Almost Lovers

Prologue

They say when you fall in love, you just know. One random moment, you look in their eyes and realise, this is it.

This is love.

But me? I don't remember when I fell in love with him...

Maybe it was when he held my hand and didn't leave even when the paps left? No, that would be too soon.

Maybe it was during his family function when I broke down in front of everyone, and he didn’t ask questions. Just wrapped his arms around me like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Or that night when he waited in my vanity van till 2 AM, just to make sure I wasn’t alone.

Or when he removed his jacket and covered me when I was drenched in the shower?

It could be when his lips almost touched mine on his car's rooftop, when I was drunk...

Maybe it was during the success party, when I caught him staring, eyes soft, smile even softer, as I sang along to some old, silly song, completely off-key.

For some reason I'd like to believe it happened during the awards night when....

Looking out the window of my car, I realise it didn't matter anymore. All I knew was that I had fallen in love...deeply, madly and irrevocably.

His arms had started to feel like home.
And his eyes… God, those eyes.
They held galaxies. Entire universes I wanted to lose myself in, for a lifetime, and maybe longer.

Karan.

My Sunny

He doesn’t know and maybe he never will.

Not now, not after he just....

The lights outside the car window blur softly as I blink, lashes still wet from tears I didn’t even realise had gathered.
And for the first time, I whisper it to myself.

What have you done Teja?
This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was never part of the contract. We were supposed to be lovers for the camera, not in real life too. Well, it was just me, since he had played his part perfectly and stuck to the rules. I shouldn't have gone off-script.

Sometimes the heart doesn’t care what’s real and what’s not.
Sometimes… it just falls.

And sometimes, the person you fall for?
They walk away before you can even find the courage to say it out loud.