"Do you ever wish you had a second chance to meet someone for the first time?"
Chapter 1
"So?" Sharon asked, "How has it been for you?"
Swayam looked up from his cup of coffee. "It's been quite good actually. I never thought managing would be this satisfying."
"Oh... What do you do?"
"I am an Investment Banker at Simons and Co."
Sharon nodded solemnly, racking her brain for something they had in common. She had seen him in college, he was in her class. But she couldn't remember one single time of significance which involved him. But back then she had always had this huge bubble of arrogance to fend off any boy. The only boy who had managed to come close to her and not be intimidated was Rey. Sharon smiled thinking of that. They had had quite some fun back then, when nothing in life mattered a lot. When all she wanted was to be an accomplished dancer. Rey had always been by her side, her partner in crime. At some point he didn't really like what Sharon did to harass others but he stood with her, like a rock, right from the first month the college had started.
In the third year of their degree though Rey gave up dancing and joined the basketball team. Oh yes!
"You were in basketball team," she exclaimed the same time as Swayam remarked, "Why are you so quiet?"
"Sorry?" Sharon repeated baffled.
"Uh... bad timing," he chuckled, chagrined, "you were saying something?"
"You were in basketball team right? Yes, yes I remember!"
"Er... yeah... yeah that." He smiled softly. "Not the best moment of my life to be honest." He shook his head, some of his gelled hair falling loose on his forehead.
"Why?"
"Er... nothing really, lost interest," he shrugged.
Sharon leaned forward making Swayam whip his head up, "How?" she asked, dragging the word.
"Um..." Swayam looked around, searching for words, "It's just that, the basketball guys never really accepted a Weakling in their team. They would never pass the ball to me during matches... or they used to trash my locker." He shook his head again, smiling, "They were such kids."
Sharon felt a twinge of guilt. How wouldn't she, she was the leader of Dazzlers. She opened her mouth to apologise when Swayam continued, "After a while, it got too much. I mean there is only so much a person can take. I quit the team. That brought a field day back at home. My dad literally blasted me on the phone for leaving the basketball team." He laughed, to her surprise, genuinely; the one where the corner of his crinkled. She didn't really understand how he found it funny. She stared at him with a bewildered smile stretching on her face.
"I was never much interested in basketball anyway. It was my dad who wanted me to join. He really kept calling me on the daily to attend tryouts. At one point he even threatened to break all ties if I didn't."
Sharon was amused. She had never met a person with such an open heart and open feelings laid out there in open for everyone to see. Swayam was completely fine with whatever went wrong in his life and he didn't mind telling them to anyone, like he could never be embarrassed of himself. She couldn't fathom what made him so open, so resistant to vulnerability.
All of a sudden she realised, she wanted to know more.
"Then what were you interested in?" she asked.
The way he looked at her, the expression, was something that could have raised a million questions but then he said, "Nothing much. Commerce was all that interested me, really. I happen to be quite a boring person."
Sharon smiled, shaking her head at nothing in particular. Swayam Shekhawat was anything but boring to her at the moment.
"What about you? How has it been for you?"
It took an active effort for Sharon to keep that smile on her face and not give anything away. "Good, I guess," she answered nonchalantly.
"What do you mean you guess?" he fired back.
"I mean it's been fine. Good. I have a good job, a good salary, good working conditions. What more could I expect?"
"The world," Swayam replied, almost instantly. "You wanted the world, Sharon. You wanted everything back in college."
Sharon furrowed her brow and stared at Swayam.
"Everyone knew you, Sharon Raiprakash, the diva. Your ambition of being on top of the world was not unknown to anyone," he smiled.
Okay, this was uncomfortable. She didn't want to talk about this. What should she do to not let this conversation to go in that direction? Think Sharon, think!
But she was never a smooth talker, never someone who wanted to please others. So, her mind came up with a big total of zero ideas to avoid this. Instead she did what she could, she ignored and sipped on her coffee with a proper gurgling noise to fill the awkward silence. She half expected someone to chide her, what sort of an illiterate way of drinking coffee is this? Come on Sharon, we are sophisticated people. Sip quietly.
