What If

As the early morning sunrays beam through the branches of the tree across the house, she ties her shoelaces and switches on her armband and starts her daily early morning jog. Chewbacca, happy that at least someone is awake on a lazy Sunday morning, sprints alongside her feet. She knows asking Chewie not to follow her is an exercise in vain, so she just looks down and smiles and continues with her jog.

Twenty minutes later, after she is winded down and Chewie is dragging her tiny feet on the sidewalk, they enter a small eatery by the road. She orders a box of donuts and starts checking her phone. When the boy across the counter starts packing the four different types of donuts in the box, her eyes wander around the place and she catches someone staring at her.

He looks familiar, like someone from a long forgotten dream, or from another life. She holds his gaze for another moment, before the boy at the counter tells her that her order is ready. She smiles at him, picks up the box, tips him a little more than usual and leaves without looking back.

When she is outside, she stands on the sidewalk and draws in a long breath, her hands on her hips. When she’s ready to leave, someone taps her left shoulder from behind. She knows it’s him. She knows it has to be him. She doesn’t turn, though. She is scared of what she might see. She doesn’t want to face him, a whole other world, a whole other life.

It was safer when he wasn’t there. It wasn’t perfect but it was okay. She had been doing okay, pretending he didn’t exist; finding happiness in whatever little that life had to offer now. By turning, she didn’t want to burst the bubble she had built around herself. But it was just the boy from the counter, there to hand her back her phone which she had forgotten there on the counter. He gives her a smile, or so she thinks, and leaves.

Now she didn’t know what was scarier— turning back to face him or not having the opportunity to turn him and face him in the first place. Whatever little she remembered of him, he wasn’t someone who wouldn’t follow you outside. He always would. But maybe, not anymore. She had changed. Wouldn’t he have, too?

#

“I love you,” he told her.

“I love you too,” she said.

“I wish you didn’t though,” he said.

“I wish you didn’t too,” she said, closing her eyes. “Life would’ve been much easier.”

“And yet, here we are,” he said, a wry smile on his face— one that he quickly put away. “What if we—”

“No. No what ifs. There’s no way out. We both know it,” she said matter-of-factly.

They both sat silently for a while as the moonlight shone on the backyard of their favourite ice-cream place. They were the only ones there, and it was a full moon, and a light breeze made the distant branches sway, and it almost felt romantic. Almost.

“I don’t know. I could come with you. Maybe not now. But someday.” He looks in her eyes, searching for a something, a little hope, anything.

“And what would you do there? Your whole life is here. Your family. Your dreams. Your future.” She stared back at him, her eyes full of an unknown emotion— one that she couldn’t quite keep her finger on.

“I could come. I could find work there, however insignificant. I could take care of the house, and cook food for you, do the dishes, everything. I could do everything. I could do anything,” he said reaching for her hand.

“Don’t make it more difficult babe,” she said, her voice barely audible now.

“Think about it. You could live your life and we could still be together. We could have this whole life together, our own little world in the middle of a scary bigger one. We could be happy.” He weaved his fingers through hers.

“You can’t do that. I can’t let you throw away your life for me. And I can’t stay here. I have to go with my parents. You think you’ll be happy but you would just settle for something less when you can have so much more. Sometimes, all the love in the world isn’t enough,” she said, a drop of tear now falling on her wrist.

“What if I don’t want so much more? What if I want you more than anything else? A future with you is something worth giving up everything else for. We could—”

She pulled back her hands abruptly. He was taken aback but got hold of himself somehow. She took a deep breath and then placed her hands on the either sides of his face.

“Look at me. You are going to have a life. And I am going to have one too. It doesn’t seem ideal right now, but time heals. It will be okay. I know we have something special, something people can only dream of having, and I am so thankful for that. I am so thankful for you. But,” she said, noticing that he was now looking down and letting his tears go. “Look at me.” When he did, she wiped his tears with the back of her hand, and held his fingers as tight as she could.

“I could wait for you.” He gave it one last shot, one last ditched effort to save everything from falling apart.

