Something I came up with a few weeks ago. All characters are purely fictional, with no resemblance to any person, living or dead. So no conclusions please. And this is pure fiction. :)
She sat at her usual place in Shivaji Park, near the idol of Minatai, listening to some random music on her phone. It was a sweaty, sunny day, especially in Mumbai at 4 pm during the summer. Summer days in Mumbai usually were ugly but they peaked their sweaty, heated up side especially in May.
He was late (as usual). You’d think someone would get used to their best friend getting late every time they meet, but there are some things which just get you annoyed no matter what!
So there she waited, for half an hour, waiting for her best friend to ‘grace’ her with his appearance. She even thought about the reasons he’d give her once he came. “Mom had some work!” “This stupid scooter of mine, had to kick start it so many times! Stupid engine!” (though the engine works perfectly fine) “There was a huge queue at the petrol pump!” and so on. The reasons repeated themselves periodically but she’d gotten used to it now.
She smiled as he finally sauntered towards her. He seemed different today, and yet he looked the same. She smiled goofily but quickly covered for it by mock-punching him. “What’s the reason this time?” she questioned. He put his hand on the back of his neck and said “you know all of them already. What’s the point?” and she started laughing and punched him a bit more.
The thing was… She had fallen for him. You know, the typical ‘fell for her best friend’ cheesy crap? Nobody believes in it until it happens to them. It happened to her when he fell off a bike in a freak road accident and she realized he was in a hospital, battling for life. But her policy of keeping the hormones out of a perfectly good friendship didn’t let her do anything about it. Who knew about what he felt? Why to risk everything for something as stupid as a crush? She would get over it.
They started walking around the ground, as usual, and they started talking. After junior college, both of them chose different streams and met every week or two to talk about their lives and stuff in general. It was like their private time. They just roamed around the ground, dodging joggers and dirty footballers and people they knew. After a pani puri or two, they went home.
Today, however, he suddenly said “Let’s go to Narali Baag. We haven’t been there in ages!”
She was surprised, for sure. Narali baag was a garden on the other side of the road, adjoining the beach. It was for kids, cheesy couples who liked to make out in public and huge groups of friends. They never really went there for their weekly ‘gossip sessions’, so it was a little weird. You know, in a good way, but still.
They went there, sat down and started talking. She told him about her life in a medical college and he spoke about his in an engineering college. They didn’t really understand each other’s fields, of course, but they spoke about stuff in general, people in general.
Time passed by way too quickly, and before they realized it, the sun had started to set. From the Naarli baag, the Bandra Worli sea link was directly visible and the view during the sunset was gorgeous. She got enraptured by it suddenly when he told her to get up and took her near the wall which separated the beach from the garden. Being elevated, the beach and the sky were perfectly visible from there.
The view was amazing. No matter how many times you look at the sunset, it always manages to amaze you.
Suddenly, he whispered “Maya?”. She looked away from the sunset and looked at his face. The orange light was shining off from the edge of his spectacles and yet it got caught in his soft brown eyes. He had the most amazing brown eyes she had ever seen. Like melted chocolate swirling in a fondue plate, you know? Smoldering.
She caught herself just in time and asked “What’s up?”
He took a deep breath and looked into her eyes. Her feet suddenly turned to jelly. Nervously tucking a strand of hair (which was not even flying) behind her ear, she asked “what?” and tried to hide the mess that her brain was in behind a shaky laugh.
He said, “Maya, I think I’m in love with you.”
She just looked at him with a dazed expression and managed to get a “huh?” out.
He began, “I realized I had fallen for you when you came to the hospital after, you know, I almost died.” She shuddered a bit as he continued, “I remember seeing your face. You looked like a ghost, pale and lifeless. Your eyes had dark circles like you hadn’t slept in days. You were almost shivering in the minimal air conditioning. I just wanted to hug you right there and then, but couldn’t, because, well, I was kinda bandaged all over, my leg was in a cast and my parents were there.” He sighed, and looked at her. “I was always afraid to tell you about this because our friendship was too precious to me, but I realized even if you don’t reciprocate to my feelings our friendship is strong enough to survive-”
She shushed him to silence. Looking at him right then, she realized how his perfect brown eyes were a shade darker as he awaited her response, nervously flickering. How his legs were twitching like they were under tetany at the moment. How his thumbs were twiddling like they were in a thumb war. She took his hand in hers, entwined her fingers in his and said, “Dude, that was QUITE a confession. My training paid off! And look at our hands. They fit in so perfectly together, don’t they?” She looked at him and smiled. He looked visibly relieved as he looked at her and grinned, his perfectly white teeth showing off.
Suddenly, the day was less hot and sweaty. Cheesy couples didn’t seem that bad now. Kids were a lot less annoying. All of this because Maya had finally found her Siddhant. Her best friend, who she’d fallen in love with, loved her too. And there was no looking back after that.
