The valentine

"How did I ever end up marrying the most unromantic man alive on entire planet", She sulked.

"Moira, why are you still here? Its valentine's  eve darling, aren't you supposed to be home with your husband?"

Her heart twitched at her boss's remark, "Neerav 's away at a tour Nik. Aren't you going home?

"Oh, yes yes, I am rushing before my wife decides to kill me", and he gave a hearty laugh.

She, more often than not, found herself envying Nik's wife. Even after three decades of their marriage, Nik is still heads over heels in love with his wife, and her husband doesn't even bother for their first valentine together. Throughout the valentine week, she kept giving him surprises and little goodies, and he always took it with a cold smile and a formal thanks.

It was way past working hours and her office was deserted. A light over her desk and a few lights tinkling here and there gave the office a romantic aura.

"How I wish Neerav was here with me. It would have really been romantic", she thought, "but if he was here, I would not have been in the office at the first place", she sulked again.

Though, theirs have been an arrange marriage, but to them it felt more like love. He used to be so crazy for her and so attentive and sensitive to her every need, until their honeymoon got over. Once he joined his office back, she realized she only stands next to his work. This was going to be their first valentine together. She had been very excited for this since January. And here she was, sitting in the office, about to celebrate the most romantic day alone.Her heart felt heavy, and so she decided to concentrate over the work on her hand. It was thirty minutes to midnight, when she was done for the day. She didn't feel like going home, but she knew she had to.

As she got down at her door a deep sadness and disappointment started to engulfed her. Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice a faint light glowing in the darkness of her house. There was someone in the house, in her house.

As she walked in she smelled perfume, or may be a room freshener. It was intoxicating. Suddenly she realized, someone is her in her house. A chill ran down her spines. All worst thoughts gushed through her mind in a fraction of second. She heard a soft sound of CD being played. She took off her sandals, grabbed the.brass vase from the nearby table and moved quietly towards the sound. She moved the knob of her bedroom door and ever so slowly pushed the door open. Her jaws dropped and her eyes widened at what she saw. 

The bedroom was decorated with most delicate fabrics, exquisite flowers, candles and valentine balloons. Her favorite fragrance floating in the air and her favorite music filled her heart. On bed, in between heart shaped flowers, was a message in the bottle.

My life,

(((Hugs)))

I know you must be really mad at me for leaving you alone on this day of love. But trust me when I say ever since you have walked in to my life, you have made my each day, the day of love. You know, even when I am not around you, am never far away, because my love, distance between us does not exist. You are always with me; I carry you with me everywhere I go. And how can I not, you are my soul. I am nothing without you. I know I am not very good at expressing my love for you, in fact I really suck at it in the way you would have put it. Although you never say it but I have seen it in your eyes how disappointed you are in me. Every time I have tried, you always came up with something before I could, something that always rendered me speechless, and hence I always backed off. I know I should not have, but I always did, resolving I would come up with something better but I always failed. 

I always thought love doesn’t need expression. If you love someone, why show it off or why to keep proving it time and over again. But when you came in to my life, things changed. Every time you did something for me, something that showed your childlike innocent and undemanding love for me, my heart did a somersault. And I kept thinking about it throughout the week and many more days often. I often find my thoughts drifting off to you, in the middle of a crucial meeting, or in between some very important work, during driving or reading a book, anytime and often.

Every time I look at you I feel there always is something about you that I have never noticed before. When you look at me with those love filled eyes, I wonder have they been this beautiful all along or they keep growing beautiful every chance I look in to them. You smile and suddenly the day seems to be much bright and cheerful. Your tiptoed stolen kisses on my cheeks thrill me. You have made my life full of little romantic adventures. So, how can I miss this chance to tell you how much I love you.

I may seem unromantic or be reserved but I don’t love you any less. No matter where I am, I will always be there to catch your tears and turn them into smiles.    

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

                                                                   Love,

                                                                                                 

                                           Someone who have lost his heart to you

Reading this, a tear ran down her eyes, but before it could desert her cheeks, a palm caught it from falling.

"Neerav", she squealed in delight. 

He took her in to his arms,"Happy valentine's day my love".

"But you were on tour right? When did you get time to do all this?"

He smiled. And she understood. He was not on the tour. He was preparing a huge surprise for her and she, like an idiot, thought he was unromantic. In his arms, she got goosebumps thinking about what more lies ahead.

Behind the Closed Door

If you await a guardian, he will come
 will reward you for all the goods
and punish you for all the sins ever done.

She was fuming over her boss as she walked in to the deserted office on Sunday morning .

"Who works on sunday?? ohh yeah, a stupid employee like me",  she growled talking to herself. There was a soft glow of light seeping out from under the door of her boss's cabin.

 "Looks like the super idiot is here as well", she tried to calm herself by the thought that her boss is working as well.

 "Care for a coffee?"  She was so engrossed in her work that the voice startled her.

"Sir", she was surprised to see her boss who hardly made any conversations with her unless really important.

"You have been working for long hours without a pause. You definitely deserve a break. There's a wonderful coffee shop near by if you care to join."

She looked at the watch and was surprised to see how much time has passed since she had been working.

"Sure sir", she said, "if you don't mind my company".

"Not at all lady. It will be my pleasure. You are one very efficient employee of our company and I hardly had a chance to get to know you."

She became speechless at such recognition.

"Shall we?", he made a go ahead gesture with his hands, and off they went.

