In the crowd of drunk ramblers, mumbling a language too familiar, I stand still amongst them and look for a face.
I walk out in silent tension that seeps into me, I can hear my heart beat an extra beat by the second, I can feel my fingers get cold in nervousness-I had to see this face now.
And then I see more of the figure than the face, I see more of the colour than the smile, I walk across the distance I'd called love, I chart out the meaning of this meeting in my head.
The night caressed comfort like its baby, safely placing it in the arms of those who needed it the most. I watched it fall in his arms, his arms were now too full to have me. So I dodge a hug.
I feel his hand on my shoulder. Three pats-"I've missed you.", it said. I could hear it, it was loud enough. His head was never silent, even though he usually was. He never mouthed words like that, it seemed to be against him.
I turn to look gleefully at him, like I just received acceptance for my existence. He spoke. Words that I often forget are the words spoken. I believe in writing, in storing in memory for posterity, in feeling those words on paper, and letting them stay there forever. I'd rather remember how he moved his hand to show me the direction, than count the number of words he'd said.
So I follow and we make small talk. Conversations follow a principle- 'if you don't have too much to give, you can't expect too much in return.', much like love, I guess. The night is quiet, the streets are empty-just us trying to lull our awkwardness to sleep.
He breaks my chain of thought, he takes me to a cafe. I look around like a wary eighteen year old and he sits at a table like he knows this place since forever. He asks me to quit making faces at the place and he orders chai for us. The purpose of chai at occasions is not to make a conversation, but to escape one. You can slowly sip on your tea to bury yourself in thoughts about him, when he's sitting right there in front of you expecting you to act out on something disagreeable. To his surprise, not all extroverts always talk. Not all drama is saved for one night.
When he thinks, I want him to be still, I want to sketch that intense look he has on his face when he is expecting something but gets nothing. I like how he keenly looks at me-hopefully, I'd call it. I wonder if this is how life would be if it were with him-too silent,too intense,too loved,too unsure. I speak of some of the most random things, like how I hated coffee and how much fun college was. But in the space between us as we sit just few meters apart, the words fall on the table with a thud and I almost immediately forget what I say. He still held comfort in his arms, so I was fine but he never found solace in the silent meeting, so he wasn't so fine. The conversations could be reduced to nothing, it wasn't a story to narrate, it wasn't a song to sing, it wasn't a poem to create, it was meaningless art-appreciated for its wholeness as it filled the canvas but misunderstood as its echoing colours spoke louder. But the talk still filled the space between distance and time-spaces hell-bound.
When I run out of things to say, I sip on my cup of tea. Some wise person once tumblr'd, "Where there's tea, there's hope." I couldn't agree less that night. Our lives never ran on parallels, we just held on to something we determined as just ours. We tried to make sense to the other-one too abstract, one too logical. We would get a zero on every compatibility test, I still didn't know why I sat there calling it love. But I smiled because I like what we share, the comfortable nothingness was pure, I enjoyed the comfort. And for once, at a cafe, I felt safe. It was because of him in the red stripped tee, sipping on his cup of chai, working on this maybe.
And as we parted after our walk back into known civilization, I half hoped to surprise him with a hug, like I did once before. But I knew I'd see him again-not in red, not at a cafe, not on a silent night, but just him. My heart started to race when he said goodbye-parting is not always easy, until you finally part, and realize it just means a beginning to a new end. I felt chai-stained, the world spun to a new story, the attention we got from the universe reduced, comfort was given back to the night-I felt in love. And as he drove past me, I looked down, shuffling my feet and whispered in an almost inaudible voice, "yours truly".
