Short Love Story – The Conflict
Image© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
Her laughter rang out, nervously tittering across the room. How he hated that laughter! And to think there had been time when he had felt protective towards her. He hadn’t exactly pitied her but he had mostly felt sympathy, if you can tell the difference. That seemed ages ago.
She had just returned from the States, depressed with little grasp of reality. Under heavy medication and constant scrutiny from her family members, she seemed like someone else. Not someone whom he sympathized with but someone he pitied now. They were gathered around the living room. Most of the relatives were there to show support towards her. She had laughed at some poor joke from one of the relatives trying to uplift the mood of the room. Everyone felt sorry for her now.
She was thirty years old, a college drop-out and single. What could be worse than this? Did the crowd in the room understand her situation? She was pretty. There was that but was it enough? Would there be marriage prospects for her? They were now talking about how they were searching a life partner for her. A friend, to help her with her depression. I hope they find some loser and they both will be miserable, he thought in anger. Ten years on, he still smarted from the fact that she had turned him down.
They had had history, you see. He had once been in love with her. With her nervous laughter, her awkward manners and her almost painfully shy nature. He hadn’t hated her laughter then. In fact he had accepted her just the same. She was smart, well read and could hold intelligent conversations but he always had had to draw her out of her shell. But the effort was worth it as he marvelled each time at her sublime intellect. She had turned him down in pretext that she thought marriage was an institution that she didn’t want to be tied to. Now, ten years later, here she was. Just the same, but only worse.
Was she eager to marry now? Had her time in States, moving from one state to another aimlessly and listlessly, made her change her instance on marriage? He wondered but he would have to wait some time until he would get a chance to talk to her alone. This was the conflict. He hated her and yet, there was something vague that made him rooted to his seat, waiting for the crowd to leave.
Now the crowd in the narrow room was getting restless as it was mid-day in May. The ceiling fan was on full blaze but still they were all sweating profusely. As the crowd thinned, in between the lapse of conversations, he silently tried to study her.
Looking at her, he tried to gauze the effect of her illness. She looked sad but calm. She was still pretty under all that melancholia. He had heard of her breakdown and hysterics in the height of her illness while in States (everyone knew she had had a fragile, nervous disposition). Maybe the medications were helping. There seemed some ghosts of her earlier self underneath that despondency. He searched his heart to see if he still had feelings for her. But there was just hatred. Why couldn’t she see that she was in this state because she had scorned him? If they had had married, they would by now have been a happy family. What did she have now? Nada. No education, no marriage although he knew that she was financially well off. She had been a waitress in a reputed restaurant and saved up money. But still..
As the visitors started to take leave he wondered if he could get a chance to talk to her alone. But what did they have to say to each other. We could have saved each other, he wanted to scream at her and at the same time, he never wanted to see her again after today. These feelings were contradictory. How he hated her laughter now but still, what was it?
The fact was that seeing her after all these years had made him feel less alone…
After they had broken up and she had moved to the States, he had remained home, completed his Bachelor’s in Humanities and started teaching at the nearby school. He had no desire to go abroad. He had had a few relationships that didn’t progress to anything. His parents wanted to arrange his marriage but he had been so vehemently against it that they had given up trying.
Was he still in love with her? With her nervous laughter, her awkward manners and her almost painfully shy nature? He searched his heart again…
Finally all the visitors were gone, the china cups and saucers collected and taken to the kitchen. It was then that he realized why he was here.
He looked at her once more, carefully and realized, he couldn’t stop trying.
He was in fact still very much in love with her.
–END–
