The lights of his house were on when we landed on his balcony silently. His feet made no sound of landing.
“Heartily welcome to my princess” he gestured to come inside his room. I dint attempt to hide my blushes anymore. I thought of the others in the home and how sneaking inside their son’s room would spoil my first impression.
“i love you and i know you love me, but coming here like this, what your parents think?” I thought.
“I know you have always done, why not speak it” he asked smiling at my surprised look. “And about my parents, dont worry”
“Can you hear me Advaith?” I thought in my mind checking if he could hear and he started laughing.
“I do hear you Megha.” I heard him more clearly than my ears can sense. He had not opened his mouth at all yet I was able to hear him. It was awesome.
He took my hands and made me sit on the bed. “I don’t know how, but I figured we have a telepathic connection” he said throwing himself on the chair nearby.
“Have you known everything I thought?” I asked my eyes ready to pop out in shock and the coming embarrassment.
“Not everything. Only those you intend to say to me. It’s like most of them were for me as you have grown fond of speaking to me in your mind these days.”
He was right. Most of my thoughts were filled with Advaith. I smiled. I had entered to a new dimension of the world that had welcomed me with surprises. “Your parents…” I wanted to ask.
‘My mother is coming. She saw we are here’ I heard Advaith’s voice in my head.
‘Saw? Is there a camera here?’
‘It’s her gift, like how I fly and you have enormous power. Don’t worry, she loves you’
The door opened after two knocks and I saw his mother, Tall and slender. She had a warm smile. She came and hugged me. I missed my mother. We spoke like a family. From the time I lost my mother I wondered where I belonged, papa dint want me though he never openly said it. Now I felt I belonged. I belonged to Advaith.
She showed me a room and gave me cloths to change. I entered the room and I did not know how many more surprises to face that day- there were my photos. Taken unknowingly- one while I was reading a book in the open space of college garden, one more while I had a slight smile. I dint know I was not bad looking at all, and yes, I felt beautiful the way he saw me.
I took hot shower and came draped in a bath towel.
There he was sitting on the bed. He had changed to a pajamas. He looked at me without blinking that I had to confirm if I had anything on me at all. I had kept the dress his mother had given on the bed before going to shower and had not slightly imagined he would come from the opened balcony.
I hurried to the bed to get my dress avoiding his gaze.
“This is perfect, no need to change” he said blushing.
‘Why are you here, what if your mother sees?’ I tried my newly discovered telepathic conversation.
‘Ha, she does not see everything, but it looks like her gift is especially good to work on me considering I am her son’ he made faces quickly grabbing the dress on the bed from my reach.
‘I have asked her not to see me tonight’ he winked at me.
‘Give it back Advaith’ I was nervous.
‘How about give and take?’ He gestured me for a kiss.
The bath towel felt too light and transparent. I wanted to run back to bathroom again. But he is after all my husband, my protector and my world.
I bent and kissed him on his cheeks and the heat of the bath melted away in the shiver of touch.
**
The biological alarm woke me up at 5:30. Advaith was still sleeping on the couch. I remembered the last night-
How I gave a quick peck on his cheeks and took my dress and rushed back to bath room. It was perfectly of my size, I was curious if he had any sister of my height and size.
“I am a single child” he had clarified later. “My mother was seeing you. She did not realise why she would see someone she had not known until I saw you in the college , felt a strange connection with you and told her about us”
I was listening with all my heart to a story that had begun long before I knew I was a part of it.
“In the beginning I avoided it but soon it was beyond that. There was more to what I saw in you. Of course I liked you regardless of what we know of ourselves from past lives, but that was what pulling us together.” he told, seeing me wanting to know more, he continued.
“I started to follow you when you had stared at me half angrily in jealous, half in confusion of why it did matter to you, when some of the girls surrounded me making a fuss in the class about my popularity” he paused.
“a total ****. fussing around girls.do whatever”-“I remember these are your first words to me” he smiled. “Actually I had expected you to say something better”
“Like what?”
“You make me crazy, have we met before?” would have been better” he took my hands in his and laid on the bed.
“How can you say I was jealous and confused?”
“Because, I could feel your words, haven’t you felt when we speak in our mind, the voices are clear and better?” it was more like a statement than a question.
I nodded. “But I only recently heard our voice within me.”
“No, I spoke to you before that. I had said hello Megha and you had turned to greet me soon after I said. It was then I knew we could speak to each other like this. I confirmed it many times saying casual things when you did not look at me but I was careful not to direct my thoughts towards you.”
“but I could hear you from miles together after that. Most of them are confused, vague and tangled in the beginning, because you felt yourself drawn to me somehow and you had no reasons for it” he softly pulled me to sleep next to him. We laid there seeing each other’s face.
“First you thought you did not like me and I knew I was not your type. Soon I became your centre of thinking. You would ask me in your mind ‘why do I feel I like you, I shouldn’t be, right?; it’s getting hard not think of you these days; you are not supposed to come to my mind: I hate not making a move’ and so on…”
“And you simply heard everything in silence without replying me?” I asked thinking why not he did anything about it.
“I had to. I wanted to know why it was like that.”
“But I liked you anyways” I was honest.
