TM Mridu Drolia

By TM Mridu Drolia

“Hey”
“Hey”. That voice from the other side of the phone, that voice which melted her heart worth a thousand glaciers. She lost a moment as her heart calmed and then, she slowly said, “do you have a minute? I was hoping we could talk”.
“That depends on what you have to say”.
“Well, the ball’s tonight and I was hoping we’d go together as we have been for the past 4 years”.
“Maaya, I….”
“Arjun, don’t. Let me finish. Just this one time, let me finish”. The emotion in her voice wasn’t pain but she knew she had to get this one out. So, she gathered herself and then she spoke. “I can wear a nice, expensive dress and do my hair just the way you like, wear that bracelet you got me on our first anniversary at the fare and you can wear a nice tux and oxford shoes, i know that’s always been your fancy, and then both of us can look at each other and exchange those lovely glances that we once did and then you can tell me that I look beautiful and I can tell you about how handsome you look and then I can stare at your absurdly handsome face and you can look at mine and then we can both dance and drink wine and we can just pretend this one time, that everything’s normal and that we still are madly in love with each other and other people can be jealous of us and then when we’ve spent some good time, you can drop me home at the end of the ball and then when we kiss each other good night, we’ll make it a good bye kiss and not have hard feelings. Let’s part with dignity. You think you can do that?
“Maaya”, he took care to let that word come out of his mouth, like it was very tender and delicate and needed to be handled with a lot of softness, “I can do it. But that part where we kiss good bye, that will be a kiss that says, you’re mine, forever. I’m never going to say a good bye to you. If you’re okay with that, we’ll have a deal”
She already had tears rolling down her cheeks and her voice was choking but there was it, a smile. She hadn’t smiled like that in a long time. It was her ‘Arjun smile’. She finally found her voice and said, “Yes. Deal.”