He brought two mugs of delicious smelling coffees and handed one to her. His shirt went up his wrist showing off a delicately marked tattoo. Expecto patromun, it read. She had seen that tattoo before! if only she could remember where. 

Throughout the coffee, he was very pleasant and charming. Sometimes it was hard to remember he was her boss. Had it not been for their professional relationship, she was sure he would have swept her off her feet. It was when she was driving back home that her mind drifted back to the tattoo and suddenly it struck her where she had seen it- in the office, behind a closed door. It all came flooding back to her.

Its been almost a year, no wonder it was hard to recall quickly. She was passing by the conference room with stack of papers in her hands. She lost her balance and the papers went crashing the floor. As she bend down to get them back in order, she saw shadows of two pairs of legs from under the closed conference door. Presumably, by the shadow of shoes, one belonged to a man and other to a woman. 

Who possibly could be here? She thought. She tried to recall if there was supposed to be a meeting but there wasn't any. 

If somebody is discussing something, why is it so quite inside? She wondered. She decided to ignore and walk past it, but when has curiosity left any cat. Overpowered by her desire to know, she decided to peek and take a look. Conspiring, she peeked. All She could see was a tattoo, the same she saw in her boss's wrist. 

Later she saw one of her colleagues walking out of the room, hairs disheveled, tears in her eyes, she looked distraught. But no one else walked out. She could easily figure out what has happened behind that closed door, but she never got to see the culprit. She decided to keep quite then. Now that she know the culprit, there's still nothing that she can do about it, but keep herself safe. 

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

The Missed Love

 She was already very annoyed over the way her husband was ignoring her since as long as their marriage. This has become a regular topic for their argument and today was no different. As usual she went shopping to pacify herself but it only added to her anger. The traffic was worst, the crowd was more uncivilized than ever, the noise was irritating and the paper bags instead of poly bags acted as the topping over it all. As she tried to unlock the door with her arms full of paper bags, her phone rang mercilessly somewhere in her purse. Finally, the door opened, she dumped the bags on the couch and hurriedly fished for her phone.

"What the ... . 38 missed calls in 10 minutes."  She wondered what was going on.

All the calls had been from the same number, unknown to her. As she was trying to decide between to call or not to call, her phone rang again.

"Nimmi, where in the hell have you been. I have been trying to reach you so desperately and you did not even bother to answer. You know how worried I get when you do this."  A crisp male voice started even before she could say hello. "Well, I just wanted to say I love you and that I am missing you already, come back home soon."  The voice started again, not even bothering for a reply.

"Nimmi, say something na."

"Ummm, mister, you have got a wrong number."

"What do you mean wrong number. I dialed my Nimmi's number, how could it be a wrong number."

This fueled up her annoyance. "Wrong number means wrong number." She shouted  before disconnecting the call and throwing her phone on the couch.

'Bloody idiots', she thought as she ran a hot water shower for her. Deciding to indulge herself in a steaming mug of coffee, she walked into the kitchen. Her phone beeped, indicating a message. It was from the same unknown number. She decided to read it before putting it to bin.

"I am sorry, I did not mean to annoy you. I just got worried when I couldn't reach my wife." the message read.

A sincere apology works as a magic to the fuming mind. her anger simmered down a little.

'Lucky bitch', She thought as she typed in her reply, "Its okay, happens. never mind."

*beep*

"Thank God you have a short lived temperament. I was so scared that you will report me in to the police :P".

This made her laugh and she replied in the same good humor. And it started, the series of messaging tying two strangers in a bond of good humor.

Many-a-times the saying that two person of opposite sex can never remain just friends proves itself right. This was one among those times. The conversation shifted from the world and their spouses to themselves. She started keeping her phone around her. Whenever her husband was around she would turn the profile to silent. She would wait desperately for his message and the message icon in her phone would always excite her like a candy to a child. She knew he was going through the same phase, because he told her so. And she trusted him. And then one fine day,

*beep*
"I have something to tell you."

"What?"

"Just promise me first you won't get mad at me."

These things annoy her a lot. She tried to keep her calm before replying "Okay, I promise. tell me now."

"I think I am in love with you."

Her heart jumped to her throat.

"Are you there?"

"Yes"

"Are you mad at me?"

"No"

"Then say something"

":)"

And their romance started. She found with him what she lost with her husband. He would say sweet words to her and everything she had always wanted to hear from her husband.

"Don't you think we must meet now", he texted.

"Why? I like it this way."

"But I can't see you on the texts."

"What is there to see. I look like any other woman walking on the street."

"Can't be. I can say you are way beautiful than the others."

She blushed.

"And moreover I wan to touch you. I want to hold you in my arms and run my hands all over you, just to know how it feels to make love to my whole world."

"We can't do that. We both are married."

"Of course we can. We are adults enough to make our own decisions, and we have decided to move out of our unhappy marriage and seek whatever we have lost in each other."

"I don't know. I am not yet sure."

He tried to reason with her, but she was not able to put aside that nagging feeling that was becoming prominent with his every reason. She was happy the way it was going. She was unwilling to change it anyways. Although she trusted him, but was unsure to what extend. At one hand he said he loved his wife, at other he said he loved her. Her kids, her husband, she had many people to think of. And everyday newspapers carried heart wrenching news of how affairs like these ends, how can she ignore that.

"Fine. Either we meet, or I am ending it right here."

Unable to decide what to do, she kept staring at her phone for a long while, for a really long while.


This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.