“Yes you did, even you tried not to.” He kept my hand on his chest and his heart beats passed through my palm to join mine” I closed my eyes looking at him. Waiting for his lips to find mine, to touch his silky face and the tiny beard that had found its way through his soft cheeks.
Instead he kissed my eyes. And hugged me to his chest. I made a growling sound of disappointment. He let out a small laugh.
“You are only seducing me, I want more” I complained burying my face in his chest. He brushed his hands through my wet hair.
“Mmm… I am kind of school type?” he said loosing me from his tight hug.
“You read twilight?” I asked, surprised he knew that line ‘old school type.’
That was the word Bella in twilight series says to her father, when he questions about Bella’s and Edward’s physical relationship. She had meant Edward was a typical, traditional & cultured boy belonging to a different era where people valued a relationship and would not prefer physical intimacy before marriage.
“There was no need to read. You were imagining yourself as Bella Swan and me as Edward Cullen. You read me all the 4 books literally from 7 kilometre distance. And believe me it was not so nice not sleeping the whole night and listening to your thoughts and imaginations.”
“You could have just asked me to stop” I said joking.
“No, it was different to be able to reside in your thoughts, to wake up in the middle of the night to feel you, to listen to you. I liked it”
“I don’t see why you didn’t do anything about it? I mean, you know?” I was curious.
“Because I wanted to be sure you liked this world, like the way you are born, like the way you were as… as my wife Lavanya.” he hesitated to say more. There was a long pause before he said-
“And now it is impossible not to do anything when you found out the truth about you, about us.”
I considered it for a minute, he was right to wait until I knew it but there was something else too.
“Yeah, I understand that, but I could still believe you even without remembering anything, though it sounds crazy”
“I knew it.” his face a mixture of belief and amaze. “But I dint want you to do so. In fact it was hard to supress my feelings for a girl…who reminded me of something powerful and give bizarre emotions. But I wanted to know what it was, why I felt that way, and why you were feeling that way too and when I finally discovered who I was, I decided to wait for you to know.”
I had imagined a zillions of ways of being with my Advaith, and most of them he had heard and smiled at, I wanted to believe he would eventually love me the way I loved, and it turned out he loves me more than I can understand.
My phone beeped. I remembered Sahana must had replied. I sat up and reached to take my cell.
“She is happy for you, though she is not sure if that’s right.”
“You know Advaith, you are not making any sense” I opened the inbox to read her message. It said- ‘guess, you had great time today, see you tomorrow’ which was great considering she knew I was going to spend the night with Advaith which I thought she never would like.
He saw me questioningly at my surprised look reading the message.
“What is it? Did I make some sense? “He asked confidently. I followed his intense gaze at me that made my heart skip a beat.
“You do, you always did.” I touched his eyes, and cheeks. My hands followed the hollow of his neck bone to the chest under the thin linen shirt. It was not the bodily desire it’s just I couldn’t stop myself from touching him, my love of past and present birth. If I have another life I would again want to be with him.
He took my hands in his and kissed it. A warm wave of nearness washed over me. ‘when I hear you, I know it is only me, it was always been me” he said, covering me with the blanket. He softly patted my head.
“You are staying here with me right?” I asked not wanting him to go. I closed my eyes filled with the Advaith’s pictures.
“Sleep well love” I heard him whispering in my mind.
**
Advaith’s mother got me a pair of dress to get ready to college. I met Advaith’s father at the dining table. He had arrived from his business trip just that morning and it seemed like he was forcefully called back home by his wife to meet his son’s lover. He was happy seeing me though he did not talk much. It looked like everyone knew about me.
“I have seen you grown up. You were so small when you cried in dreams, afraid of the dark. I wanted to console you then. I saw you grow up surrounded by books, with less words and peaceful life in your own way wondering who you are.” his mother had said, memories playing in her mind.
“I wanted to be there for you, to tell you are one of the strongest child I ever had seen. But I did not know who or where you were. All I could do was see, as long as the sight showed you to me. I always hoped to meet you. I cannot tell how glad I was when Advaith showed you and told us about who you two were before” she had said her eyes similar to Advaith’s- deep brown beaming with the gladness as she talked about.
I had not gotten a chance to see his place but we had to hurry to college. It would have been a few minutes if we flew. Advaith’s car was parked in the garage. I wondered how it had found its way home from where we had left it yesterday night. I had bid a ‘see you soon maa’ to his mother and reached college.
I anticipated a gawks from people when we walked hand in hand to class. But it was more than that.They stared. Advaith’s hand was firm on mine. He walked casually as if it was normal for him to walk with me (or any girl) like that every day. I tried to ignore the attention but not for long.
“Do we have to hold hands?” I asked him in mind.
“Of course yes! We are couples now. You want me to prove that again? ” he said. I think I heard his laugh.
“No” my cheeks were already flushed with the blood. “But the girl you were engaged with…” I had not thought about it earlier. What would she think about her fiancée openly admiring another girl?
“That was not true. It was for a mission, and she does not care unless it involves her making a princess”
“Can I know what mission you are talking about?”
“You can, there is still something you need to know” he said walking me to the class.
CONTINUED….
