REUNION
Her lips curved into a smile as Aastha re-read the E-mail she had received a couple of minutes ago. Reunion! Aastha's heart jumped with joy and excitement. Will Shlok be there too? The thought made her feel butterflies in her stomach. Shlok, her school crush whom she had madly fallen for during their graduation together. It had been more than four long years since their last meeting at the convocation. Shlok had been abroad since then. Aastha had never been able to express her love to him. And now they were hardly in contact, just some rare messages on Facebook or WhatsApp wishing on birthdays. But Aastha never missed to follow him on Facebook regularly. Seeing and liking his pictures on Facebook and closely following his status gave Aastha an unknown happiness though she had lost the hope to ever see him again. And after all these years, the invite for the reunion of their graduation batch brought Aastha's hope of meeting Shlok back to life. Aastha quickly checked Facebook whether Shlok had updated anything about being in India at the moment, but there wasn't any such update.
"Hey... Are you in India by any chance?" she texted him on WhatsApp, but didn't get any reply. She was disappointed to see that the message had not been delivered to him. Should I call him? A thought popped up in her mind. But then she discarded it.
Finally the day arrived. Aastha reached the party hall and was happy meeting all her classmates after a long time. But her happiness seemed incomplete without Shlok. She got to know from one of her friends that Shlok was in India and he would be reaching the venue any moment from then. A strange excitement surged through Aastha. Would he be the same Shlok even now? Does he too remember all the moments we had spent together? What will his reaction be after seeing me? Will he too be excited to meet me? Or is it just me as always? A number of thoughts flooded Aastha's mind as she counted moments while waiting for Shlok to come.
Aastha thought of getting juice for her till then. She turned suddenly and bumped into someone before she could understand what happened.
"Aastha!" she heard a familiar voice.
"Shlok!" Aastha couldn't hide her excitement. His looks, his eyes, his voice never failed to take her heart away.
Both didn't know how to begin the conversation. They were just lost into each other's eyes. Aastha looked away from him fearing that he will know about her love. But Shlok kept looking at Aastha. Beautiful as always!
Shlok's phone had fallen to the ground in this hustle. Both knelt down at the same time to pick it up. Aastha was surprised to see the wallpaper of his phone. It was a childhood photo of Shlok and Aastha holding hands and smiling heartily. Aastha's eyes watered seeing it. Shlok smiled seeing Aastha's reaction.
"After all these years?"
"Always!"
Aastha couldn't believe it. Shlok knew seeing Aastha's reaction that his love was actually never one-sided as he had been thinking it to be all this time.
It was not just a reunion of classmates, but a reunion of two hearts made for each other.
___________
Waiting eagerly for your Likes and Comments 😊
Anupamaa
