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I stood at the end of stairs scanning the empty auditorium, the place where I belonged. If there was something in my life I was ever clear about, then it was stage. I always knew I was born to rule it. I smiled seeing it after such a long time, precisely three months. All the memories of mine spent here came back to me like colorful butterflies. This was the first time I had been away for so long from dance, from stage, from beats and from him.
"Hey Sharon" His first words were still clear to me. I do not think his voice would ever fade away in the heaps of memories; it is always going to be like this, crystal clear. Nobody knows that on that day hearing those words from him I had skipped a heartbeat.
The world along with him thinks I never realized the existence of Swayam Shekhawat before I slapped him that very day in front of everyone. But it's only me who knows I have always felt the presence of Swayam Shekhawat. He had always been on my mind subconsciously. I still remember the day when for the first time I had felt a gaze on me, a gaze that didn't creep me out, a gaze which I could not let go in a pass. They held something which I could never find out because I didn't look at males who weren't my stature and he belonged to that category. In spite of many attempts he had stayed on my mind for some unknown reason which I couldn't discover until much later.
"You are my inspiration to dance Sharon." His words from our last conversation rung in my ears as I walked over to the stage. A smile settled on my lips, the thoughts wandering again.
Dance had always been my passion. It allowed the Sharon to live within me which I keep protecting from the world. Maybe the rehearsal hall was the only place which had seen Sharon Rai Prakash sans her barriers. I was happy that day, the reason of which I don't remember now, but I was happy and I wanted to dance. So I turned on the music player and started grooving on a soft soothing piano piece. I was dancing in my own world and was towards the end of it as the music started to play the last notes when I noticed a pair of eyes and a dreamy smile. My eyes met his but just for a second, I turned around to see the face but it wasn't there. I hurried towards the door but found no one. A part of me said it knew to whom those eyes belong to, and his face flashed in front of me. And at once it disturbed me. Thinking about it as a hallucination, I had dismissed those pair of eyes and that smile that day only to see them again after a long time in this same auditorium.
This was not normal to me. This was not the way I was supposed to act. A line of boys sigh as I walk my way every day and yet my senses have only his eyes imprinted on them. Being stared at wasn't something new to me. I was Sharon Rai Prakash after all. The DIVA. The girl every guy dreamt of. But off late something weird was happening. I was getting addicted to his stares. His gaze was something I had started craving of. And I wouldn't have known all of it if he wasn't absent for three days in a row. My eyes travelled in the direction he sat generally to find his seat empty. I wouldn't have looked towards it even once if he was present but no matter how weird it sounded to my own self, a small part if me had screamed out with all its power, I missed him.
Swayam Shekhawat intrigued me. I never understood why. He wasn't the best man I had laid my eyes upon. I had been with much better looking boys. We hadn't ever talked, scratch that I didn't even know if he talked at all. And most importantly, he was a weakling, the kind of people who weren't worth of a second look, then why he stayed on my mind I failed to understand.
With time he became a mystery to me, a mystery unsolved. And I knew I could never unravel him or my reactions.
And then one day it happened.
"Hey Sharon!" His voice entered my ears and my heart skipped a beat again. I turned around to see Swayam standing in between the seats just like the first time, an innocent smile playing on his lips, the same dreamy look in his eyes. He stood there absorbing my face in his system after three months.
The first time when I had seen him like this I was scared. And that is when I had understood Swayam was that mystery which I preferred unsolved.
He walked over to the stage, his eyes as always never leaving mine as my head replayed the way I had challenged him to show me if he was worth of a dance with me and he had proved it even back then.
"Can I have the honor to dance with you?" He said smiling and forwarded his hand. I looked at his broad palms and gave my hand in his.
"Ofcourse! You deserve the honor of dancing with me!" I replied to him to which he laughed and brought me closer to his own self. We swayed without music, without any words, we just swayed.
I had slapped him on this very stage when he had danced for the first time because he had stirred something inside me which was so alien, which had made me gape, which had made me skip a beat for the second time in a day in his presence. For the time ever I had felt my guard loosened and I had hated it. And he still looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. A dreamy smile adorned his face and I realized it was indeed Swayam outside the rehearsal hall that day watching me dance.
Swayam clicked his fingers in front of me and I came out of my reverie.
"Where are you lost?" He asked narrowing his eyebrows.
I looked at him for a moment and holding his face kissed the cheek I had once slapped.
"Nothing! I missed you." I replied.
He smiled at me with content and stared at me. . . Watching him I realized why I was addicted to his stares, why I never left uncomfortable under his gaze and all the whys I had failed to understand back in the time, it all made sense because the answer lied in his eyes when I searched it within myself and because I was so nave to understand an emotion so strong. It was Love. Pure, Unadulterated Love.
I was grateful to Swayam for taking my name that day because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have ever been able to get over the Sharon which only looked at Swayam's seat when he wasn't sitting there, which didn't look at him even for a second, which gets disturbed if Swayam's face flashed through her mind. He made me free, free of my insecurities, free of my fears. He rediscovered me and caressed me under the warmth of his love and care.
I hugged Swayam tightly and he held me in his embrace mumbling an I love You Sharon which made me smile.
Maybe that's why Sharon needs Swayam. . . To love and to be loved.
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