The Love That Happened Thrice

Part - 2

Rushing towards my destination, as if I were trying to defeat time in some marathon, I finally arrived. It was the first day at my new job. The only contact I had was of a fellow team member, who was supposed to be my buddy for the upcoming week. I called the number I’d received a day prior, my call got answered and the voice on the other side had a prominent accent and I must admit, it was a bit intimidating. Well, it was a short conversation and I waited for him in the room, he had mentioned. He was running late, in fact pretty late. I had imagined this guy to be a snobbish and self-centered character out of some Shakespeare drama. You see, voice can do a lot more than we can imagine. After waiting for an hour, there he was, contradicting my imagination about him. He was a good-looking man with a contagious smile, dressed in a crisp light blue shirt and formal trousers. Over these years of my adulthood, I had learnt that I always find myself drawn to men in formal attire. I am not sure of the reason but this remains a fact even now. This was all I could capture at the first glance. Another thing that I couldn’t help but notice was his wedding ring. Nothing breaks a girl’s heart more than meeting a man with dapper look on the very first day but with a tag, that says ‘taken.’

I got to know him more in the next few months and by the time I could pay attention to the first thought I had from our first meeting, we were already good friends. So, to have any other feeling for a friend was off the table and honestly, I did not have any such feeling for him. We were two most sorted and quiet members in a group of four friends. While our other two friends relished indulging in office politics, we would find silly topics more fun to discuss. As much we enjoyed each other’s company, we were not best of friends. We kept things from each other only to discuss it with another girl in our group, who supposedly was a common best friend for both of us. We were always around but never together.

Our lives were set in different directions and coincidentally almost around the same time. He became a father and I became a wife. We were happy for each other, after all that’s how friends are supposed to feel. After a month of vacation, I resumed office and within a week he was sent to a different office location in the same city and two weeks later I was asked to operate from there too. I was reluctant initially because the thought of being away from my base location and my group wasn’t pleasant. Changes are always scary, aren’t they? However, little did I know that this wasn’t a small change, this was the beginning of the biggest change I will ever have to deal with for my remaining life.

I wasn’t happy to be working from a new location but I wasn’t exactly upset, for I knew I’d still have somebody to accompany me during my meal breaks, even though this person wasn’t my best friend. What started as an awkward bonding session became a habit in a month’s time. From calling each other as soon as we were at work and talking about every possible thing under the sky no more felt awkward, it was our routine. Work was more like a prison and our company became a serene escape people die to experience. It’s really strange, how you once feel distant from someone not knowing they’ll be the one closest to you at some point. We were far from realizing it then.

Three months later, it was time for me to go back to my previous location while he would continue to be there. For the first time ever I felt a peculiar connection with him. I didn’t want to go back and neither did he want that for me. Like I said earlier, changes are scary. We could never fathom the intensity of discomfort induced by a single thought of not being able to see each other, until then. We got promoted in our own world from friends to best friends. We had so much in common that at times it felt as if he was copying my thoughts. It’s almost impossible to meet someone who is so much like you, it makes you feel confident in your own identity because it instills a sense of belongingness. It was time for me to leave and the only thing I was most curious about was his effort to hold those teardrops in his eyes and not letting them slip. I’d always known him to be a sensitive person and therefore, I did not give it much thought.

The location sure changed for me but what remained intact was our conversation, now over calls of course. It became a ritual to tell each other about every experience of the entire day, no matter how little or huge it was. We were very much the same people but something had changed and it went unnoticed. The change that I was now undergoing was wonderfully weird. I started to feel his absence more than ever when he was not around and waiting to see him at the end of the day made me restless, only to have the biggest smile on my face when he would be right in front of my eyes.

“Is it wrong to feel this way?” I questioned myself a thousand times every day but none of it mattered when he was with me. Being able to talk your heart out completely is the most satisfying feeling in the world. That’s how contented I was, evaluating my feelings was a tough task. 

I got an interview call from an ex-manager of mine; she had an opening and wanted me to try for it. It wasn’t my skill set, yet I decided to go for it expecting this opportunity could save me from the weird thoughts I was fighting with. So, I went for it and he was the first one to know about it. The very next day I got a call and with a lot of expectation I answered, only to find out that I will have to stay and confront my feelings. I had my own reasons to be so desperate to get through it but as fate may have it, it didn’t work out for me. I am still in a dilemma if it happened for good or otherwise.

Unexpectedly, I was deeply saddened by the news and needed to be with someone who wouldn’t judge me for shedding tears like a 5 year old. You guessed it right, who else could it be but him. We stood in my balcony smoking a cigarette, as if I had lost a war and I only remember crying uncontrollably. The best thing about this mystery man was that he always knew how to talk me into forgetting my problem and laugh again. When he was done doing what he was best at, we started laughing over my silly reaction and our failures from the past. He then said something which would change our equation forever. He looked at me and said, “I might fall in love with you.” My first reaction was weird but only to avoid any awkwardness if this was some kind of a joke. I said, “Yeah sure, me too.” The only thing that followed was my laughter that I was faking to conceal the sound of my heart, which had just caught its highest pace. He looked more intense than ever and said, “I think I love you already.” It was my dream moment but only at the worst possible time of my life.