Yes, she was sick of her life. She knew it. No need to remind her.
"Where are you now by the way?" Swayam asked her, seemingly oblivious of her dilemma.
"I am a Legal Advisor at JR Cements."
"Wow!" Sharon watched Swayam with a bemused expression. "That's impressive!" he answered looking genuinely impressed. As if... Of course... Trust her mom to get her daughter a fancy job at their own company.
"It sounds interesting, but all I do whole day is just sort out papers. It's my training period," she answered with an embarrassed smile. It wasn't like her to not accept a compliment but something about Swayam threw her off completely.
"Hey, what do you think I do? We are on a junior level right now, that's why. Once we go up the ladder, we'll take our companies by storm," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes that made her want to smile.
"By the way, aren't investment bankers supposed to be like these overworked group of people with absolutely no personal time?" she teased him.
"Oh, please," he rolled his eyes, cute, "don't get me started. Some days it's pure hell. Especially with Sensex doing conga dance every time I blink my eyes."
And Sharon laughed. She laughed in a way she hadn't in a long time. She threw her head back and she pushed herself forward on the table and buried her head in her arms as she laughed. It wasn't all that funny a joke but she laughed with the sheer relief of being able to.
"So," she caught her breath and cleared her throat, "what happened today? You're early and you seem to have loads' of time."
"I just threw all documents on the floor and thought, chuck it'. I have a life, for god's sake. And that definitely doesn't involve so many papers and reading all day. So I chucked it and left early," he replied with a proud smile, "and it's a good thing I did, right? Or else we might have never met again."
***
Back at her home, in her bed, Sharon couldn't help but replay everything that happened that day in her head. It was a pleasant surprise. Four years ago she could have never imagined talking to a Weakling let alone having such a good time, but time did change everyone. She wondered how it would have been if they had met back then. How different would the situation have been. She wondered if she missed on a lot by always having those big walls around her.
The buzz of her phone made her startle out of her reverie and finally look away from the ceiling. Sharon grabbed her phone and rolled over on her stomach, swiping her thumb to unlock.
From: Swayam Shekhawat
It was nice meeting you. We should do that again.
Sharon buried her face in the pillow. It was more than nice, actually.
To: Swayam Shekhawat
Don't know. Busy schedule. ;)
It was after she hit send that she realised she was actually teasing him. She sent him a wink! What had happened to her!
From: Swayam Shekhawat
Thanks, love! Means a lot XD
Did he just...
To: Swayam Shekhawat
...
Her hands hovered over the keyboard. She wanted to type something sharp. Something really snappy, that's she would do but...
To : Swayam Shekhawat
I am sleepy. Ttyl
From : Swayam Shekhawat
Yeah... Gn... Ttml... :)
Sharon placed her phone back in the drawer and pulled the blankets over her head trying to get over the blush on her face. You have met that guy just once! He was Weakling! Old Sharon would have never looked at him twice! But old Sharon was not her. She was this girl who met a boy who helped her get up, who took time out of his barely existent free time to catch up with her and asked her to join him for coffee though he had absolutely no obligations to, who couldn't meet her eye while asking her number, looking almost wary that she would turn up that arrogance of hers and fire him for having the audacity to do so; and who looked incredibly surprised and happy when she actually complied.
She didn't know how she felt about meeting him again. He was a nice person to talk to but he also reminded her of everything she used to be. The good and the bad bits of it. She closed her eyes and fell asleep thinking of empty rehearsal halls and a certain pair of chocolate brown eyes.
A/N : It was so nice to see a majority of you are still active here. I haven't lost a lot of readers have I... XD I love you guys for taking out time to read my stories because they motivate me to give you better content each time. And I hope I am doing so... I don't reply because I honestly don't have time to but I will always be there if you try to reach out to me, I promise and I always read every single comment and you don't know how good that feels. But as always, criticism will always be welcome. If you don't like a certain thing in my work you could always tell me and I will try not to make that mistake in the future as accepting criticism is the best form of learning.
Thanks to all of you. Keep loving, 'liking', commenting and share if you feel like.
All the love,
Srishti
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