A magic lost - The Conclusion

I watched him with horror. Suddenly I was very concious of myself. Dressed in last night pajamas, the only thing I had done to myself was to have brushed my teeth. I didn't even remember splashing water across my face. True, I had fantasized about meeting him face to face, but darn it! this was a nightmare. He on the other hand was immaculately dressed, the unruly hair that I remembered being all over the forehead was combed back neatly and held in place with what looked like loads of gel! But the lopsided grin was still there. Just the same.

"You are not ready..."
I kept staring at him.
"Ready for what?" The irritation of being caught in the worst possible attire combined with the shock of him standing right in front of me, made it possible for me not to stand there gaping like an owl. Anger might be a real bad thing but it sure lends character to a person. Especially one who does not know what to do next. It atleast guides you to say something.
"For our date. I have come to pick you up and I am on time too!" he grinned.
Now anger gripped me tightly. This was getting too far. What was he thinking he was doing? Did he think that he could just burst into my life from nowhere and that I would welcome him with open arms. Did that 7 years that passed, which included the excruciatingly painful first year where I passed the days like a zombie, the second one where I tried to get a grip on myself, the third year where I started to breathe normally again and the years after that where the most important thing and difficult thing to do was not to think of him, just mean nothing to him.
"Get out!" I said as I slammed the door in his face.
"owww..owww.owww" I heard him. I was aghast. Did I hit him? oh no! So some people were indeed right about anger being a bad thing. Or was he just acting? Whatever it was, the sudden burst of anger in slamming the door managed to cool my temper somehow and I opened the door cautiously. He stood right there, holding a hand to his nose.
"What happened? Did I hurt you?" I asked with concern.
"Oh! yes you did! More than you can imagine..." he replied. I searched his face for a grin. It was not there. Suddenly I felt very tired. Very drained. It was time I dealt with the situation by facing it. Not slamming the door or hanging the phone on it.

