Ever After

They were sitting in one of their favorite hangouts in town. It was a quiet oasis in an otherwise bustling, concrete metropolis.

He was holding her hands sitting across the table. His heart was pounding, like it did every time he held her hand. She was staring blankly in his eyes. Her eyes were moist. Her quietness was unusual.

None of them spoke. He was thinking about the first time they met. He had enjoyed watching her trying in vain to blow a bubble from the gum in her mouth.

She was thinking about how they first kissed. He was so shy that she had to make the first move.

Their silence seemed to have engulfed the whole place. It was broken only by the whistling of the leaves of tall eucalyptus trees that covered the place. It was a hot sunny afternoon. The breeze grew stronger and in no time it turned into a gale. It started drizzling.

Other people around them started scampering for shade. They kept sitting. They kept quiet. He felt her hand becoming cold. She felt his grip going lose. Ten years they thought simultaneously. They had promised to take on the whole world for each other and they stayed true to their words. “What happened?” Both wondered.

The drizzle had turned into a downpour. She withdrew her hands from his. He stood up and started walking. She kept sitting there.

“If he turns back just once, I will run to him and hug him, I will never let go of him.” She thought.

“If she just calls my name once, I will go back and fall at her feet and beg her not to leave me.” He thought.

She did not call him, her emotions were choking her.

He did not turn back as he was crying. He didn’t want her to see him that way.

Their relationship was like a fairy-tale in its truest sense. They had fought against all odds hand in hand and with a smile for each other.

But then all fairy-tales do not end with, “Happily Ever After”