Meeting You

11 months ago

oh nakhrewaali

@oh_nakhrewaali

Meeting You

My legs are throbbing. It’s been a long day of giving autographs and interviews at the Mumbai Art Festival. But I enjoyed it, I won’t lie. I throw a look at my driver, who hurriedly opens the door, but before I sit, someone bumps into me. My driver’s hands cover his face in horror, but the man doesn’t look back. The flames of hell simmer inside my head but it's broken by a whisper. 

"Sorry, sorry" I look up. My eyes meet yours.

They are brown, reminding me of chocolates. You are tall, and I am guessing somewhat younger than my 32, because you look at me, innocently and guilty, and the way you scrunch your face, I can tell for a fact that you haven't really faced the world. You have curly hair and eyes that give you a lost child’s look. I know we don’t even know each other, but there is something about you that makes me want to know you. Maybe it's the way you look at me, waiting for me to yell at you, or the calmness in your eyes that I never got to experience in my life, or just that you keep staring in my eyes, while the rest of the world looks away from mine.

“Are you okay?” you ask. But before I can answer, someone calls you, “Swayam, come on,” and you turn.

Team Naach, your T-shirt reads.

“Kids these days! First he pushed his friend into you and then he apologizes!” My old driver mumbles, hoping that I don’t vent my anger on him. Surprisingly, I don’t, because my mind is clouded with your thoughts. Did you really push that man and stop to stay sorry? Did you want me to notice you? I suddenly am curious about you.

I spend my car ride searching for you on my iPad. Finding you on socials isn’t difficult. Your accounts aren’t private; most of your pictures are with your dance group Team Naach, and you have posted an Instagram story announcing your team’s debut at the Mumbai Art Festival. You dance really well and I know that I am falling for you. But I have had my heart broken before and I cannot afford another heartbreak. I push you out of my mind.

A few days later, I go back to your profiles; I can’t keep you out of my head. You keep updating. I check your latest posts and then log out from my fake account. When I log into my real account, I find you in the list of people viewing my stories, and that makes me elated. I cannot behave like a teenager, but there is something about men who challenge me yet seem submissive that attracts me to them, and you, after...him, are the only one I have ever seen it. He opened my heart to love and broke through every wall only to destroy my heart, and I ended up destroying him.

"Why are you here?" Arjun slurred. His room was filthy, beer cans lying around and  food crumbs all over the floor.

"You haven't been to the office, I was worried sick!" 

"Sharon didn't come to office too, you weren't worried about her, were you?"

"Sharon, Sharon, Sharon! Why do you care about her! Who is she? Just some stupid intern!"

"No, Maya, she isn't just some stupid intern, she is someone who you ruined!"

"I did everything I can, for you!"

"No you didn't. You did it for yourself. You were scared of losing me, so you ruined the poor girl. But you know what, after months of just lying in here, I have realized something, that I cannot do this anymore. I cannot pretend. i thought it wouldn't affect me, what we did to her, but I does, it haunts me. I am sorry. You didn't just destroy the poor girl, you destroyed me too, because every time I look in the mirror, I see her, laughing at me, reminding me that I can never be enough. And I cannot live like this anymore."

I know I cannot destroy you, so I have to let you go. I update my Instagram story and step into the central library when I see you there and my heart beats like crazy. Did you see my story on Instagram and came here to meet me? A part of me hopes so, but it's too much to hope for. If it was, you would have been looking at me, but you are walking down the aisle of Science Fiction books, away from me.

My hands brush across the covers of the stacked books, my mind wondering about the stories those authors have penned down, stories that would give me a break from managing my fashion magazine when I see the book ‘The Black Echo’ and I reach out. I feel a tug. The book is pulled out of my grip, and your brown eyes meet mine.

“Oh, I am sorry, you can have it,” you say. I glance at you, wondering how I should play this, and then walk away. I know you are staring at my back in confusion, cursing me for my rudeness.

As I look at other books, you come next to me, but I ignore you and move to the other side. You slide the copy of the Black Echo across the table and walk away. I find a paper hastily kept inside the book.

“It’s yours, for now. Want to discuss this over a cup of coffee?” and you have scribbled your number. I look up, but you are gone. I blush, looking at your number and go over the book. 

Then, the old fear comes back, the way it did with Arjun when he asked me out. Are you interested in me because of my fame and money? If yes, will you break my heart? But I know that I will never let anyone hurt me. I am strong enough to handle it, I know. But there was something about your innocence that I was attracted to you,  so maybe, there is something other than my fame and money that you are attracted to.

After hours of contemplating, I removed my secret phone that I used for my private conversations.

I don’t take charities.

I don’t do charities. It was just to check if this would get me a date with the famous Maya Mehrotra-Jaisingh. Swayam Shekhawat this side, by the way.

I can’t help but smile and blush. How are you so direct?

I am older than you.

Don’t make it sound like a kink. I like a woman for what she is, age comes in secondary.

Before I can say anything, you reply.

As long as she is above 18 years of age, which, given your previous statement, you are, since I am 28. So we are good, I hope?

I laugh.

We chat for days, and my anxiety increases. Arjun was direct, like you, but he had asked me on a date soon enough. Though he had tried to mask it as a work thing but, it was a date. 

If I am honest, your directness scares me, and that's what attracts me to dating you. I want to see how much you are like Arjun, and if him, you have it in you to be with me, surrender to me. If not, maybe I'll just be happy knowing that I did something reckless and let someone open my heart to the possibility of love, again.

You don't mask your words, but you don't ask me on a date either, and I can't help but wonder if you are at the end of the phone, having a laugh with your friends Rey and Taani about how you are flirting and pranking a well-established, snooty, popular fashion magazine tycoon.

I wish I could ask you out.

I almost jumped out of my chair while I was in a board meeting.

Will you go on a date with me?

My secret phone lights up with your text. Eyebrows rise across the conference room, but no one comments on it. They can't because they know better than that.