Love Takes Time {Completed} {#Wattys2017}

22. Last Dance

               Shanaya could see Abhimanyu in the corridor. She didn't even know who she was dancing with because her eyes were only on him. When she saw he was not there in corridor, she decided to go back to hostel alone. When she walked out of hall into empty corridor, she saw him standing at the end of corridor, leaning against the wall next to the stairs. He looked disturbed as he smoked one cigarette after another. He darted his eyes on her never taking them off her. She too didn't avert his gaze as this was the last time she was seeing him, so she looked on taking in his beautiful face in her eyes for the last time. There was something in the way he looked at her, and it was not desire, but fire. His eyes glinted fiercely as if they wanted to kill her and she knew why.

            He wanted to kill her, but he wanted to kill himself more for making the mistake of asking her, for breaking his rule for her. He always danced with the girls who asked him, but he never asked anyone. She was the first. He was modest, but he knew he was handsome and the kind of effect he had on all girls. Like others, he too believed girls couldn't turn him down. She changed that. She was an exception now. An exception error of his life like an exception error in a program that always pops up. She was like those 'hit me toys' now, which he might keep hitting back, but it was going to keep returning.

           He flicked ash off his cigarette and decided to flick her out of his head. He went back to his room, opened the bottle of vodka, and drank straight out of it. His friends were yet to come. He lay in his bed thinking, and drinking from the bottle in between.

            She had stolen his heart and he wanted it back. He wanted to extract out every memory of her from within him and ban her entry into his thoughts. He drank more vodka to detox his body of her. She was those pages in his history which he wanted to tear off. She was a dream that he dreamed four years but now it was going to be forgotten like a bad dream. He finished half bottle of vodka. Ram and Yash open the unlatched door and walk in the room.

Yash: Hey dude! What, you started celebrating alone?

Ram: OMG! Can you believe it, he already finished half vodka bottle. You want to kill yourself or what?

Abhimanyu: Wish I could!

Ram: He is out of mind.

Abhimanyu: Yeah, it got to be out of mind. He said thinking of Shanaya.

Ram: You are not drinking anymore.

Abhimanyu: C'mon! You know, I have capacity of a whale. See, I'm still not unconscious. I can still remember everything clearly. You are Ram. He is Yash and ....

He stopped from saying 'She is Shanaya'. He wanted to drink until he had no strength to think.

Yash: Okay, we know that. It's okay Ram. He'll be fine. C'mon! Let's enjoy!

Yash pours whisky for all of them .They all cheer to their friendship before drinking. They talk about the wonderful time in college and what they were looking forward to in future.

Yash: Where is my packet of cigarette?

Abhimanyu takes out the packet from his pocket and gives it to him.

Yash: What? This is also half! What's going? He asked concerned.

Abhimanyu: Nothing is damn working!

Abhimanyu: I think I need drugs to lose my senses. Can I get some drugs from your classmate, Sandeep?

His friends looked at him in shock.

Ram: What's wrong with you today?

Abhimanyu: It's the pain of leaving people I love, that's not going away.

Yash: We'll meet, yaar. It's not like it's getting over.

Yash lights up cigarette and pours vodka into empty glasses for all of them. They all smoke along with drinks.

Ram: Come on Abhimanyu, relax! It's not like we are going to hell. We'll meet in future.

            Abhimanyu was going through hell. Nothing seemed to take away his pain. He was half conscious, but it was still hurting. The girl he treasured, pushed him away like she never knew him. She knocked down the tower of love he build for four years in a second.

           Abhimanyu wanted to move into a new life with nothing of her in it. He destroys the masterpiece he had created and preserved with so much love. With every cloud of smoke that he exhaled, he splashed buckets of white paint on his masterpiece to whitewash it, but she still peeped from underneath. He ,then drank black vodka Blavod, and with every sip of it he brushed the canvas black until it blacked out her completely. She no longer peeped. It was just dark now, stark black. He drank himself to unconsciousness to wake up to a clean slate on which he could start writing from start.

            Day after last exam, Shanaya stood at the bus stop with her suitcases. She looked at the college for one last time and wished a glimpse of him, but it was not granted. Bus came, and with many other students, she got into the bus to the railway station. She always took train to Trivandrum because railway station was near to her house. When they reached the station, it started raining heavily. In no time water was logging in the roads, and the strong winds rendered umbrellas useless. She got into second class sleeper and put her luggage under her side seat in a relatively empty berth.

             Shanaya sits thinking about Abhimanyu with her head next to open window of her seat. Her heart ached that last time she saw him was already over and now she was never going to see him. She couldn't imagine how she was going to live without seeing him at all. She was reliving the moments she had with him in her head when the train whistled to go. She desperately wished a Hindi movie happened and he came running through the crowd in the platform and climbed up a running train to stop her from going. She actually looked out the window for him, but nothing like that was going to happen. She was dreaming too much. It was real life not a movie where everything ends well. The train was already out of station and wheeling to it's maximum speed.

             The rain was flooding the city and his memories were flooding her . Windy rain storming in through the open train window was making her wet, but she didn't move. She didn't close the window. She let the rain fall on her. She kept sitting in the same position with her head leaned against window rods, and her heart remembering him. Others might call it infatuation, fatal attraction or crush, but for her it was love at first sight. The love she stayed drenched in for four years and perhaps forever. She remembered how crazy she went when she didn't see him for long and went around looking for him in a college fest. What was she going to do now? Where was she going to look for him now? Why she always had to be such an obedient daughter to her parents? Why couldn't she disappoint them and tell the person she was madly in love with that she loved him even if he didn't. Why she always felt the need to hide it from him? She cried helplessly that she could do nothing to stop him. She had to let him go. The pain of her heart rolled down her cheeks in tears. Rain fell hard on her face, washing away her tears as if trying to wash away his memories. It had rained like that when it brought them together ,and now, when it was taking them away from each other forever. It rained with lightning and loud thunder as if declaring it was over. It screamed it was signing off 'The End'. Rain may have started it, but what it started, it was not capable of ending it.