I let him in. His nose seemed allright, though a little red. The door must have just grazed it.
"I am sorry but your nose seems ok..." I said.
"I was not talking about my nose.." he replied.
"Why are you doing this? What is this all about? Please, I don't want to play games anymore." The frustration in my voice was evident. I had not asked to be a part of this and yet he was here, sitting right across from me. Not even a feet of distance between us.
"Neither do I, believe me. I am just here to apologize to you.."
"Apologize? Isn't it a little too late for that?"
"Well its never too late. This is how long it took me to gather the courage to face you, to look into your eyes again..." he sank back in the sofa.
"But why? why after all these years..." I still could not understand his presence.
"Maybe its selfish of me. I don't know but I had to do this. Maybe now I could go to bed peacefully without feeling like a jerk that I am..was..."
I wanted to say I agree with you about the jerk part, but I resisted.
"Ok. Fine. Now that you have done what you have set out to do, let's call it quits."
"What do you mean?" he asked, the confusion clearly visible in his eyes.
"Well you wanted to apologize, you apologized and now you can get on with your life and let me get back to mine in peace..." I said.
"So do you forgive me?" he asked.
"How does that matter?"
"It does. Please..." he leaned forward.
"Ok fine I forgive you. Now can you leave please?"
"Wow! You have changed!"
"Yes! I have grown up, thank you very much for noticing" I replied.
He sat there silently, staring at me. I felt remarkable. I did not know where I was getting the determination and the strength from. But wherever it was from the supply seemed to be generous and undiminished.
"Can we start over?" he asked slowly.
I stared at him. Was he for real?
"Are you for real?" I said getting up agitatedly.
"Please...please listen me out..." he continued as slowly.
"Please leave..." I almost yelled at him.
"You owe me that much..."
"I don't owe you one tiny thing. Now get out before I call security." I said picking up the phone.
What happened next, I could not have foreseen in my wildest imaginations.
He burst out crying. Yes, real tears started flowing out of his eyes. I was flabbergasted. This was not what I had expected. I just stared at him increduosly, still unable to believe that he was shedding tears in my living room! But it did manage to stop me in my tracks. Something he wanted to achieve and did I am sure. I was unsure as to how I was supposed to react. So I just stood there gaping.
He must've taken my stunned silence as softening as he took a moment to recover.
"I am sorry..but I have been under so much stress lately and I have been waiting for this moment when I would meet you for so long and everything is going against what I thought it would go like...it is just so overwhelming..." he said.
I prayed that the tears had stopped for good and there would be no more moist eyes to deal with. I remembered how he was quick with unshed tears all those years ago. Specifically when I would say something that would hurt or make him angry. Somehow the memory made me cool down a little. After all we had shared a relationship in the past. If for nothing more, we were friends at one time and somehow the bitterness that I was exhibiting did not seem right. Especially towards a person, whom I had, like it or not, loved with all my heart all those long years ago.
I slumped into the sofa. It was my turn to feel exhausted now. Where was this going and why?
"What is it that you want from me?" I asked.
"I just want another chance..." he said as he moved towards me.
"Another chance at what?" I could not believe my ears.
"Another chance at love..." He was looking at me in earnest. Was that sincerity I saw reflected in his eyes or was it something else. Again he managed to shut me up. The whole thing seemed something straight out of a highly dramatic movie to me. Nothing about the situation seemed real. He was behaving like he had left yesterday and had come to smooth over a tiff we had last night or something. And worse still, I was allowing him to. I instinctively flinched at the thought.
He somehow noticed my horrified expression and went back to his seat.
After a few moments of silence, he finally managed...
"Can we be friends atleast?"
I could not believe this. I recalled those were my exact words when I was cajoling him to give our relationship a second chance. When everything else had failed, I had given the being friends parting shot. To which I remember him replying - we could never be friends. Did he forget all that or was he so insensitive to be taking the same disastrous approach I had undertaken. At least I had had an immature age and being hopelessly in love to fall back upon as excuses, What excuse did he possess?
"can we?" he questioned again.
It looked to me like he was once again mistaking my shocked state to mean something else - maybe a positive reaction to his asinine comments.
"Look here" I said trying to muster as much dignity as I could in the crumpled pajamas I had been wearing since yesterday, that now sported a couple of pizza sauce marks.
"...I am unable to fathom how you could appear out of nowhere and expect us to carry off from where we left off. Do you even remember where we left off? If you do, then I am even more amazed that you could be having this conversation with me and if you don't, I would once again take you being the biggest jerk in the world as the reason behind this nonsense. I don't know where you got this preposterous idea in your brain, that there is something that could be salvaged here. And I wonder what prompted this? Is it because of all the stress that you say you find yourself in, or it is as you put it being unable to live with oneself when you seemed to have done a pretty good job of it till this time. Whatever it is, I am not buying. Now for the final time - LEAVE and please no more tears. I cannot stand men who bawl openly in front of strangers..."
He looked up sharply.
"Strangers? What do you mean strangers?"
"Strangers as in two people who do not know each other..." I persisted.
"What are you talking about?"
"Us" I said simply.
He was taken aback, I could see that. He opened his mouth to say something, seemed to think better of it and then got up to leave. I stayed where I was. He paused at the door, I did not flinch. I don't know how long he stood there, but there was some time before the door finally closed.
I breathed out a sigh of relief. My heart was beating so fast, I just sat there still, not trusting myself to get up. As things returned to normalcy, I smiled. Meeting him seemed like the best thing to have happened to me. No longer would I wonder about how he turned out. No longer would I just remember the best parts of our relationship. Seeing him face to face, talking to him had stripped him naked of all the romaniticism I had associated with him and being in love with him. I was aghast with myself for having found this man endearing enough to have loved him for so long. I could still feel the revulsion of his smoother than silk attitude that was so fake and not to mention the tears with which he had hoped to win me over not realizing that I was made of sterner stuff than he was and much better stuff too!

Kya hua tera waada, woh qasam woh iraada ? as if one cue Rafi's song came on the TV I was staring at blanky. Mitti me mil gaya I muttered under my breath.

The magic of the song and everything else that was associated with it was lost - forever!

*The End*

Kya hua tera waada, woh qasam woh iraada - a beautiful song by Mohammed Rafi from Hum Kisi se kum nahin that has him asking his childhood love who is now in a relationship with another man as to what happened to her promise, her decision that the day she forgot him would be her last!

Mitti me mil gaya - An urdu expression that literally translated means, got mixed with mud to denote that it has been discarded!