“No. You can’t. You won’t. Look, I wish we could live life on our own terms, but we don’t get a say in everything. You’ve got to accept what comes your way. I wish I could stay. I wish you could come. But that won’t be fair to either of us. I love you. I don’t think I’ll ever love any other person like I love you. Nothing will change that.

“But I also have to go. And even though you don’t believe it now, you will have a life and your dreams and things that will make you happy. Do you listen?” she asked, her voice almost cracking. “Promise me you won’t wait.”

After what seemed like an eternity, he nodded and looked away, but she asked him to look at her and she kissed him and he never knew something as grand and endearing and full of love as a kiss could break your heart into a million pieces.

#

She sits at the dining table with her coffee mug in her hand, at three o’ clock. She looks lost in her thoughts. She has been quiet ever since she got back with the donuts in the morning, but nobody pointed it out. Maybe because they all know what might have happened. At least the adults do. She finishes her coffee, watches everyone be busy with their own things and leaves for her bedroom to take a nap.

At dusk, she wakes up to the sound of her favourite song playing on the stereo downstairs. She looks up and finds a dress hanging beside the dresser. ‘May well be one of her family’s stupid traditions,’ she thinks to herself and shakes her head, smiling. One that she herself might have started. She ignores the dress and walks downstairs in her workout clothes.

When she’s in the drawing room, it is completely dark. She’s about to go find the switch, when a single warm light turns on and she stands, completely clueless as Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Stop Falling In Love’ plays and he stands before her, dressed up in a suit. He takes a step towards her, unsure. She doesn’t move, and he continues.

He stands right in front of her now, his face unrecognisable to her eyes. He asks for her hand and she gives, tentatively. He gradually pulls her toward the middle of the room. He keeps his hand on her waist, and she places hers on his shoulder, both faltering and cautious. When they start swaying, she looks into his eyes and she is finally hit by a familiar feeling. He smells like hot chocolates and fabric softener and a boy she knew.

Neither of them speaks for a long long time. She is surprised and shocked and confused and keeps staring at him as if he would somehow vanish into thin air and she would wake up from this dream, but he just keeps looking back at her, a smile on his face the entire time. When she opens her mouth to finally say something, all the lights get switched on.

“Grandma! Look!” her middle schooler grandson screams and runs towards her and hands her a photograph. She stands there with him in the photograph, smiling, and in love. Madly in love. Her eyes get moist and she looks away.

“Did you say yes? Tell me you said yes” her almost-seventeen granddaughter says to her. He looks at her granddaughter and shakes his head incessantly with his eyes wide, and she backs off.

In the corner across, her son and her daughter-in-law stand smiling sheepishly. Her son tilts his head to the side and she shrugs, visibly overwhelmed.

He clears his throat and everybody looks at him. “Can I borrow her for some time? I’ll bring her back by curfew,” he says, and they all burst into laughter.

The both of them sit at a table in the patio of a small café. She looks at his face, lit up by Christmas lights across. “Well you’ve got more,” he says.

“What?’ she asks, checking if she has something on her dress.

“The wrinkles,” he says and they both chuckle.

“How did this happen anyway?” she asks.

“Lets not get into the details,” he says. “I’m sorry about your husband though. Wanted to send a message on Facebook but just couldn’t get myself to do it. And then it seemed too late anyway, and two years went by.”

“It’s okay. Can’t believe it’s been two years though,” she says as she looks in the distance.

“I just thought you had lived your life and I had lived mine and it was time to try once more—one last time to have a life together. We… we could just meet for coffee in the evenings, or ice cream at night, but I would still like to be a part of your world.” He looks at her, his hands calm, his leg shaking under the table.

“I can’t believe you did that. I can’t believe you came. I can’t believe this is happening,” she says, smiling to herself. The rest of the evening is a blur. It feels like a dream. The food arrived and they talked and laughed and gave each other high-fives as if they had been doing this every single day for the past forty-five years.

Later, as they stand at the door to her house, they hold hands like teenagers, like two people newly in love, the air smelling of possibility, of hope, of all things bright and beautiful.

“I’m sorry, though,” he says, as they say their goodbyes. For now.

“For what?” she asks.

“For not keeping the promise.”