hope that she could see him one day.

She never spoke about it to anyone, not even to her best friend Divya. This was Shruthi’s first heartbreak.

Her bus stop love came to an end. Though ‘he’ would always be her first crush or love, a love that was purely one – sided, a someone she could never speak about to anyone as she knew nothing about him but ‘he’ awakened her feelings and for the first time in her life she knew what was love without ever being touched or maintaining eye contact or even speaking to him.

Love is an emotion, a feeling of having butterflies in the stomach when you see a particular person, the craving for attention and wanting to be noticed by that person… All this she felt deeply for this one person who was her bus stop love. Silly it may sound but then when has love ever made sense. If it made sense then it wasn’t love in the first place!

Years later, after completion of school and college and landing herself a job, she always happened to pass by that place. She smiled to herself looking at the bus stop. There were people as usual but she always looked for that ‘one’ face among that crowd, the face that had swept her off her feet, but … he wasn’t there. She was lost in memories when suddenly, ‘ Tring Tring’, the sound of her company bus brings her back to the present and she hurriedly rushes off inside the bus and catches her favorite seat by the window.

After all, her first love could never be forgotten by her. She always cherished that love, the love that was pure and innocent in every form and a part of it would always remains in her heart and soul in the form of memories that solely belonged to her and only her..