And now here she was, sitting in her balcony, wrapped in a Pashmina shawl, sipping her Earl Grey tea. She lived in Darjeeling these days, but her loyalties lay with her English favourite. Sally had lived in London for a few years to acquire a degree in Fashion Designing. The British influence was difficult to shake off. She got back to her reading then.
“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.”
Jane Austen had a way of presenting such wonderful statements for deliberation. She smiled at the idea of romance.
‘I’ve been all across the globe too, and I know I’ll never see the man I’ve loved half my life’, she grimaced.
Marking the page, she shut the book, and set it down along with the teacup on the coffee table. She had taken some time off work now that winter was in full bloom; she would have to start working on her spring collection soon, but not today. Today was her personal Sabbath; she put her feet up on the table next to the book.
And dreamed of Harry as she often did: He was holding her in his arms. Her back was turned to him. He was nuzzling her hair. He couldn’t see her heartache or her tears; she was about to shut this door forever.
She freed herself from him and turned round to face him. “I can’t do this anymore, Harry. We have to stop doing this to each other.”
“Well, I quite enjoy this”, was all he could think of saying. She had shocked him, for the first time in their eight-year-long relationship.
“I can’t deal with the distance. I wait all year to spend a few days with you, and then you’re gone!”
“But we’re in touch nearly every day, are we not? We FaceTime even! I don’t know why this is a big deal all of a sudden…”
“I’m a settler, Harry. I can’t wait for you all my life. I require so much more than this. It’s time we moved on from whatever the heck this is.”
She regretted those words the moment she’d said them. He turned around, picked up his stuff and walked out the door without another word, still in shock.
When they first met, they were in high school. They seemed to have nothing in common – he the dreamer, she the daydreamer; him with dreams of a high flying career in Finance, her with daydreams of glamour and the fashion world. Yet, theirs was a relationship that had lasted through the years, until she had called it off seven years ago.
After high school, Harry had immediately received a scholarship and been accepted for a four-year course in Marketing and Finance in the US, an opportunity he just couldn’t miss. Sally stayed back in Mumbai to complete her studies, and he made it a point to visit her at least once a year. This became their annual ritual. Every November, Harry would come see her from wherever he was. He then took up a consultancy job and was living his brilliant dream. He was passionate about his job and the travel it afforded; it sent him to amazing places – one year he flew down from Scotland, another year up from Australia, and so on.
Initially she was dazzled by his stories and trinkets and travelogue. But as the years passed by, she began to feel an empty void, and it was malignant. It took her a while to fathom that only his constant physical presence would fill it. But that would mean crushing his dreams to a pulp and serving it to him in a paper cup. She decided the only way to be happy was to part ways.
But she’d made a mess of it, she knew that now. She had decided she had no choice but to stick with it for better or for worse. She took up an advanced course in Fashion Designing in the UK and never looked back. From there she went to Paris, Amsterdam and innumerable fancy places, did short stints and moved on like she’d promised herself she would. The doorbell rang and broke her reverie. She opened the door, and there stood Harry…
“I found you,” he said quietly.
“I don’t usually dream of things that’ve never happened,” she said dumbly.
That puzzled him but ignoring it, he said, “I’m a settler now.”
When realization dawned on her, she hugged him and wept over the seven years she had thrown away.
**
Image courtesy: marywaldsvintageplace.blogspot.com
Vanessa Braganza is passionate about words and thrives on wordplay. She writes short stories and three words describe her best – Lexophile. Storyteller. Dreamer. She blogs at http://theworksofvhb.wordpress.com/