The Silent Secret

“I have not seen you for quite a while and can’t recollect your face.” She said earnestly.  She had a peculiar tendency of forgetting people’s face while remembering their names.

“Don’t bother. I remember you, your face.” He said as a matter of fact.

“You have learnt how to talk smooth, haven’t you?” she said giggling.

“No, your face has been the one which remained with me always. It haunted me everywhere I went to run away from my demons. It was the only thing that brought me back home because I knew my home is in the city you lived. I returned every night and fell asleep hoping to see you the next day. These went on for years. I didn’t even know you moved out of the city. I didn’t fall into bad company because I thought I might lose you. I never got near any intoxication because I was afraid that it would make your memory in my soul blur. I kept on fighting the demons within me hoping that the next time you saw me you found me the same. I failed sometimes and I won sometimes but I refused to kill the old me, the innocent me completely because I had always known that one day I will face you. I was strangely afraid of you, your righteousness. I wanted to erase my memories from everyone’s life but I didn’t because I hoped you will come. I fell in love again but it never changed what I felt for you. I am falling in love with you always; I am in love with you now. I do not want to possess you. I already have you deep in me. You are the epitome of a woman for me. A portrait of a woman…”

“But I was a girl then….I don’t love you but still love you…” She cut him short as she didn’t want to hear what she knew already. She heaved a sigh of relief feeling that all these years she was right and a sigh of disappointment that she didn’t have the confidence to wait.

She remembered the time they shared a common space together silently, two decades back. They never spoke or even tried to communicate like other teenagers. They knew each other well from the first day. Each other’s mirror reflection. Their mutual silence spoke. They had never talked so much to each other as they talked now but they didn’t feel awkward. It was as if they had always talked and known each other thoroughly.

It had been two decades and every time she struggled with her confidence and self esteem. She remembered him. He was the one who appreciated her work, appreciated her and acknowledged her when no one did. Every seminar in the college, every interview she faced she thought of him.

“If he has approved then others will. If they don’t approve at least he will.”

She didn’t wait for him as she never completely fell in love with him.

And now as they sat face to face in a Café, discussing the marketing strategy of their upcoming venture, they took this break to discuss things long pending to be told and never talked of. She had just retired after a bright career spanning seventeen years from twenty to thirty seven. She was married happily and was a proud mother. He was an entrepreneur who never stopped; juggling life between family (wife and kids) and dreams. They both had it all except themselves. But did they need each other as lovers?

Incomplete Love stories are a myth. They do not destroy your life. They motivate you to reach higher. Love can never be incomplete. If it’s incomplete then it is not love. Life Partners in life can be your Mother, Brother, Best Friend all those who share life with you.  Love can never destroy. If you are killing yourself for it think again is it love?

“I thought I will not live till twenty five the way I was going. You know what I mean. Thanks for being the silent secret of my life. Thanks for being there as a friend through all these years; invisibly motivating me through thick and thin.” She said holding his hand and squeezing it softly with eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

“Thanks, the feeling is mutual.” He said sipping in the coffee

They sat silently for a while.

“Hey where is my treat? I need my fees for motivation.” He spoke playfully breaking in the silent.

“Get Lost!” she said with a giggle and beaming eyes while hitting his head lightly with the magazine she was reading.

They resumed talking and gossiping as they had never stopped…

Friends forever……..